Plex is a multifunctional media software and service that allows users to easily access all their entertainment in one place.

 

Whether it’s movies, music, TV-shows, or photos, Plex can organize and index, making the content ready to stream on a wide variety of supported devices.

 

The technology itself is content-neutral and can be used for good, such as curating home videos or enriching purchased media with metadata. The not so good can include building an archive of entirely copyright-infringing content and then sharing via a Plex server with other people, sometimes for a fee.

 

Rightsholders are aware of this abuse and have taken action in response. Many shared servers have been shut down as a result and, in at least one instance, the owner was tracked down. Despite these enforcement efforts, the problem persists.

 

Plex is not happy with this abuse. The company is actively working with rightsholders to offer legal entertainment and abuse of its platform only stands in the way. It appears that yesterday Plex decided to take action.

Plex Bans Problematic Host

In an email to customers who run Plex servers at the large German hosting company Hetzner, Plex said that access will be blocked next month. It’s not clear if Hetzner is the only hosting company this applies to, but several customers confirmed that they received the same email.

 

Plex’s notice doesn’t mention Hetzner by name, nor is piracy cited as the reason. The email simply refers to violations of its Terms of Service.

 

“You’re receiving this notice because the IP address associated with a Plex Media Server on your account appears to come from a service provider that hosts a significant number of Plex Media Servers that violate our Terms of Service,” the Plex email reads.

 

“Due to the large-scale violations occurring from that hosting provider, we will be taking action soon to block access and activity from Plex Media Servers hosted by that provider.”

 

Plex’s Notice

 

Plex’s blanket hosting provider ban could also affect legitimate customers. Apparently, such a drastic measure is warranted to address the ongoing violations.

 

TorrentFreak reached out to Plex for more details but the company didn’t immediately reply. The most logical explanation is that this is an effort to deter piracy, by banning one or more hosting providers where this type of abuse is prevalent.

 

Hetzner can’t comment in detail on the issue but the hosting company is clearly disappointed.

 

“We can’t say much about this, except that we very much regret the action taken by Plex,” Hetzner’s spokesperson Christian Fitz says.

Sledgehammer Approach

In the Plex forums, many users report that they use Hetzner’s servers for non-infringing uses, including storing their legitimate personal media collections.

 

“I received this notice, presumably because I have a server on Hetzner. It contains my music library. It has no pirated material. And I don’t share the server with anyone else, I’m the only user,” one commenter writes.

 

Another Plex user describes it as an “incredibly poor solution”. It essentially punishes a large group of legitimate customers with a “sledgehammer approach” that will lead to a perpetual whack-a-mole.

 

“Those that are abusing the service will simply move somewhere else and Plex will just end up playing whack-a-mole blocking access to more hosting companies,” the Plex user writes.

 

VPN Proxy

Interestingly, there are also people say that they don’t use Hetzner to host a Plex server at all. Instead, they use its services as a VPN to shield the location of their actual Plex server. However, that won’t prevent these VPN proxies from being targeted.

 

While we’re not privy to the exact actions Plex will take, it will likely ban the hosting company’s IP addresses. This means that customers can switch to another provider and use that as a VPN gateway instead.

 

These and other workarounds are actively being shared on Reddit. This includes the use of a third-party VPN to hide that a server is actually being hosted at Hetzner.

 

In recent years, copyright holders have repeatedly requested Plex to take more action against piracy. This recent change appears to be yet another step in that direction and, workarounds or not, it likely won’t be the last.

 

With two alleged operators of Z-Library currently defending a criminal lawsuit filed by the U.S. government, another of the world’s most recognized book piracy platforms has fresh legal problems of its own.

 

Library Genesis was founded in Russia around 2008, mostly offering local language scientific textbooks. After reportedly adding around 500,000 predominantly English-language books courtesy of Library.nu, ‘Libgen’ archives received another huge boost with the addition of content made available by Sci-Hub founder Alexandra Elbakyan.

Majors Publishers File Copyright Complaint Against Libgen

According to a copyright lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York late Thursday, Libgen’s collection of infringing works now consists of over six million files. At least 20,000 of those files were published by plaintiffs Cengage Learning, Inc., Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishing Group, LLC (d/b/a Macmillan Learning, McGraw Hill LLC, and Pearson Education, Inc.) and distributed by Libgen without authorization.

 

“Each year, Plaintiffs publish tens of thousands of academic works, including higher education textbooks, which serve as the basis for thousands of courses in universities and colleges across the United States and are among the most popular and widely used titles in their fields,” the publishers’ complaint begins.

 

“Defendants operate one of the largest, most notorious, and far-reaching infringement operations in the world. ‘Library Genesis,’ or ‘Libgen’ for short, is a group of pirate websites through which a vast array of written material is illegally copied and distributed online without any authorization, and with no remuneration to copyright holders.”

 

Defendants in the case include DOES 1 – 50 (d/b/a Library Genesis), ‘bookwarrior’, plus a list of Libgen owned or utilized domains including cdn1.booksdl.org, jlibgen.tk, libgen.ee, libgen.fun, libgen.gs, libgen.is, libgen.lc, libgen.li, libgen.pm, libgen.rocks, libgen.rs, libgen.space, libgen.st, libgen.su, library.lol, and llhlf.com.

 

 

“Operating as an illegal ‘shadow library,’ Libgen enables users to download, for free, fiction and non-fiction books (among other types of works), including educational textbooks, instead of buying or renting lawful copies or checking them out from a legitimate library. Defendants have absolutely no legal justification for what they do and operate in complete and knowing defiance of the rule of law,” the complaint adds.

 

The publishers claim that the Libgen defendants intentionally hide their identities using pseudonyms such as ‘bookwarrior’ and ‘librarian.’ They also use online proxy services that conceal their identities while failing to provide any business addresses as contact information.

Libgen is Hardened to Maintain “Staggering Infringement”

Highlighting the numerous and shifting domain names through which Libgen can be accessed, the publishers’ complaint states Libgen’s operators have built in “multiple redundancies” to ensure that huge volumes of infringing content remain accessible.

 

“For instance, users can download infringing files from Libgen directly or through Interplanetary File Sharing (‘IPFS’) gateways that purport to facilitate faster and safer downloads and are operated by companies based in the United States,” the complaint notes.

 

“The current IPFS gateway companies include Cloudflare, Protocol Labs (which operates IPFS.io), and Pinata, which are all based in the United States.”

 

 

“The scale of Defendants’ infringement is staggering. Libgen maintains an enormous collection of infringing works that anyone with an internet connection can access.

 

“This collection consists of over 6 million files that include illegal copies of works from a diverse cross-section of the publishing industry. For Plaintiffs alone, Libgen has over 20,000 files published by Plaintiffs – none of which Plaintiffs authorized Defendants to copy or distribute.”

Not a Library, Free Access to Education “Just a Ruse”

In common with similar sites offering broadly similar services, Libgen’s stated aim is the “[c]ollection, systematization and distribution of scientific, technical and educational literature on a free and open basis.” The publishers dismiss this as “just a ruse” to account for a “massive piracy effort” that runs counter to the stated aim of copyright law.

 

“[T]he Sites undermine the very purpose of U.S. copyright law to ‘promote the progress of science and the useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors . . . the exclusive right to their respective writings,” the complaint states.

 

While Libgen and similar sites are often referred to as shadow libraries, the publishers’ complaint seeks to highlight the differences between these platforms and authorized libraries. Instead of acquiring works through channels that acknowledge and compensate the efforts of publishers and authors (i.e entities sanctioned by publishers), shadow libraries “take what is not theirs and share it widely so others can do the same.”

Libgen Causes “Financial and Creative Harm”

The complaint says that Libgen’s activities “cause serious financial and creative harm” to the plaintiffs while depriving authors of income from their creative works. By offering content for free, Libgen reportedly devalues the textbook market and according to the publishers, may even cause certain works to cease being published.

 

A list of ‘plaintiffs authentic works’ is provided as an attachment to the complaint. It lists 200 textbooks allegedly made available by Libgen in violation of the publishers’ rights.

Some allegdly-infringed works (full list below)

 

“Without Court intervention, Defendants will continue operating the Libgen Sites, causing still further harm to copyright holders, including Plaintiffs. Accordingly, Plaintiffs bring this action for injunctive relief and damages to stop and seek redress for Defendants’ knowing and willful copyright infringement.”

Defendants Unknown, Locations Unknown

The publishers’ complaint indicates that the identities of the people behind Libgen are currently unknown. Their locations are also unknown at this point, but the publishers mention “foreign locations” as the most likely candidates. Despite these difficulties, the plaintiffs claim the court has personal jurisdiction due to the Libgen sites being accessible in the United States and providing infringing copies to users in the United States “which make up a significant percentage of all visitors.”

 

SimilarWeb data for just one Libgen domain (libgen.is) shows almost 21% of visitors hail from the U.S. while runner-up India accounts for 7.9%. The plaintiffs say that from March through May 2023, the Libgen sites collectively received an average of nine million visitors per month from the United States.

 

The publishers further note that several of the Libgen domains identify a “copyright agent” that purportedly facilitates notice-and-takedowns under the DMCA. More broadly the sites rely on U.S. companies to stay online including Namecheap (domains), Cloudflare (reverse proxy), and Google for ‘search engine services.” The sites also receive donations in Bitcoin and Monero with the amount collected by one of the sites since January 1, 2023, reported as $182,540.

Copyright Infringement (17 U.S.C. § 101 et seq.)

The plaintiffs state that copying and/or distributing unauthorized copies of their works, constitutes infringement under 17 U.S.C. §§ 106(1) and 106(3). They demand either actual or statutory damages for willful copyright infringement which in theory could reach $30,000,000.

 

They further request an injunction to restrain ongoing infringement, an order requiring Libgen to “deliver up for destruction” all infringing copies along with all devices used to create distribute or store them, and an order to take control of Libgen domains or have them rendered inaccessible.

 

After being sued by publisher Elsevier in 2015 at the same court, Libgen and the infamous Sci-Hub were ordered to shut down. While Libgen briefly disappeared, both sites ultimately ignored the decision.

 

The complaint and list of allegedly-infringed textbooks are available here (1,2, pdf)

 

Image Credits: congerdesign/LubosHouska/Pixabay

Last fall, the U.S. Government temporarily took down Z-Library, one of the largest book piracy operations in the world.

 

The feds seized the site’s main domain names and arrested two alleged Russian operators of the site, who now find themselves at the center of a criminal investigation.

 

This enforcement action came as a shock to millions of Z-Library users but the shadow library eventually recovered and remains online today. That doesn’t mean that the two alleged operators are in the clear, however.

‘Home Confined’ Defendants Face Extradition

The United States is determined to extradite the defendants so they can be brought to justice there. According to the Department of Justice, the duo played a key role in the shadow library’s operation, which ultimately caused significant damage to authors and publishers.

 

Over the past few days, several new details have emerged on the extradition efforts. According to court records, both defendants were released from prison in January, after the Cordoba Federal Court in Argentina ruled that ‘home’ confinement at a local rental apartment is sufficient at this stage.

 

The same court also reviewed the extradition request in April and came to the conclusion that it was deficient. The court requested U.S. officials to provide more details on the alleged criminal actions and their victims but the information was never produced.

 

Instead, the extradition was approved a few weeks later, after the appellate court substituted the judge in charge. The extradition hasn’t been enforced thus far, however, as there is an appeal pending.

‘Not Fugitives’

In addition to the extradition battle in Argentina, Anton Napolsky and Valeriia Ermakova also responded to the criminal allegations in the New York federal court. The defendants submitted a motion to dismiss arguing, among other things, that the copyright infringement claims are deficient.

 

The U.S. prosecution opposed this motion. Besides disagreeing on the merits, United States Attorney Breon Peace argued that the defendants’ request should be denied because they are officially fugitives.

 

“The defendants are fugitives who have chosen to avoid the reach of this Court by remaining in Argentina. Until they submit to the jurisdiction of the United States, they have no ability to compel this Court to consider the present Motion—or any type of motion,” Peace wrote.

 

This week, the defendants responded with a different take on the matter. According to their attorneys, the term fugitive doesn’t apply here.

 

A traditional fugitive is someone who flees from the jurisdiction after committing a crime to hide from justice. In this case, the defendants were tourists in Argentina; they didn’t travel there to escape justice.

 

“Defendants were not in the United States at any time relevant to the Indictment and have never resided in this country. Contrary to the Government’s insinuations, at the time of their arrest they were not hiding in a remote region in Argentina, but traveling as tourists.

 

“Defendants are Russian nationals. Had they desired to hide from justice, they would have stayed in their native Russia, a country with no extradition treaty with the United States,” the attorneys add.

 

 

The fugitive status is important in this case, as people who flee from a jurisdiction may not be able to file a motion to dismiss. The defense argues that this argument shouldn’t apply here.

‘No U.S. Servers’

Continuing to the merits of the copyright infringement allegations, the defense stresses that there is no evidence that Napolsky and Ermakova used U.S.-based servers to store any copyrighted materials. They didn’t own any servers in the U.S. either.

 

“There is not a single allegation in the Superseding Indictment or the Complaint that Defendants indeed used servers located in the United States to store infringed copies of copyrighted materials,” the attorneys write.

 

The defendants did use Gmail and Amazon to collect donations. However, the defense notes that these companies previously operated in Russia too, and that their use of these services isn’t sufficient to establish jurisdiction.

 

If that logic did indeed apply, people could be subjected to the jurisdiction of a Chinese court if they make a Zoom call, the attorneys note.

 

“Mere use of Gmail or making purchases on Russian Amazon by Defendants are insufficient to establish U.S. domestic activity. For example, Zoom has data centers in China, and some U.S. calls used to be processed through a Chinese server.

 

“Finding domestic activity based on inadvertent transmission to servers in another country by third-party internet services providers would mean that a person engages in domestic activity in China when making that Zoom call.”

 

Anyone who uses the Internet will automatically have their traffic routed through multiple countries, according to the defense. To establish jurisdiction, there should be more substantial claims that Gmail and Amazon reference, the response argues.

What Works?

The prosecution further stresses that the indictment doesn’t list any copyrighted works the Z-Library defendants have allegedly infringed. In other words, there are no concrete pirated works listed. This is another shortcoming that warrants a dismissal.

 

The Government argued that it doesn’t have to detail any concrete infringements at this point, but that conclusion is wrong, according to the defense attorneys.

 

Based on these and a variety of other arguments, Napolsky and Ermakova ask the New York federal court to dismiss the Superseding Indictment. If that happens, the extradition proceeding will be moot too.

 

—

 

A copy of Napolsky and Ermakova’s joint reply to the U.S. opposition, in support of their motion to dismiss, is available here (pdf)

 

Over the past several years, a wave of copyright infringement lawsuits has targeted alleged cheaters and cheat makers.

 

Game companies have emerged as relatively swift victors in most of these cases, but that’s not a given.

 

The legal dispute between American video game developer Bungie and AimJunkies.com has turned into a drawn-out battle.

 

Two years ago, Bungie filed a complaint at a federal court in Seattle, accusing AimJunkies of copyright and trademark infringement, among other things. The same allegations were made against Phoenix Digital Group, the alleged creators of the Destiny 2 cheating software.

 

The case initially seemed set for a quick settlement, but the parties failed to reach an agreement. Instead, Bungie pressed on while AimJunkies went on the defensive, asking the court to dismiss several claims.

 

AimJunkies argued that cheating isn’t against the law. In addition, it refuted the copyright infringement allegations; these lacked any substance and were ungrounded because some of the referenced copyrights were registered well after the cheats were first made available, AimJunkies argued.

Dismissal, Counterclaim and Arbitration

Last year, U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Zilly largely sided with AimJunkies. The original complaint failed to provide sufficient evidence for a plausible claim that the ‘Destiny 2 Hacks’ infringed any copyrights.

 

This was bad news for Bungie but the court did offer the company the option to file a new complaint to address these shortcomings, which it did soon after.

 

Meanwhile, AimJunkies wasn’t sitting idly by. The cheat seller filed a countersuit, accusing Bungie of hacking when it allegedly accessed a defendant’s computer without permission. This counterclaim was eventually dismissed.

 

Bungie scored its first major win earlier this year in an arbitration proceeding. Judge Ronald Cox concluded that the cheaters violated the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provision and related trafficking restrictions, awarding $3.6 million in damages to the game company.

 

This arbitration ruling is still under appeal and with the battle being fought on multiple fronts, attention shifted back to the federal lawsuit once more, where Bungie continued its copyright and trademark claims this summer.

Bungie’s Sealed Motions for Summary Judgment

In July, the game company submitted motions for summary judgment, which remain sealed and hidden from the broader public to this day. The sealed nature of this request makes it hard to report on but a minute order issued by District Court Judge Thomas S. Zilly last week fills in some of the blanks.

 

Bungie hoped to resolve the dispute without a trial, arguing that it’s clear that AimJunkies infringed its copyright. The cheat seller had to copy portions of the Destiny 2 game code to create its cheat, Bungie theorized.

 

In an order released late last week, District Court Judge Thomas Zilly is not convinced of this logic, as there is no hard evidence that any game code was copied. And without that, there’s no ground for a plausible copyright infringement claim.

Copyright Infringement Claim

In his order, Judge Zilly cites testimony from Bungie Engineering Lead, Edward Kaiser, who stated that cheating software couldn’t function without copying portions of the Destiny 2 code. However, that argument was little more than a well-informed theory; there is no proof.

 

“Notably, Dr. Kaiser is not certain that Defendants copied portions of Destiny 2’s copyrighted software code to create the Aimjunkies cheat software, and he explained during his deposition that, based on the available evidence, his opinion is merely ‘the most likely conclusion’,” Judge Zilly writes.

 

“Defendants deny that they copied any portions of Destiny 2’s software code, and contend that a non-party developer created the Aimjunkies cheat software,” the Judge adds, concluding that the motion for summary judgment on the copyright claims is denied.

Trademark Infringement Claim

In addition to the copyright claim, Bungie also argued that AimJunkies infringed its trademark. The cheat seller did indeed use Destiny 2’s trademark to promote its cheat. However, in order to show that this use is infringing, this use has to cause “consumer confusion”.

 

According to Judge Zilly, AimJunkies’ use is different than that of a typical counterfeiter, who uses trademarked logos to make a product look identical the original. After all, most cheaters are well aware of the fact that cheats are not sold by the game’s makers.

 

In fact, Judge Zilly notes that, Bungie’s license agreement -which all legitimate players agree to- explicitly prohibits the use of cheats.

 

“Unlike the case Bungie cites, involving a handbag, coin purse, and wallet bearing counterfeit reproductions of an accessory designer’s registered marks, in this matter, the mark at issue was used on a product that was different in kind from the one associated with the genuine mark and that Bungie’s online and multiplayer customers had contractually agreed not to use,” Judge Zilly writes.

 

Based on this reasoning, Bungie’s motion for summary judgment on the trademark infringement claim is denied as well. Instead, the copyright and trademark claims will have to be presented to a jury, at trial.

‘The Day of Reckoning’

TorrentFreak reached out to Bungie for a comment on the order but the videogame company didn’t immediately reply.

 

Behind the scenes, the parties participated in mediation last month, but that was unsuccessful. The trial is currently scheduled to start in December but Bungie informed the court that it would like to extend this date by 120 days.

 

AimJunkies’ attorney Phil Mann is pleased with Judge Zilly’s decision to deny the motions for summary judgment. Instead of simply accepting Bungie’s theory, the decision is based on actual evidence, which stands in sharp contrast to the arbitration finding, Mann says.

 

“Unlike Arbitrator Cox, Judge Zilly is a real judge who does not simply accept whatever nonsense a large company and connected law firm puts before him,” Mann tells us.

 

AimJunkies believes that it has momentum now and the defendants oppose Bungie’s request to delay the trial. According to Mann, Bungie’s case is about to fall apart.

 

“From day one, we have known that Bungie’s case is a house of cards lacking any legal merit, and have looked forward to getting the truth before a jury. Tellingly, Bungie is now asking to delay the very trial it asked for. Take a guess as to why.

 

“The day of reckoning is near,” Mann concludes.

 

There’s no denying the many victories of the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) over the past few years.

 

The anti-piracy group, which represents the major Hollywood studios and other prominent rightsholders such as Apple, BBC, and Netflix, systematically hunts down key piracy players.

 

A few weeks ago, ACE claimed one of the most significant successes this year by shutting down 2Embed following negotiations with its Hanoi, Vietnam-based operator.

 

2Embed was one of the key services that took the pirate streaming world by storm. The site offered access to a catalog of pirate streaming links for 300,000 movies and TV shows, which could easily be embedded in any website by simply using an IMDb ID for reference.

Zoro’s Last Minute Acquisition

Right around the time 2Embed went offline, Zoro.to came out with some surprising news. With over 200 million visits the anime streaming portal was one of the largest pirate sites until last June, when it was suddenly acquired by a new team, who redirected it to Aniwatch.to.

 

This sudden takeover likely wasn’t a coincidence. 2Embed and Zoro.to were reportedly operated by the same person who, after ACE paid a visit to Vietnam, struck a deal with the anti-piracy alliance. And indeed, both 2Embed and Zoro.to now redirect to ACE’s ‘Watch Legally’ page.

 

This major success was tainted, however, as Zoro’s earlier redirect to Aniwatch.to was rather effective. This new streaming portal came out of nowhere and is now one of the largest piracy portals online with 277 million monthly visits in August.

ACE Goes After Aniwatch

With this new site pupping up right under the noses of MPA and ACE, it is no surprise that Aniwatch is now a priority target. And indeed, through two recent subpoenas, rightsholders are attempting try to discover who’s in charge.

 

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

 

 

The subpoenas were requested on behalf of ACE members with the aim of obtaining the personal details of the people who operate Aniwatch.to, Gogoanimehd.to, Myflixerz.to and several other domains.

 

Specifically, ACE seeks “names, physical addresses, IP addresses, telephone numbers, e-mail addresses, payment information, account updates and account histories of the users” who operate the allegedly infringing websites.

More High Traffic Sites

Aniwatch is without a doubt the biggest target, but the other sites have massive traffic levels too. Gogoanimehd.to, for example, logged more than 90 million visits last month, while Myflixerz.to came close to 60 million.

 

In addition to the .to domain registry, ACE also seeks the same information from Cloudflare through a DMCA subpoena. These recent subpoena requests are part of a bigger push that targets dozens of domain names, which are listed at the bottom of this article.

 

All in all, it’s clear that, despite the major enforcement efforts this year, ACE still has plenty of ground to cover. While it sometimes seems like a perpetual game of whack-a-mole, rightsholders hope that their perseverance will eventually pay off.

 

—

 

Below is a list of all domains targeted by MPA/ACE in a recent DMCA subpoena wave (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6).

 

-cyberflix.me
-cuevanahd.net
-pelisflix2.team
-vizer.in
-pobretv.net
-aniwatch.to
-tugaflix.best
-diziwatch.net
-filma24.li
-filma24.gd
-kaido.to
-animez.org
-anix.to
-laroza.one
-gogoaninehd.to
-gogoanime3.net
-smashystream.com
-embed.smashystream.com
-bflix.to
-nuuuppp.store
-soap2day-online.com
-adjaranet.com
-myflixerz.to
-watchsomuch.to
-watchsomuch.tv
-noxx.to
-projectfreetv.space
-0123movie.net
-yugenanime.tv
-yugen.to
-123-movies.sb
-123-movies.zone
-primewire.li
-primewire.tf
-gowatchseries.tv
-movstreamhd.pro
-webtvguek.org
-guek.org
-privateiptvaccess.com
-iptvespana.online
-line.ottcst.org
-line.rs4ott.com
-rapidiptv.pro
-mujitv.com
-sportiumtv.com
-sixstartv.com
-upbaam.com
-vidroba.com
-vidspeeds.com
-anafasts.com
-v.aflam.news
-vod540.xyz
-sfntv.xyz
-tvhdonline.org

 

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

 

These torrent download statistics are only meant to provide further insight into the piracy trends. All data are gathered from public resources.

 

This week we have two newcomers on the list. “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” is the most downloaded title.

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

Movie Rank	Rank last week	Movie name	IMDb Rating / Trailer
Most downloaded movies via torrent sites
1	(1)	Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny	6.7 / trailer
2	(…)	Barbie	7.3 / trailer
3	(2)	Meg 2: The Trench	5.3 / trailer
4	(4)	Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse	8.8 / trailer
5	(…)	Strays	6.3 / trailer
6	(3)	The Last Voyage of the Demeter	6.2 / trailer
7	(5)	Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem	7.4 / trailer
8	(8)	Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3	8.2 / trailer
9	(7)	The Flash	7.0 / trailer
10	(10)	No Hard Feelings	6.6 / trailer

 

 

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

With more than 14 million digital books in its archive, Z-Library is one of the largest shadow libraries on the Internet.

 

What stands out even more is that the site continues to thrive; even though two of its alleged operators were arrested as part of a criminal crackdown by the United States.

 

These two defendants, both Russians, are currently fighting a heated extradition battle. While their involvement with Z-Library is apparent to U.S. law enforcement, they don’t appear to be crucial to the operation, since Z-Library continues to thrive.

 

Over the past several months, the digital library has rolled out a variety of new features. Some of these aim to make future enforcement less effective, while others focus on improving the service to users. The ultimate goal is to become a universal sharing hub for written knowledge.

Sharing Paper Books

Thus far, these endeavors were all in the digital realm. Z-Library offers ebooks and articles that can be instantly downloaded, from all over the world. However, a few months ago the site planned to go even further, by helping users to share physical copies with each other.

 

“Books you have read should not gather dust on your shelf – instead, they can get a second life in the hands of new readers! This helps to preserve the literary heritage and spread the knowledge and ideas contained in books to more people,” they wrote.

 

This is an interesting move from the site. Sharing a paper book with someone is something entirely different than offering pirated book copies online, from a legal perspective at least. But for Z-Library it all ultimately boils down to sharing stories and encouraging reading.

Z-Points in 11 Countries

A few days ago, Z-Library’s first physical libraries, known as “Z-Points”, went live. These initial locations are limited to 11 countries, including the U.S., China, and South Sudan, covering all inhabited continents.

 

This is just the initial phase of the project and more locations and Z-Points are expected to be added in the future.

 

“This project has grown beyond our initial concept of a simple book exchange and has evolved into a global library of paper books. Our ultimate goal is to connect readers worldwide and make literature accessible to everyone, regardless of location or financial constraints,” Z-Library writes.

 

 

During the first phase, Z-Library focuses on building its paper book collection. If people have books they no longer use, they can send them to the Z-Points for further processing. That includes making digital copies, if legally possible.

 

“There, we carefully store books, digitize them (if the laws of a particular country allow), and then send them to users and educational institutions in need,” the team explains to interested users.

Next: Direct Sharing

Later on, Z-Library also plans to add an interface where users can list their available paper books, to facilitate direct sharing between users, without the need to go through a Z-Point.

 

This book-sharing project is not entirely unique, of course. In many countries, there are existing free libraries that collect and donate books in local communities. Some of these are organized and promoted through the “Little Free Library” project.

 

By keeping track of the available books online, Z-Library adds an interesting element. At the same time, however, there’s also a major downside, as the sender will have to pay shipping costs.

 

 

And then there are the legal concerns. While sharing a legally purchased book with someone else isn’t a crime, Z-Library’s digital library is seen as a criminal operation by the U.S. Government, which some people may not want to be associated with.

 

Concerns or not, the operators of the site are steadfast in their belief that they are doing the right thing.

 

“We believe that books are not just pages and ink, they are portals to different worlds, ideas, and perspectives. By sharing our books, we share our knowledge, our stories, and our hearts. We invite you to join us in this venture to support a culture of reading around the world,” the team concludes.

 

Anyone who uses the internet today should already be aware that privacy is all but non-existent.

 

The quid pro quo for using any major online service, social networks in particular, is the surrender of extraordinary amounts of personal data.

 

Even regular websites can deploy dozens of trackers and trying to surface those don’t, using a search engine perhaps, makes everything several times worse. The position today is simple: accept being tracked in some way, shape, or form, or stay off the internet.

 

While the privacy-invading aspects of the wider internet are broadly discussed, much less attention is given to the companies that allow us to get online in the first place. Without broadband providers the internet would die but by default, all traffic generated by subscribers goes through them. There’s a much bigger conversation to be had on the role of ISPs and their handling of subscriber data but our focus here is on a very specific niche.

When ISPs and Content Providers Collide

All kinds of radical antidotes were up for discussion in the early days of file-sharing, but one often dismissed out of hand most was always destined to pose the biggest threat. In general terms, ISPs ‘owned’ the access tubes of the internet and rightsholders owned the content. Two decades later, these previously warring parties are frequently found under the same corporate roof.

 

Content owners exercising total control over subscriber connections isn’t yet a reality but close working relationships and shared interests with ISPs suggest travel in that general direction. In 2019, it emerged that a UK-based anti-piracy company, known for its work against pirate IPTV providers, was sharing data with one or more UK ISPs to determine subscribers’ consumption of content from various ‘pirate’ servers.

 

The arrangement was referenced again in October 2020 when it was revealed that traffic data from UK ISP Sky supported a successful UEFA High Court ISP blocking injunction. A year later it emerged that Sky had compiled data on high-traffic IP addresses accessed via its network to help an anti-piracy company working for the Premier League.

 

At this point we should highlight how this work was framed. This wasn’t Sky spying on customers’ connections via the modem in the home, we were told. This was activity at completely the other end, i.e monitoring the levels of traffic flowing inbound from the pirate servers’ IP addresses. Some might argue that any type of monitoring is unacceptable but what if UK ISPs actually had permission to do more?

Permission to Monitor Pirates?

After receiving information suggesting that other ISPs may also be collaborating in similar anti-piracy work, we requested proof to show that is indeed the case. While that is yet to surface, we were invited to consider legal documents issued by two leading UK ISPs: Sky and Virgin Media, and for comparison, BT.

 

These documents – customer agreements and their related privacy policies — reveal that when people sign up as customers to at least two UK ISPs, they do so on the understanding that piracy might lead to their information being shared with third-parties.

Sky Privacy Policy

Sky documentation contains several references to the protection or enforcement of its own rights, and of “any third party’s rights.” For example, in the ‘How we use it” section relating to contact details and account information, the policy contains the following:

 

 

The same declaration appears in the ‘IP Addresses & Online Identifiers’ section where Sky notes that subscriber information can be used where it has a “legitimate interest” including the protection or enforcement of its own or any third party’s rights. “This may involve analysing activity on our network to help stop unauthorized access to content or publication of or access to unlawful content,” the company notes.

 

As a content provider in its own right, much of the above will relate directly to Sky’s own delivery platforms and its ability to prevent unauthorized access to content under its own control. However, in the section titled “Sharing with third parties” statements become much more explicit.

 

“We share your personal data, such as your contact details, financial data and other information described below, with credit reference and fraud prevention agencies and other relevant parties…for the prevention and detection of crimes such as fraud, piracy and money laundering,” the section reads.

 

“Where we reasonably suspect that you are pirating Sky or third-party content, we may share information with other organizations with a similar legitimate interest in preventing, detecting and prosecuting piracy.”

 

 

How these policies work in practice is unknown, but they are there for a reason. That Sky subscribers effectively grant these permissions shows once again that nobody reads the small print.

 

Sky’s Privacy Policy is available here

Virgin Media Privacy Policy

The first mention of using customer data for anti-piracy purposes appears in section 4 of Virgin Media’s privacy policy.

 

“We rely on Legal Obligation and Legitimate Interests Legal Bases to use your information to ensure we comply with our legal and regulatory obligations (these are our legitimate interests),” Virgin’s policy reads.

 

“We use information about who you are and your use of our products and services to block unauthorized or illegitimate content on our TV platforms, respond to court proceedings and enforcement authorities, and help authorities and industry organizations with any security, fraud, anti-piracy, crime or anti-terrorism enquiries.”

 

 

In the section where Virgin declares use of customer data to “develop, manage and protect” its business, the company says it does so “to identify and prevent piracy and other crime” and to “identify threats to our network that result in TV piracy.”

 

The company further states that it collects information about its customers from third-party or external sources, including “fraud and anti-piracy prevention agencies.”

 

Virgin also has a dedicated anti-piracy relating to its own TV services.

 

Virgin Media’s Privacy Policy is available here

BT Privacy Policy

In contrast to competitors Sky and Virgin, explicit mentions of anti-piracy cooperation are absent from BT’s privacy policy. Elsewhere, however, BT goes into some detail on the information it collects and where that data can be used when a user is suspected of piracy.

 

“We keep information about how you’re using your broadband to help us understand and manage traffic flows on our network, improve our services and tell you about products you might be interested in. That includes IP addresses and other traffic data including websites you’ve visited,” the ISP reports.

 

“We are sometimes contacted by third parties who monitor illegal online file sharing on behalf of copyright holders. If we receive a claim that there has been illegal sharing on your broadband service, we may use your IP address to notify you. But unless we are required to by law, we will not disclose your personal information to the copyright holder or any party acting on their behalf.

 

While these three leading UK ISPs all see piracy as problem to be countered, from these policies it’s evident that Sky’s approach is the most uncompromising, at least on paper. How much data it shares externally is unknown but having put that intent in black and white, one has to assume that anything is possible.

 

Automattic, the company behind the popular blogging platform WordPress, receives thousands of takedown requests from copyright holders.

 

For several years the volume of notices continued to increase, with a peak in 2018, after which the trend slowly went in the other direction.

 

This week, the company published its latest WordPress.com transparency report, revealing that it processed 2,412 takedown notices during the first six months of the year. That is a significant drop compared to a year earlier when over 3,321 notices were handled.

 

These data only apply to the number of DMCA notices that are directed at WordPress.com services. Each of these notices can contain multiple URLs, in some cases even dozens. In future, Automattic plans to release more granular data.

Abusive and Incomplete Takedown Requests

Aside from the continued drop in takedown volume, the high rejection rate clearly stands out. Of all notices received, only 14% result in any content removals; the vast majority are rejected for a variety of reasons.

 

In the reported period, 77% of all notices were rejected because they were incomplete. An additional 9% was labeled as ‘abusive’ and dismissed for that reason. The remaining 14% was processed as usual.

 

 

The number of rejections is significantly higher than in the same period last year. According to Automattic, this is mostly due to more incomplete notices, which are often sent by specialized ‘removal companies’.

 

“Most of these incomplete notices were submitted through seemingly automated processes that are provided by content removal companies which often charge content creators to exercise their rights,” Automattic notes.

 

These ‘faulty’ notices also include requests to take down content that’s cached for other hosting providers, through WordPress’ Jetpack service, for example. Since WordPress is not the original host it doesn’t take action in response to these.

 

The high percentage of ‘faulty’ notices is a source of frustration for Automattic, which indirectly criticizes the companies that largely rely on takedown bots and automated processes.

Tumblr

Automattic also owns the blogging platform Tumblr, which it purchased in 2019. For this service, it releases a separate transparency report.

 

The Tumblr report shows a similar decline in DMCA takedown notices. In the first half of 2023, 2,278 takedown notices were sent to the platform, a significant drop from the 3,362 requests it received a year earlier.

 

A detailed breakdown shows that these DMCA notices targeted 2,369 posts and 11,146 pieces of other content. The majority of these notices, 78%, were valid and processed accordingly.

 

“This type of careless use of the DMCA makes it harder for platforms to efficiently process valid takedown notifications. In the past, we have highlighted similar problematic trends such as the negative impact of automated takedown notices submitted by bots,” the company writes.

 

All in all, the transparency reports show that the major DMCA takedown surge of a few years ago has subsided. However, Automattic stresses that it’s important to remain vigilant to ensure that content isn’t needlessly removed.

 

“For our part, we meticulously review each takedown notice we receive so that we can identify the validity, push back on abuse, and help our users understand their rights such as Fair Use,” Automattic writes.

 

As pirate set-top boxes, illegal IPTV services and infringement of live TV broadcasts remain key concerns for the audiovisual sector, the pressure is on to find more effective anti-piracy solutions.

 

Speaking with IBC last week, Sheila Cassells, Executive VP at the Audiovisual Anti-Piracy Alliance, warned that entertainment companies need to be very concerned about “any technological development” which can be used to access pirated content.

 

From the VCR to the iPhone, from Google Glass to today’s AI, being “very concerned” about new technology is the default position for major rightsholders and, in their position, many might feel the same. However, the focus of the conversation was on certain devices, referred to in the interview as “ISDs, Firesticks and Android apps” and their various abilities to facilitate piracy. What’s AAPA’s position there?

 

“At a basic level – and common to all the technical devices mentioned – AAPA would like to see the production, marketing and distribution of any device which can be used to infringe IP made illegal” – Sheila Cassells.

Careful What You Wish For

Given the vast experience of Cassells and the collective knowledge of AAPA’s members including Premier League, Sky, beIN, Canal+, and DAZN, we can assume that the statement above isn’t actually AAPA’s position, at least when taken literally. Nevertheless, it does raise some interesting questions.

 

Like many other people who spend too much time in front of a computer, the desk in front me here represents an Aladdin’s Cave of devices that can be used to infringe intellectual property rights. There’s a monitor that has the ability to show copyrighted images or display unlicensed movies, and is even big enough to be seen outside and generate liability for an unlicensed public performance.

 

There’s a vast collection of USB drives in various shapes and sizes, but only one where i’m 100% sure of the contents. In any event there must be a few terabytes of storage capacity, and all of it can be used to infringe IP rights; movies, TV shows, software, eBooks – literally nothing is safe.

 

As for the mobile phone, it’s an infringement machine. It has the ability to record movies in cinemas, store copies for retrieval, and then distribute them on the internet. No song is safe either; right out of the box it was able to infringe copyrights on every track ever made, in the entire history of music.

Can’t Ban All of the Things, All of the Time

The sobering truth is every tech gadget on the desk and most others in the rest of the house can be used to infringe intellectual property rights. Even the internet connection (or perhaps mostly the internet connection) can be used to infringe intellectual property rights, but it doesn’t necessarily follow that will be the use case.

 

So, after making a fairly basic but sensible case that there’s zero chance of making the production, marketing and distribution of ANY device which CAN be used to infringe IP made illegal, what does AAPA actually mean, and how can the problem be tackled?

 

In respect of the devices mentioned above (all set-top devices), Cassells references a piece of EU legislation known as the Conditional Access Directive. It dates back to 1998 and was crafted to protect TV platforms that provide content on a conditional basis, i.e customers get access to content on the condition they pay.

Complex Legislation, Boiled Down to Basics

The directive requires EU member states to prohibit an illicit device “which enables or facilitates without authority the circumvention of any technological measures designed to protect the remuneration of a legally provided service.” The directive also prohibits “all forms of advertising, direct marketing, sponsorship, sales promotion and public relations promoting such products and services.”

 

As is often the case in intellectual property matters, nearly everything here can be boiled down to one of the most important ingredients: intent.

 

If a device is designed to infringe IP rights, marketed to infringe IP rights, and infringes IP rights when in use, trying to claim the device is a neutral technology after the fact is unlikely to be successful.

 

Since Firesticks were mentioned, it’s clear they are not infringing by design, they aren’t marketed as such, nor do they infringe in any pre-determined way. As a result they are not illegal and cannot be described as such. However, they are absolutely capable of infringing IP rights so if some kind of middle man intervenes with software or other modifications designed to infringe IP rights, now the device is illegal, regardless of the intent of the original manufacturer.

Illegal Devices Are Already Illegal

If at this point we circle back to the beginning, there are obvious bright lines between ostensibly similar products when one is intended to infringe and the other is not.

 

The Filmspeler case in the Netherlands established illegality of devices when supplied configured to infringe so, logically, “the production, marketing and distribution of any device which can be used to infringe IP” is already illegal in the EU.

 

Cassells says that the sector is facing particular challenges tackling devices made in China because taking legal action there isn’t easy. The nature of these devices isn’t clear but if they’re designed, marketed or sold to infringe IP, the problem isn’t rendering them illegal.

 

In conclusion, this doesn’t sound like a problem in need of a new law. It sounds more like an enforcement issue, most likely preventing devices like these entering the EU, being distributed in the EU, and then sold in EU member states. Perhaps the only solution is to remove the incentive to buy them.

Two years ago, German Internet providers agreed to voluntarily block the most egregeous pirate sites.

 

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

 

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

Targeting Structurally Infringing Sites

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

 

“Only clear cases of copyright infringing websites should be blocked. Examples are thepiratebay.org, kinox.to or goldesel.to,” CUII explains in the FAQ on its website.

 

In many countries where such measures are implemented, The Pirate Bay was indeed one of the first sites to be targeted. However, despite the explicit mention in CUII’s frequently asked questions, the infamous torrent site hasn’t yet made it onto the German blocklist.

 

Instead, CUII appears to prioritize websites that are predominantly targeted at local citizens. This isn’t a stated goal, but currently blocked sites such as Kinox.to, S.to, Canna.to, and Serienjunkies all fit the bill.

Filmfans.org and Serienfans.org

Earlier this week, CUII published two new blocking recommendations, Filmfans.org and Serienfans.org. These sites aren’t widely used in most parts of the world but in Germany, they have a sizable audience.

 

The two websites were nominated by an entertainment company whose name is redacted. The unnamed company is a member of the Motion Picture Association, however, which is a signee to the voluntary agreement.

 

 

After reviewing the application, the CUII committee concluded that both Filmfans.org and Serienfans.org can be classified as structurally infringing websites. It further confirmed that the sites are geared towards the German-speaking market.

 

“The application for a recommendation to block the FILMFANS.ORG website is well-founded. The Website is a structurally copyright infringing website. There is a clear copyright violation. The blocking is reasonable and proportionate,” CUII writes in its recommendation.

 

Before coming to CUII, the entertainment company tried to contact the operators of the site and their hosting companies, but these efforts didn’t go anywhere. This means that blocking the sites is one of the only viable options left to deal with the problem.

 

Following CUII’s order, all participating ISPs will block access to the domains. This typically happens through a DNS blockade.

Pirate Sites Were Prepared

While the measures will undoubtedly impact Filmfans.org and Serienfans.org, their inclusion doesn’t come as a surprise. On the contrary, the sites – which are presumably operated by the same team – have anticipated the blockade for more than a year and have advised users to take precautions.

 

“In Germany, more and more websites are being blocked by the ‘Copyright Clearing House on the Internet. Such a block will sooner or later also affect our pages,” a translated notice on the site reads.

 

“The DNS blocks can be bypassed easily, legally and free of charge. You have to change your DNS servers in the router, in the operating system, or in the browser. You can find out how this works and more information about the network blocks at cuii-sperre.info.”

 

Blocking heads up dating back one year (translated)

 

The website provides a broad overview of the various blocking workarounds. And to add insult to injury, mockingly copies the design of CUII’s website as well.

Next Target: DNS Resolvers

For most of the websites previously blocked by CUII, it appears that many people do indeed appear to use these workarounds, as they continue to get plenty of German visitors.

 

Bs.to, for example, has more than 16 million monthly visits, of which 55% come from Germany. This must be one of the main reasons why rightsholders are trying to get DNS resolvers to block pirate sites next.

 

Sony Music, for example, has already obtained an injunction that requires DNS resolver Quad9 to block the popular pirate site Canna.to and its new canna-power.to domain. This request came shortly after CUII added the site to the blocklist.

 

Quad9 is determined to put up a fight and eventually reverse the order. However, if it ends up losing, we can expect rightsholders to target other free DNS resolvers too. And perhaps VPN providers are next on the list?

 

Following intense pressure from rightsholders for lawmakers to sign off on tough legislation to block pirate IPTV services in Italy, pens were put to paper in July, and it was all systems go for the new season.

 

With the nation holding its breath for what was about to come next, nothing much happened. Around 100 pirate service ‘violations’ were reportedly identified on the first day of the season early August, but no sites or services were blocked. The parties responsible for blocking had not yet completed a required technical roundtable and that remains the case today.

 

Some media outlets framed the lack of action on the first days of the season as a failure, especially in light of claims that piracy is killing Italian top-tier football. Whether that prompted DAZN’s decision to start firing off applications for urgent site blocking measures late August is unclear, but that’s exactly what the streaming platform did.

AGCOM Announces DAZN Success

Italy’s telecoms regulator revealed DAZN’s successful applications in an announcement titled “SERIES A AND SERIES B: AGCOM BLOCKS 45 PIRATED WEBSITES.” After blocking thousands of websites over the years with little fanfare, AGCOM’s announcement was somewhat out of the ordinary and may indicate how important site-blocking has become.

 

“The action of the Communications Regulatory Authority is intensified for the combating the illegal offer of live sports content. The Authority, also following the numerous requests received from DAZN, as owner of the rights for the broadcast of Serie A championship matches and Serie B, has issued numerous precautionary orders,” the announcement reads.

 

AGCOM also thanked Italy’s ISPs for their “active collaboration” in disabling access to a claimed 45 pirate sites said to have broadcast football matches illegally during the first two games of the season. After silently blocking thousands of sites over the years, ISPs being thanked in public is a rare event.

U.S. Law Enforcement Wanted Sites Gone Too

During the FIFA World Cup competition in December 2022, U.S. law enforcement agencies launched a domain seizure campaign. Homeland Security agents confirmed the initial action and a few days later, followed up with more seizures.

 

Among the targets was the popular SoccerStreams which later announced its own retirement from the game. As the dust settled, affiliated brands including NFLbite, NBAbite, and Footybite seemed to emerge unscathed, at least if one accepts that clones, mirrors, new domains, and other factors form part of the equation.

 

Documents filed by DAZN link ‘Soccer Streams’ with two pirate streaming platforms; nflbite.to and footybite.to. In its application for precautionary blocking measures, the streaming platform notes that footybite could be accessed via a link on nflbite. That hyperlink was enough for AGCOM to deal with them at the same time.

 

“The elements described [in the application] highlight a hypothesis of serious violation, due to the continuity of the conduct over the period of every day of the championship, the systematic nature of the violation, and the significant value of the audiovisual production rights of the championship affected by the conduct,” AGCOM agreed.

Kooora365, Elixx, Nizarstream

In a filing dated August 25, DAZN reported that sports streaming website kooora365.com carries “a significant amount of links that give access to the broadcasts of Serie A championship matches.”

 

Another platform, Elixx.xyz, reportedly provided free access to matches broadcast between August 19 and August 21, the first days of the Serie A season. “The digital works were thus transmitted in violation of copyright law,” DAZN advised.

 

For these sites and another streaming platform (nizarstream.xyz) DAZN requested “urgent and precautionary measures” to disable access to “audiovisual content disseminated illegally.”

 

It’s a pattern that continued in dozens of filings against similar sites, for largely identical reasons.

And the List Continues

Other domains against which DAZN sought precautionary blocking measures include the following:

 

calciostreaming.click, futbolmoderno.info, skystreaming.link, bdnewszh.com, nopay.info, nbatv.site, futbolonline.me, freestreams- live1.top, hesgoal.today, hesgoal.info, flash-24.live, 1stream.soccer, pirlotv.app, pirlo.tv, rojadirectaenvivo.fr, futbolonlinetv.club, koooralive.online, lacasadeltikitakatv.net, pirlotv.uk, calcio.ws, kooora4life.com, sportzone.la, rojadirectahd.tv, rojadirectatv.uno, pirlotvonline.org, funhdgames.xyz, hahasport.me, pirlotvlive.es, pirlotv.site, fotnet24.com, p2pstreams.live, redstream.online, calciostreaming.online, poscitechs.com, rojadirectatvhd.it, pirlotvonline.fr

 

Based on principles including proportionality, AGCOM instructed local internet service providers to implement DNS blocking against the domains within two days of its notification. Any visitors to the domains will be redirected to a notice explaining that the domains were blocked on AGCOM’s instructions.

 

AGCOM Blocking Notice (translated)

 

Serie A reports that another 2,000 sites have just been submitted for blocking, a figure that represents more than half of all domains currently on Italy’s ISP blocking list.

 

Like many other countries around the world, India’s copyright law allows rightsholders to limit access to pirate sites.

 

This legal tool is widely used by the major Hollywood studios. These companies regularly obtain injunctions that require local Internet providers to block websites to prevent piracy.

 

Over the years the nature of these court orders has evolved. The initial measures were straightforward, in the sense that they pointed out specifically which domains should be blocked. These later evolved into ‘dynamic’ versions, allowing rightsholders to add new domains and proxies whenever they are launched.

 

These dynamic orders are justified to deal with persistent pirate sites, which are regularly referred to as a “hydra-headed” problem; when one domain is blocked, many others take its place.

Preemptive Blocks and Registrar Action

The Indian courts are not stopping at dynamic blocking orders either. In several instances, Internet providers have been instructed to block websites because they might make infringing works available in the future.

 

For example, last year forty Internet providers were instructed to block a total of 13,445 ‘pirate’ sites that were expected to distribute pirated copies of the Hindi movie “Vikram Vedha.” A few months ago, a similar order was used to block “Spider-Man” piracy, before it took place.

 

Blocking injunctions are no longer applied solely to Internet providers. Domain name registrars have been added as well, including U.S. companies such as GoDaddy, Namecheap and Tucows. If these don’t take action, the Indian Government gets involved.

Dynamic+ Action Covers Non-Existing Works

The nature of these injunctions continues to evolve and a recent order handed down by Justice Pratibha M Singh of the Delhi High Court, adds yet another novel element to the mix.

 

The case at hand was filed by Warner Bros, Columbia Pictures, Netflix Studios, Paramount Pictures, and Disney. The entertainment companies request ISPs and domain registrars to block or ban sixteen pirate sites, including DotMovies, Tamilvip, KissAsian, PopMovies and 9xFlix.

 

 

The Delhi High Court granted this request, which is nothing out of the ordinary. However, it also adds a new element. In addition to applying to current movies and series, it also covers content that doesn’t exist yet.

 

“To keep pace with the dynamic nature of the infringement that is undertaken by hydra-headed websites, this Court has deemed it appropriate to issue this ‘Dynamic+ injunction’ to protect copyrighted works as soon as they are created,” the order reads.

 

The Court notes that this will help to prevent irreparable losses “as there is an imminent possibility of works being uploaded on rogue websites or their newer versions” as soon as new films and series are created.

 

“Copyright in future works comes into existence immediately upon the work being created, and Plaintiffs may not be able to approach the Court for each and every film or series that is produced in the future, to secure an injunction against piracy,” the order adds.

Questions and Concerns

Dynamic injunctions were initially issued as an exception, but some legal scholars wonder whether these are slowly become the new normal. The Indian law blog SpicyIP has several articles on the subject and also discusses this latest order.

 

According to law student Reva Satish Makhija, one of the concerns is that ownership of new content is automatically assumed. This means that a resource is blocked before the counterparty can dispute the claim.

 

“The Delhi High Court’s attempt at securing the plaintiff’s rights from the possible, anticipated infringement at the hands of the defendant is well-meaning but requires more deliberation in the context of its efficacy in balancing party interests,” Makhija writes.

 

It’s not immediately clear whether this new expansion will have a broad impact right away. While it may be useful to block new sites that only offer fresh content, the current injunctions already appear to be quite effective.

 

Perhaps the Delhi High Court is trying to create its own hydra-headed injunction scheme? If one order isn’t effective, it can simply issue new ones to ensure that pirate sites are dealt with appropriately.

 

—

 

A copy of the Dynamic+ injunction issued by Justice Pratibha M Singh of the Delhi High Court is available here (pdf)

 

When RARBG suddenly ended its operations at the end of May 2023, the absence of notice coupled with the immediate and comprehensive nature of the shutdown felt different to similar events of the past.

 

The RARBG team mentioned several factors that contributed to their decision to throw in the towel, but none even hinted at legal issues. The fact that a notice appeared at all does lean towards a non-chaotic termination of the site. However, with the site still attracting millions of visitors, yet no attempt to monetize traffic or sell valuable domains, the situation is somewhat unusual.

Bulgaria and Recent Pirate Site Events

After years of criticism from the United States, in 2020 there were signs that Bulgaria would begin a crackdown against pirate sites including Zamunda and RARBG. The country reportedly requested assistance from the U.S. A year later, it appeared that Bulgaria was still interested in receiving U.S. help, but the sites remained online, along with others operated from the country.

 

Then this April, after failing to improve enough on IP protection to warrant praise from the United States in its Special 301 Report, Bulgaria approved a draft law that in part would criminalize pirate site operators.

 

It’s still not clear whether that announcement prompted several Bulgaria-focused pirate sites to shut themselves down in the days that followed, but it wouldn’t be a surprise.

May Was a Busy Month For Bulgarian IP Protection Matters

International Computer Hacking and Intellectual Property units (ICHIP) are compromised of attorney advisors, computer forensic experts, and law enforcement agents who provide assistance to U.S. foreign partners to combat intellectual property crime. ICHIPs act as a liaison between law enforcement partners and rightsholders, which is “critical for IPR investigations and prosecutions.”

 

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, in May this year, ICHIP Bucharest conducted an intellectual property workshop for 40 Bulgarian judges in the Bulgarian capital, Sofia.

 

“Judicial participants at the workshop discussed the legislative frameworks in the US and Bulgaria, as well as the proposed legislative changes to Bulgaria’s criminal code,” the USDOJ reports.

 

On May 15, Bulgarian Prosecutor General Ivan Geshev, who was directly involved in the earlier request for assistance against Zamunda, was in the United States with Vladimir Nikolov, Chairman of the Association of Prosecutors in Bulgaria. In Washington, the pair attended meetings with officials from the US House of Representatives, including on internet crime-related matters.

 

At the invitation of congressmen, Geshev previously attended the 71st National Prayer Breakfast hosted by President Joe Biden in February. Whether by coincidence or otherwise, two weeks after Geshev visited the United States most recently, RARBG shut down.

June and July Were Eventful Too

In the wake of Bulgarian ISPs being ordered to block Zamunda and The Pirate Bay just a couple of weeks earlier, on June 14-15, the EU Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) held its annual International IP Enforcement Summit.

 

It took place at the National Palace of Culture in Sofía, Bulgaria. Given the events of late May, at least one major torrent site wouldn’t be taking up too much time or, indeed, causing any unnecessary embarrassment for the hosts.

 

One major topic of discussion at the conference was EMPACT, the European Multidisciplinary Platform Against Criminal Threats, which in the current cycle 2022-2025 has IP crime as a priority. Coincidentally or not, just hours after the EUIPO conference ended, Bulgaria’s Ministry of Internal Affairs announced that an operation had just been carried out against a pirate IPTV provider.

 

“The operation was conducted within the framework of the European Multidisciplinary Platform for Combating Criminal Threats (EMPACT). Bulgaria, in particular GDBOP [General Directorate Combating Organized Crime], leads the priority activity of combating and destroying criminal networks and criminal activities of individual entrepreneurs involved in crimes against intellectual property,” the Ministry said.

 

“As a result of the actions taken, the provision of illegal cable television by an Internet service provider operating in the Plovdiv region and in Varna was stopped. According to the collected evidence, the cable operator has been retransmitting television programs to its end customers for more than three years, without the legally required consent of the rights holders and without notifying the control state authorities of this activity, as required by law.”

 

Images from the operation

 

Local media identified the target as service provider DC Corporation, the successor of cable company Digital Cable Corporation, and its owner Ivan Gologanov. TrafficNews.bg reports that “Gologanov does not pay royalties to TV channels, which allows him to sell packages at competitive prices.” It further notes that a “large part of the company’s cable network was laid illegally, without permission from the competent authorities.”

Not Quite Done

Late July GDBOP took down another TV piracy service with the operation again taking place within the EMPACT framework.

 

“Employees of the Cybercrime Directorate, together with their colleagues from the BOP sectors in Vratsa and Pleven, conducted an operation to prevent the illegal use of television series as objects of copyright and related rights through the internet site tvseriali.bg,” GDBOP’s report reads.

 

Visitors to the site today are greeted by a seizure banner, not the Turkish TV shows they were expecting.

 

 

In summary, it seems that Bulgaria may not be the safe haven for pirate sites it once was. It may not even be safe for Prosecutor General Ivan Geshev. According to Bulgaria’s National Investigation Service, attackers attempted to kill Geshev in May using a roadside bomb, which detonated as he drove past.

 

“The bomb had a large TNT equivalent — about 3 kilograms of TNT, according to experts’ calculations,” the report reads.

 

Geshev survived the incident but after years of controversy, including criticism for failing to crack down on organized crime, he called members of parliament “political garbage” that should be “swept away.”

 

Bulgarian President Rumen Radev subsequently signed off on the Supreme Justice Council’s (VSS) decision to fire Geshev, halfway through his seven-year term. What that means for Bulgaria’s fight against piracy, if anything, will remain to be seen.

 

In the meantime, Zamunda is now the 16th most popular site in the whole of Bulgaria.

 

The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) is the most active anti-piracy coalition, assisting enforcement efforts around the world.

 

The group is backed by prominent rightsholders such as beIN, Canal+, DAZN, Disney, Sky, Netflix, and Warner Bros, as it systematically hunts down key piracy players.

 

Through new partnerships and connections, ACE expanded its work in the MENA region last year. This includes Egypt, where the coalition tackled several large streaming piracy portals over the past months.

Egyptian Crackdown

ACE’s large international member base is only part of its success. The anti-piracy group also puts a lot of time and effort into building relationships with authorities and law enforcement around the world. This is starting to bear fruits as well.

 

In Egypt, for example, we have witnessed a series of crackdowns on local pirate sites and services. It started last summer when various sports streaming sites including Yalla-Shoot.today, yalla-shoot.us, and Yallashoot-news.com were taken down. Several operators of these sites were arrested in the process.

 

In the months that followed, ACE helped Egyptian authorities pinpoint several other high-profile targets with millions of users each. These included MyCima, one of the largest pirate sites in the Middle East at the time, and more recently Movizland as well.

Three Piracy Rings Dismantled

This week, the anti-piracy alliance reports that it helped to dismantle three additional piracy rings. These ‘commercial-scale piracy operations’ were taken down by the police and the Egyptian Ministry of Internal Affairs.

 

The most recent action took place last week when the authorities arrested the operators of livehd7 and 3sktv in Kafr El-Sheikh, Egypt. The sites in question streamed sports events, TV episodes, and movies. The sites reportedly had millions of users with the operators earning close to a million dollars per month.

 

“I applaud the work of the Egyptian authorities in last week’s actions, during which they seized 54 infringing domains, as well as mobile phones, IT equipment and cash,” ACE’s boss Jan Van Voorn says, commenting on the news.

 

In addition to this recent action, ACE also notes that the Egylive.online operation was taken offline earlier this year, while the sports piracy ring fal3arda was taken out in January. These successes should act as a wake-up call for other piracy rings, Van Voorn warns.

 

“These three takedowns represent a warning to illegal operators—if you engage in piracy and make money, law enforcement will confiscate the money and your assets, so it’s not a winning game. We will continue to identify and act against the illegal broadcasting of live sports matches and other content.”

Work in Progress

TorrentFreak asked ACE for more details on the recent livehd7 and 3sktv takedowns, as it’s not clear which domains are targeted. At the time of writing, the most popular sites using these brands are still online.

 

ACE informs us that the latest enforcement actions are still a work in progress. The Alliance can’t share an overview of the targeted domain names yet, as it is still in the process of getting them signed over.

 

Based on Van Voorn’s earlier comments, we know that there are more than 50 domain names involved. This presumably includes the 3sktv.news and 3sktv.one domains, which remain online. Livehd7.net and livehd7.tv are definitely included, as these already point to ACE banners.

 

Whack-A-Mole

These enforcement efforts undoubtedly have some effect. Based on the responses on social media, many people are disappointed to see their favorite pirate streaming site offline. The actions may also spook some pirate site operators.

 

Just how effective these law enforcement actions are as a deterrent is unclear, however. Many people are still willing to take the risk, especially when there are millions of dollars to be made.

 

Over the past months, we have seen reincarnations of several pirate brands previously shut down by ACE. Brands such as Egybest, MyCima, Shahed4U, Yalla-Shoot and Yallakora all lived on, presumably under different operators but that is difficult to confirm.

 

These alternatives typically start as clones and copycats but can eventually become just as popular as the originals.

 

The same will likely happen in response to the recent actions. There are already several “Egylive” alternatives floating around, and the “fal3arda” brand also lives on.

 

ACE’s press release also illustrates how complex the problem is. Apparently, the group managed to take down the Yalla-Shoot.io copycat, which thrived after other Yalla-Shoots were taken down last year.

 

“We are pleased that ACE’s task force has succeeded in removing yalla-shoot.io which had been negatively impacting all content owners and putting consumers at considerable risk,” DAZN Group COO Ed McCarthy commented.

 

However, those who try to access this yalla-shoot.io domain name, will notice that it simply redirects to yet another Yalla-Shoot variant today. This means the whack-a-mole will continue, at least for now.

Bungie’s copyright infringement-based lawsuits against cheat makers, sellers, and those who use them, have divided opinion in unexpected ways.

 

While David vs. Goliath battles tend to have the masses cheering for the little guy, many videogame fans have grown tired of their enjoyment being spoiled by people who intentionally set out to spoil it.

 

The fact that many of these individuals pay out significant sums of money to gain an imaginary upper hand only serves to rub salt in the wounds. In one particularly malicious case, Bungie had clearly seen more than enough.

Familiar Case, Unusual Features

In July 2022, another Bungie lawsuit came to light. It targeted an individual who had deployed cheats in Destiny 2 and as a result, now faced claims of breaching security mechanisms controlling access to a copyrighted work.

 

For each violation of the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provisions, Bungie sought $2,500. For modifying the Destiny 2 game, thereby creating an unauthorized derivative work, Bungie was able to demand another $150,000. While complicated enough already, it soon transpired that Bungie had unwittingly sued ‘L.L.’ – a 17-year-old minor.

 

Luckily for Bungie, the details of the case quickly dispersed any sympathy for the teenager; DMCA claims found themselves overshadowed by allegations of a long-running harassment campaign against Bungie employees. L.L.’s decision to mount a particularly robust defense, absent of any remorse, was completely logical and looked absolutely terrible.

 

At least in the short term, it wasn’t particularly effective either.

Bungie and Teenage Nemesis Eventually Agree

In a proposed consent judgment and permanent injunction filed at a Washington court early this month, Bungie systematically repeats many of its original allegations, with the defendant quietly nodding along.

 

The defendant used software to cheat in Destiny 2. That software displayed a graphical overlay in the copyrighted Destiny 2 audiovisual work and injected code to facilitate cheats, thereby creating an unauthorized derivative work, in breach of copyright. The software circumvented Bungie’s technological measures in breach of the DMCA, with each use of that software representing an independent circumvention violation.

 

Further breaches of the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provision took place every time a new account was opened to evade a Bungie ban, and each unlicensed download of Destiny 2 was yet another breach of Bungie’s copyrights. All told, the parties agree that Bungie is entitled to $300,000 in statutory damages for copyright infringement, and a further $200,000 for 100 acts of circumvention at $2,000 each.

 

Grand total: $500,000 in damages

Permanently cease-and-desist

To ensure no repeat of the defendant’s alleged behavior, a wall of text in the proposed judgment restrains L.L. from having anything to do with any cheat software targeting Bungie-owned properties, having anything to do with any Bungie-related game assets, or interacting with any Bungie game, ever again.

 

Also prohibited is the direct or indirect harassment of Bungie or its employees, or anyone who plays Bungie games. The defendant cannot travel within 1,000 feet of Bungie’s offices, nor knowingly travel within 1,000 feet of any home of any Bungie employee, “except as is incidental to travel on public highways and roadways for purposes other than to make contact with or otherwise harass” Bungie employees.

 

L.L. is also required to embark on a comprehensive account deletion mission.

 

 

“This permanent injunction is binding against the Defendant worldwide, without regard to the territorial scope of the specific intellectual property rights asserted in the Complaint of the above-captioned case and may be enforced in any court of competent jurisdiction wherever Defendant or their assets may be found,” the consent judgment continues.

 

With that the parties request that judgment is entered in accordance with the outlined terms, including an award for $500,000 in damages in favor of Bungie. With all necessary lessons learned, the judge’s signature will bring the matter to a close. In theory, at least.

 

Related documents are available here (1,2, pdf)

 

History has shown that copyright holders tend to be wary of new technologies that disrupt the status quo.

 

From the printing press, through cassette tapes, to online video streaming services, all were seen as major threats to the revenues of copyright holders at some point.

 

These weren’t just overblown fears, since technologies can be used for both good and bad. Pirate streaming services are still a problem today, for example, but the same can’t be said for Netflix and Spotify.

 

Over the past year, artificial intelligence has propelled itself to become a top concern for copyright holders. While this evolving technology can be a boon to rightsholders, the current focus is to prevent AI from exploiting, cannibalizing, or infringing copyrighted content.

 

The issue has already made its way to the courts in several instances and a few weeks ago we reported that anti-piracy groups are also getting involved. Last month, the Danish Rights Alliance was the first group to claim a major victory on the takedown front, by removing a copy of the controversial Books3 AI training dataset from the web.

 

The Books3 dataset has a clear piracy angle, as it was created from the library of ‘pirate’ site Bibliotik. The plaintext collection of 196,640 books, which is nearly 37GB in size, was used to train several AI models, including Meta’s.

 

Books3 was first published on The Eye in late 2020 and was eventually removed when the Rights Alliance sent a formal takedown notice. There are still copies circulating elsewhere, but rightsholders are determined to take these down as well.

Transparency Needed

Many rightsholders believe that Books3 isn’t the only piracy-sourced dataset. There are other book datasets as well, which are too large to have been created from public domain content. And then there are datasets that use copyrighted music, images, and video as well.

 

What makes Books3 unique is the fact that the source was published. In many other instances that’s not the case, so rightsholders can’t send takedown notices, even if they wanted to.

 

Rights Alliance director Maria Fredenslund notes that the Books3 example shows the importance of companies being transparent about the datasets they use to train AI models. This should be the rule going forward, not the exception.

 

“Books3 was a special case, as the creators of the data set had made public its origin, and at the same time, some artificial intelligence developers had indicated that they had used Books3. The case is therefore a real example of transparency being necessary for rights holders to enforce their content,” Fredenslund says.

 

“We are therefore in the process of continuing our experience with Books3, in a call for a stricter requirement for transparency in the EU’s AI Regulation, so that rights holders have a real opportunity to check whether their content is used to train artificial intelligence.”

U.S. Copyright Office Asks Questions

The anti-piracy group isn’t the only party focusing on transparency. The U.S. Copyright Office, which launched a broader AI initiative earlier this year, just launched a public consultation where it asks stakeholders for their views on the matter.

 

“In order to allow copyright owners to determine whether their works have been used, should developers of AI models be required to collect, retain, and disclose records regarding the materials used to train their models?” the Office asks.

 

“What obligations, if any, should there be to notify copyright owners that their works have been used to train an AI model?” another question reads.

 

UK House of Commons Committee Chimes In

Last week, a new AI report from the UK House of Commons Committee also chimed in on the subject. The government previously floated the idea of introducing a copyright exception for text and data mining for AI, but after objections, quickly walked it back.

 

The House of Commons Committee believes that this was wise, noting that rightsholders should be protected. Their report also recommends further transparency and the need for copyright holders to be compensated if their work is used for AI training purposes.

 

“The Government should consider how creatives can ensure transparency and, if necessary, recourse and redress if they suspect that AI developers are wrongfully using their works in AI development,” the House of Commons Committee writes.

 

“The Government should support the continuance of a strong copyright regime in the UK and be clear that licenses are required to use copyrighted content in AI. In line with our previous work, this Committee also believes that the Government should act to ensure that creators are well rewarded in the copyright regime.”

Just the Beginning

The European Union already has a transparency requirement in its recently proposed AI regulation but Rights Alliance doesn’t believe it’s helpful in its current form.

 

“[T]he EU’s AI regulation is not sufficient, since this does not oblige the developers of artificial intelligence to publish where the content of their training data originates,” the anti-piracy group notes.

 

These are just a few examples of recent AI-related copyright issues. While it’s still early days, we can expect the topic to keep rightsholders, lawmakers, and courts busy for years.

 

Now is the time for various stakeholders to draw their lines in the sand. It’s clear that AI development can’t be slowed down, but which training data and outputs will be considered fair game is yet to be determined.

 

Online piracy is a complex and constantly evolving phenomenon that fuels the daily reporting on this website.

 

While big headlines don’t appear every day, there’s always something happening. These events are no longer the preserve of niche audiences as mainstream media outlets show increasing interest.

 

This broader coverage is in part fueled by a steady stream of press releases issued by rightsholders and anti-piracy groups. These alerts often find their way to online news publications where they are republished with no questions asked. It’s a particularly useful mechanism for those crafting the messaging.

The Media as an Anti-Piracy Tool

The role of the press as a communication ‘tool’ isn’t typically discussed in public but did come up in a recent letter sent to the US Trademark and Patent Office by the Premier League. It mentions the media as one of the key tools through which messages can be sent.

 

The Premier League lists media reporting as one of the main ways the public at large is informed about the harms and dangers of piracy. This apparently can be very effective, as an example from Singapore shows.

 

“Raids conducted at the end of last year in Singapore are a good example of law enforcement using media coverage to send a strong message to the market about the legal risks associated with piracy.

 

“Since the raids, and resultant widespread media coverage, the Premier League has not been able to find any physical shops selling illicit streaming devices offering its content in Singapore,” the Premier League notes.

 

 

In addition to covering enforcement actions, the media also helps by ‘amplifying’ research and reports, including those that highlight malware threats and piracy-related scams.

 

“Publications of studies and reports, such as those identified in the previous response, that contain empirical data on the harms and dangers of piracy. These are generally amplified by media reporting and consumer campaigns,” the Premier League adds.

Balance vs. Hysteria

The Premier League’s letter shows that rightsholders can utilize the media to boost their anti-piracy message. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that strategy, as long as the media maintains a critical and balanced view. But it doesn’t always work that way.

 

With limited time available, many news publications rely heavily on information being fed to them. And since press releases typically lack caveats and counterpoints, subsequent reports risk being one-sided; in some cases, dramatically so.

 

In recent years we have seen media outfits not only repeat messaging but deliberately make it more extreme. This can lead to hysterical coverage or outright misinformation.

Nuance

Again, the Premier League and other rightsholders are not really to blame for this. Their press releases are carefully crafted to ensure effective delivery of their main messages and the absence of nuance is intended. The role of the media is to find balance and avoid hyperbole, but the former is often lacking.

 

A critical look at industry reports can pay off though. For example, when a report suggested that pirate sites are the main propagation method for malware, experts were quick to reject the claim. And when researchers fail to present proper evidence, that’s worth pointing out too.

 

All in all, it’s the responsibility of the media to ensure the presentation of a complete picture. The facts that are not mentioned in a press release are often far more interesting than those that are.

 

There are plenty of signs that rightsholder groups are deliberately creating strategies to ‘cultivate‘ their relationships with the press. And, needless to say, it’s not their goal to make sure that the media remains dedicated to balanced reporting; they simply want to deter piracy.

 

—

 

A copy of the Premier League’s full letter to the U.S. Parent Patent and Trademark Office is available here (pdf)

 

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

 

These torrent download statistics are only meant to provide further insight into the piracy trends. All data are gathered from public resources.

 

This week we have four newcomers on the list. “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” is the most downloaded title.

The most torrented movies for the week ending on September 04 are:

Movie Rank	Rank last week	Movie name	IMDb Rating / Trailer
Most downloaded movies via torrent sites
1	(…)	Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny	6.7 / trailer
2	(1)	Meg 2: The Trench	5.3 / trailer
3	(…)	The Last Voyage of the Demeter	6.2 / trailer
4	(3)	Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse	8.8 / trailer
5	(…)	Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem	7.4 / trailer
6	(…)	The Boogeyman	6.0 / trailer
7	(2)	The Flash	7.0 / trailer
8	(4)	Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3	8.2 / trailer
9	(5)	Elemental	7.0 / trailer
10	(7)	No Hard Feelings	6.6 / trailer

 

 

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

 

The advent of the internet and its subsequent development in the mainstream have given rise to a perpetual, collaborative, global recording machine that would’ve been unimaginable 40+ years ago.

 

Back then, videotape recording machines were cutting edge and a type developed by Sony was fighting for its life. Since Sony’s Betamax-format recorders were able to record TV shows, studios including Universal and Disney sought to hold Sony liable for users’ alleged copyright infringements. In 1984 the Supreme Court ultimately sided with Sony but had the decision gone the other way, the chilling effect on the video market would’ve been incalculable.

The Museum of Classic Chicago Television

Through the prism of history, The Museum of Classic Chicago Television owes much to Sony’s win in the Betamax case; quite possibly its very existence. Like many labors of love, its beginnings were humble.

 

After finding a 1983 episode of “The Bozo Show” on an old videocassette, Rick Klein – today the museum’s president and lead curator – spotted himself and his brother in the audience. The trip down memory lane, punctuated by shifts in production values, fashions and commercial breaks, had him hooked.

 

“I was just blown away by seeing stuff I had forgotten,” Klein recalled in a 2021 interview. “That’s one of the things that becomes so addictive. You see something and remember. It’s just like a key going into a lock.”

 

 

Now close to reaching his own half century, Klein, and a number of like-minded individuals, still haven’t shaken the nostalgia bug, especially for old TV content shown locally in Chicago. In 2007, their growing collection of analog commercials, TV clips and other TV memorabilia, ventured into the all-digital online world. Tapes would stretch and snap no more but here, entire collections could be wiped out in an instant.

A New Beginning, New Life, New Dangers

After being reborn on YouTube as The Museum of Classic Chicago Television (MCCTv), the last sixteen years have been quite a ride. Over 80 million views later, MCCTv is a much-loved 501(c)(3) non-profit Illinois corporation but in just 48 hours, may simply cease to exist.

 

In a series of emails starting Friday and continuing over the weekend, Klein began by explaining his team’s predicament, one that TorrentFreak has heard time and again over the past few years. Acting on behalf of a copyright owner, in this case Sony, India-based anti-piracy company Markscan hit the MCCTv channel with a flurry of copyright claims. If these cannot be resolved, the entire project may disappear.

Time Running Out

Issuing copyright notices is core work for many anti-piracy companies. The problem for Klein and many others before him is that while YouTube suggests that disputes can be discussed with Markscan, an abundance of online reports beg to differ.

 

No matter whether takedowns are justified, unjustified (Markscan hit Sony’s own website with a DMCA takedown recently), or simply disputed, getting Markscan’s attention is a lottery at best, impossible at worst. In MCCTv’s short experience, nothing has changed.

 

“Our YouTube channel with 150k subscribers is in danger of being terminated by September 6th if I don’t find a way to resolve these copyright claims that Markscan made,” Klein told TorrentFreak on Friday.

 

“At this point, I don’t even care if they were issued under authorization by Sony or not – I just need to reach a live human being to try to resolve this without copyright strikes. I am willing to remove the material manually to get the strikes reversed.”

Complaints Targeted TV Shows 40 to 60 years old

Over the weekend Klein shared details of the copyright complaints filed with YouTube. Two of the claims can be seen in the image below and on first view, appear straightforward enough.

 

Two episodes of the TV series Bewitched dated 1964 aired on ABC Network and almost sixty years later, archive copies of those transmissions were removed from YouTube for violating Sony copyrights, with MCCTv receiving a strike.

 

 

A claim targeting an upload titled Bewitched – ‘Twitch or Treat’ – WPWR Channel 60 (Complete Broadcast, 8/6/1984) follows the same pattern, but what isn’t shown are the details added by MCCTv to place the episode (and the included commercials) in historical context.

 

(S0307, originally aired over the ABC Network, and therefore in Chicago via then-WBKB Channel 7, on October 27th 1966) as seen via a slightly worn copy on WPWR Channel 60. This episode featured legendary San Francisco Giants center fielder Willie Mays, a.k.a. ‘The Say Hey Kid,’ as himself.

 

Includes: Station ID (voiceover by Neal Sabin)
Show opening titles (1966 copyright – this was Bewitched’s first season in colour)
Commercial: Crispy Wheats ‘n Raisins
Episode Act I
Commercials for: DeVry Institute of Technology

 

Another takedown target – Bewitched – ‘Sam in the Moon’ (Complete 16mm Network Print, 1/5/1967) is accompanied by even more detail, including references in the episode to then-current events.

 

In this installment, Samantha and Endora have traveled to Tokyo, and when Darrin asks where they’d been, Sam tells him shed been to the moon – and Darrin believes her.

 

(Historical Note related to the moonshot race: This was broadcast 22 days prior to the fire on board Apollo 1 that killed astronauts Gus Grissom, Edward White and Roger Chaffee)

 

Given that copyright law locks content down for decades, Klein understands that can sometimes cause issues, although 16 years on YouTube suggests that the overwhelming majority of rightsholders don’t consider his channel a threat. If they did, the option to monetize the recordings can be an option.

No Competition For Commercial Offers

Why most rightsholders have left MCCTv alone is hard to say; perhaps some see the historical value of the channel, maybe others don’t know it exists. At least in part, Klein believes the low quality of the videos could be significant.

 

“These were relatively low picture quality broadcast examples from various channels from various years at least 30-40 years ago, with the original commercial breaks intact. Also mixed in with these were examples of ’16mm network prints’ which are surviving original film prints that were sent out to TV stations back in the day from when the show originally aired. In many cases they include original sponsorship notices, original network commercials, ‘In colour’ notices, etc.,” he explains.

 

These oddities, none of which would ever find their way into a commercial product, are historically significant; where else can viewers soak up the past while relieving soaking their face with the Clairol Skin Machine?

 

 

Unavailable elsewhere, these moments transform old TV broadcasts into entertaining history lessons, and Klein says that’s what people love about the channel.

 

“Watching vintage broadcasts or network film prints with commercials is the closest we can get to time-travelling through a TV or computer screen. Here is an actual recording, made in real time, at a specific moment in time, in a particular city, in the past – and you get to peek in through your time portal. That’s the appeal,” he says.

An Opportunity to Put Things Right

Klein says MCCTv certainly doesn’t set out to hurt copyright holders. However, there’s always a balance between preserving “rare pieces of video ephemera” and the likelihood that nobody needs to enforce any rights, versus unusual circumstances like these where unexpected complaints need to be resolved with impossible-to-reach parties.

 

Klein says the team is happy to comply with Sony’s wishes and they hope that given a little leeway, the project won’t be consigned to history. Perhaps Sony will recall the importance of time-shifting while understanding that time itself is running out for The Museum of Classic Chicago Television.

 

Under the current DMCA legislation, US-based Internet services are expected to remove infringing links, if a copyright holder complains.

 

This process shields these services from direct liability. In recent years there has been a lot of discussion about the effectiveness of the system but it remains standard practice.

 

Google has always maintained that the DMCA works well. However, faced with critique from rightsholders, the company has taken a variety of extra anti-piracy measures across numerous services while pointing out that copyright holders have a key role to play.

Google’s View on Piracy

A few days ago, Google reiterated this stance. In a response to the US Patent and Trademark Office’s (USPTO) inquiry about future anti-piracy strategies and policies, Google stresses that the availability of legal content is key.

 

“For over two decades, we have observed that unmet consumer demand is a key driver of piracy. If demand is unmet by legitimate supply, users will seek pirated content. That is why one of the best ways to combat piracy is to provide better, more convenient, and legitimate alternatives,” Google writes.

 

With YouTube Music and YouTube TV, Google helps out on the supply side. At the same time, the company also tweaked its search engine to steer people away from piracy.

 

Like all other online service providers, Google processes DMCA takedown notices. When copyright holders find a link to pirated content in Google’s results they can report the URL, asking for it to be removed. This happened seven billion times over the past decade.

Preemptive Takedowns

This doesn’t mean that Google actually removed that many URLs from its search index. As reported before, Google also supports ‘preemptive‘ takedowns, which means that it will block reported URLs before they are indexed by the search engine.

 

These preemptive takedowns ensure that rightsholders can report content before Google picks it up. This isn’t required by the DMCA, but rightsholders use this feature en masse.

 

In the USPTO letter Google reveals that in 2022, more than 40% of the takedowns submitted via the web form were for content that hadn’t yet been indexed.

 

“Search accepts notices for web pages that are not even in our index at the time of submission. Nevertheless, we will proactively block such web pages from appearing in our Search results and will apply these notices to our demotion signal.

 

“In 2022, more than 40% of the over 680 million URLs we received via our web form were not in our Search index and therefore, have never appeared in our Search results,” the letter reads.

Pre-Piracy Removals

This percentage, which isn’t reported in Google’s transparency report, shows that ‘preemptive’ takedowns are quite popular. Interestingly, the search engine goes a step further, as it also accepts takedown notices for piracy that hasn’t happened yet.

 

For popular live-streaming broadcasts, such as the Super Bowl, UFC events, and World Cup football matches, pirates often generate websites in advance to announce their unauthorized streams. Copyright holders can now take these offline before a stream starts.

 

“Rightsholders are able to pre-notify us of web pages that advertise they will illegally stream a live event in the future,” Google writes.

 

Demoting Pirate Sites

All the copyrighted URLs that rightsholders report are added to a scorecard. Sites that are often targeted are actively demoted in search results, making these less visible to the public at large. According to Google, this works well.

 

“Our experience shows that demoted sites lose an average of 89% of their clicks from Search. In addition to these efforts, we have made it much harder for sites to evade demotion by redirecting people to a new domain,” Google writes.

 

The full letter also includes other steps that the company has taken to address piracy. While not explicitly mentioned, Google appears pleased with how things are right now and doesn’t have any concrete anti-piracy proposals for the future.

 

That said, Google stresses that it is committed to investing in new tools and processes to combat the ever-evolving piracy challenge.

 

—

 

A copy of Google’s full letter to the US Patent and Trademark Office is available here (pdf)

 

While BitTorrent client functionality hasn’t fundamentally changed over the past 20 years, developers of leading clients haven’t let their software stagnate.

 

A good example is the excellent qBittorrent, a feature-rich open source client which still receives regular updates. In common with similar clients, qBittorent can be found on GitHub along with its source and installation instructions.

 

Elsewhere on the same platform, users were recently trying to work out how a standard qBittorrent install suddenly led to the appearance of unwanted cryptocurrency mining software on the same machine.

Proxmox and LXC

For those unfamiliar with Proxmox VE, it’s an environment for virtual machines that once tried becomes very useful, extremely quickly. It’s also free for mere mortals and in most circumstances, very easy to install and get up and running.

 

 

With help from various Proxmox ‘helper scripts’ offered by tteck on GitHub (small sample to the right), even beginners can install any of dozens of available software packages in a matter of seconds using LXC containers.

 

Even if none of that makes sense, it doesn’t matter. Those who want qBittorrent installed, for example, can copy and paste a single line of text into Proxmox…and that’s it. Given that the whole process is almost always flawless, user issues are very rare, so to hear of a possible malware infection came as a real shock recently

Cryptominer Discovery

In summary, a Proxmox user deployed a tteck script to install qBittorrent and then a month later found his machine being worked hard by cryptomining software known as xmrig. While he investigated the problem, tteck removed the qBittorrent LXC script as a basic precaution, but it soon became clear that neither Proxmox or tteck’s script had anything to do with the problem.

 

The unwelcome software was indeed installed maliciously, but due to a series of avoidable events, rather than a genius hack.

 

When a qBittorrent installation like this completes and the software is launched, access to qBittorent takes place through a web interface accessible from most web browsers. By default, qBittorrent uses port 8080 and since many users like to access their torrent clients from remote networks, qBittorrent uses UPnP (Universal Plug and Play) to automate port forwarding, thereby exposing the web interface to the internet.

 

 

Having this working in record time is all very nice, but that doesn’t mean it’s safe. To ensure that only the operator of the client can access the web interface, qBittorrent allows the user to configure a username and a password for authentication purposes.

 

This generally means that random passers-by will need to possess these credentials before being able to do damage. In this case, the default admin username and password were not changed and that allowed an attacker to easily access the web interface.

Attacker Told qBittorrent to Run an External Program

To allow users to automate various tasks related to downloading and organizing their files, qBittorrent has a feature that can automatically run an external program when a torrent is added and/or when a torrent is finished.

 

The options here are limited only by the imagination and skill of the user but unfortunately the same applies to any attacker with access to the client’s web interface.

 

 

In this case the attacker told the qBittorrent client to run a basic script on completion of a torrent. The script accessed the domain http://cdnsrv.in from where it downloaded a file called update.sh and then ran it. The consequences of that are explained in detail by tteck, but the main points are a) unauthorized cryptomining on the host machine and b) the attacker maintaining root access via SSH key authentication.

Easily Avoided

The default admin username for qBittorrent is ‘admin’ while the default password is ‘adminadmin’. Had these common-knowledge defaults been changed following install, the attacker would still have found the web interface but would’ve had no useful credentials for conventional access.

 

More fundamentally, possession of the correct credentials would’ve had limited value if the qBittorrent client hadn’t used UPnP to expose the web interface in the first place. Taking another step back, if UPnP hadn’t been enabled in the user’s router, qBittorrent would’ve had no access to UPnP, and wouldn’t have been able to forward ports or expose the interface to the internet.

 

In summary: disable UPnP in the router and only enable it once its function is fully understood and when absolutely necessary. Never leave default passwords unchanged, and if something doesn’t need to be exposed to the internet, don’t expose it unnecessarily.

 

Finally, it’s worth mentioning that tteck‘s response, to a problem that had nothing to do with Proxmox or his scripts, has been first class. Anyone installing the qBittorrent LXC from here will find the default admin password changed and UPnP disabled automatically.

 

Any time saved can be spent on automated installs of Plex, Tautulli, Emby, Jellyfin, Jellyseerr, Overseerr, Navidrome, Bazarr, Lidarr, Prowlarr, Radarr, Readarr, Sonarr, Tdarr, Whisparr, and many, many more.

 

Proxmox: An Open Source Type 1 Hypervisor

The sudden closure of torrent site RARBG three months ago will be remembered as one of the most significant since the invention of the protocol, and despite competition from a laundry list of candidates.

 

Operating a large public torrent site for 15 years is a considerable feat. Doing so in an incredibly hostile environment, as one of the world’s most recognizable ‘pirate’ brands, is certainly unusual. Doing so with virtually no downtime and without any assistance (or protection) from Cloudflare is absolutely unprecedented.

 

RARBG made everything look effortless. Then just like that, RARBG was gone. For reasons highlighted earlier, a site like RARBG isn’t easily replaced. The combination of content, stability, reliability, branding, and visibility was rare in a public site, and trying to replicate the formula would require motivation and the secret sauce that somehow kept RARBG online.

90 Days Later

Just over 90 days have passed since RARBG disappeared, a short lifetime in the online piracy world. The hole RARBG left behind in the public ecosystem may not ever be fully repaired, but traffic blackholes are much more quickly and readily consumed.

 

Over the past three months nearly all major torrent sites offering the same types of content as RARBG have seen impressive gains. Sites targeting different regions, and/or carrying content not previously offered by RARBG, have shown no obvious shifts in traffic.

 

With no surprise newcomers to the public torrent site scene, it’s likely that many of the leading sites now enjoy an increased market share (SimilarWeb data).

 

 

RARBG shut down on the last day of May so traffic data for that month (blue) is not distorted in any meaningful way and can be compared to traffic generated by the other sites in the same period. As the chart shows, RARBG’s traffic fell off the edge of a cliff in the two months that followed (June/red, July/yellow), with the other sites all showing gains.

Sample Facts and Figures

An interesting observation is that despite widespread reporting of RARBG’s shutdown, in July the domain still received an impressive 4.6m visits. It would’ve been trivial to place a few ads on the page to make some easy pocket money but for their own reasons, the site’s operators haven’t done that.

 

In overall visitor numbers, YTS has obviously done very well. Before RARBG’s shutdown in May, YTS was receiving around 86.7m visits per month. At the end of July, that already impressive figure had increased to 102.3m, which may be one of the highest totals ever achieved by a torrent site in a single month.

 

Between May and July, torrent site 1337x also picked up significant traffic; around 16m more visits in July than May according to SimilarWeb. The Pirate Bay enjoyed a smaller boost, around 4 million extra by July, but one site in particular seems to have really struck gold.

 

According to SimilarWeb, TorrentGalaxy received around 18 million visits in May. The next month that had risen to 34.8m but in July, the number of visits reached 40 million, just a million or so fewer visits than RARBG enjoyed in May before it shut down.

 

While the loss of RARBG is more than just traffic, it’s safe to conclude that supply easily kept up with demand in the face of an unexpected crisis.

 

Two years ago, Spanish-born movie tycoon Carlos Vasallo sued YouTube at a Florida federal court over various piracy-related claims.

 

The actor and producer owns the rights to the world’s largest collection of Mexican and Latin American movies, many of which are illegally shared on YouTube.

 

The lawsuit accused YouTube of not doing enough to stop people from uploading pirated copies of Vasallo’s content. Those allegations aren’t new, but the movie tycoon also said that YouTube would not allow him to join the Content ID copyright protection program unless he agreed to specific terms, including a revenue share agreement.

 

Vasallo refused these terms and chose to send standard DMCA notices instead. YouTube processed them, as it should, but the movie tycoon complained that this did little to stop pirates. New copies were constantly uploaded and banned users reportedly returned under new aliases.

Motions of Summary Judgment

YouTube and Google vehemently disagreed with the copyright infringement allegations and filed a motion to dismiss. This was partially successful as the Florida federal court dropped the antitrust claims, but the infringement allegations remained.

 

As the case progressed, both parties submitted motions for summary judgment, which were filed under seal.

 

The movie tycoon claimed that since YouTube only took down reported videos but failed to use its piracy filtering technology to find and voluntarily remove similar videos, the platform could be held liable for direct and secondary copyright infringement.

 

YouTube also submitted a motion for summary judgment to establish that it does nothing wrong. According to the company, the DMCA doesn’t require platforms to proactively monitor uploads. Also, the movie tycoon failed to provide any evidence that YouTube was aware of ‘non reported’ infringing videos.

 

Both motions for summary judgment eventually landed on the desk of Magistrate Judge Edwin Torres. In a detailed report and recommendations, the Judge sided with YouTube concluding that, since the movie tycoon has no triable case, the lawsuit should be closed.

YouTube Defeats Piracy Accusations

This week, U.S. District Court Judge Darrin Gayles issued a final order in the case. After reviewing all available evidence, including the movie tycoon’s objections to the report and recommendations, the Judge decided to grant YouTube’s motion for summary judgment.

 

“The Court agrees with Judge Torres’ well-reasoned analysis and conclusion that Plaintiff’s Motion for Partial Summary Judgment be denied, and Defendants’ Motion for Summary Judgment be granted,” Judge Gayles writes.

 

 

The final judgment is an important win for YouTube. It essentially confirms that the processes and policies used by the company are in accordance with the law.

 

Under the DMCA, platforms such as YouTube are required to respond to takedown requests. In this case, there is little doubt that the video platform did just that. However, the movie tycoon argued that it should have used its piracy filtering technology to proactively find similar videos and remove those as well.

 

The court, however, concluded that YouTube is not required to do so. The DMCA makes it clear that online platforms have to respond to takedown notices, but piracy filters are not mandatory.

Protected by the DMCA’s Safe Harbor

No matter how the movie tycoon presented his case, he eventually ran “headlong against a brick wall erected by the DMCA,” Judge Torres wrote in his recommendations. The DMCA simply doesn’t require YouTube to remove content that isn’t specifically identified.

 

In addition, the court found no evidence that YouTube or its employees were aware of any non-reported infringing activity. Neither does anything suggest that YouTube could control the infringing activity it wasn’t aware of, or that it specifically profited from the alleged infringements.

 

District Court Judge Gayles agrees with these conclusions. By granting YouTube and Google’s motion for summary judgment, the court establishes that the video platform is protected by the DMCA’s safe harbor. At the same time, the movie tycoon’s motion for summary judgment is denied.

 

This is a key victory for YouTube. Not only does it confirm that YouTube acts completely in accordance with the law, but it also saves the company from potential statutory damages that could add up to more than $100 million.

 

—

 

A copy of U.S. District Court Judge Darrin Gayles’ order, adopting the report and recommendation issued by Magistrate Judge Edwin Torres, is available here (pdf)

 

To address counterfeiting and piracy, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) invited submissions from the private sector detailing effective anti-piracy strategies and those envisioned for the future.

 

In advance of a roundtable scheduled for October 3, submissions from rightsholders and their representatives have called for pirate site blocking in the United States and amendments to the DMCA that would allow for instant blocking of pirate streams.

Big Coalition

The International Intellectual Property Alliance is a coalition of already powerful trade associations, including the Motion Picture Association, Recording Industry Association of America, Entertainment Software Association, Independent Film & Television Alliance, and the Association of American Publishers. IIPA aims to improve copyright protection and enforcement in overseas markets with high levels of piracy.

 

The IIPA’s submission begins by painting a picture of creativity and productivity in the United States versus an “entrenchment of infringing services” in foreign markets. IIPA says that online piracy harms the creative industries in the United States, causes hardships for U.S. creators, undermines exports of legal content, which in turn impacts returning revenue.

 

The coalition cites numerous studies dating back to 2013 that have concluded, to a greater or lesser extent, that piracy reduces legitimate sales. The numbers are huge; over $29 billion in lost revenue for movies and TV shows alone each year, plus the loss of up to 560,000 jobs.

 

While the first figure is straight from a Hollywood study and the second could also be ‘just’ half of that, the numbers are still big. The main point is that IIPA members are huge contributors to the United States and in order for that to continue and grow, significant changes are required at the international level.

‘Notorious Markets’ Should Be Dismantled

Each year the United States Trade Representative receives submissions from rightsholders that detail overseas sites and services causing significant problems for rightsholders. After consideration, the USTR produces a ‘notorious markets’ report which lists the piracy platforms and attributes them to specific countries.

 

The general idea is for those countries to recognize how relations with the United States might improve if those platforms were no longer in business, and then act accordingly. ‘Notorious markets’ have been taken down over the years but the IIPA sounds keen to see additional positive action, especially when criminal syndicates are involved.

 

“There have been many successes with the closure of Internet sites and services identified as notorious markets by USTR. IIPA’s long-standing recommendation is that USTR should urge trading partners either to convert sites and services to licensed disseminators of works and recordings, or these notorious markets should be taken down followed by, where appropriate, criminal enforcement actions,” IIPA writes.

Create an Effective Legal Framework

This request is supported by significant detail on what the IIPA would like to see changed, but isn’t explicit on the problem it needs to mitigate or why it can’t be handled under existing law. Where the issue is being encountered is loosely linked to cyberlocker-type sites based in Russia, but the problem is clearly more widespread.

 

Taking the section as a whole, it appears that copyright enforcement measures are frustrated when pirate sites and/or their service providers present as being in compliance with the law and keep up the charade to stay in business.

 

“Some services, including some clearly pirate services, attempt to rely on notice and takedown procedures to avoid proper copyright licensing,” IIPA notes. “Clear primary and secondary liability rules are necessary to discourage abuses and to avoid inaction or license evasion.”

 

What the IIPA seems to want are acknowledged bright lines on conduct that remove any ability to claim compliance when services are obviously infringing, sometimes criminally so. In turn, this would allow rightsholders to lean on intermediaries with a credible discussion on secondary liability, thus gaining their voluntary cooperation – or else.

 

The goal is a legal framework that: (i) prevents the operation of services that promote or otherwise induce infringement; (ii) criminalizes online infringement (particularly all ‘commercial scale’ piracy, in line with best practices); and (iii) provides strong incentives for neutral intermediaries to work with rights holders to curb the use of their proprietary networks and services for infringing purposes

 

Within the framework, IIPA’s members would have their exclusive rights respected, including those that relate to technical protection measures. As for internet service providers, bright lines should govern their behavior too.

ISP Liability Limitations….Should Be Limited

According to the submission, the proposed legal framework should ensure that ISP liability limitations (if there are any at all) should not “reduce the scope of substantive copyright protections” and should only be available to ISPs that meet eligibility criteria.

 

For example, upon an ISP “obtaining knowledge or awareness” of infringing activity, the allegedly-infringing content should be removed “expeditiously” before the ISP takes further action using “measures demonstrated effective” to prevent or restrain further infringement. That sounds not dissimilar to current understanding of the law in many developed countries, with the filtering requirements of the EU’s Article 17 bolted on top.

 

Within the framework, IIPA says that governments should recognize online piracy as a form of cybercrime, foster cooperation among all industry stakeholders (including ISPs) in the online supply chain, and if there are any impediments to collaboration, remove them.

 

“[G]overnments should encourage private sector agreements, especially those that provide enforcement rights, to properly reflect the needs of industry stakeholders, and that any remedies outside of a legal framework are available to all copyright owners,” the submission reads.

 

“In addition, governments should require marketplaces and encourage all relevant intermediaries to implement ‘know your business customers’ (KYBC) policies to ensure they keep up to date and accurate information about their customers and to allow rights holders to obtain accurate information to protect their rights against direct infringers.”

ICANN and Cloudflare (probably)

Difficulties linking domain names to individuals have persisted for several years. The IIPA’s submission places the blame at the feet of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). The coalition makes no suggestions on what should be done but its statements leave no real doubt.

 

The lack of meaningful access to accurate domain registrant data occurs because of ICANN’s “failure to meaningfully enforce a requirement for accurate registrant data collection, (ii) ICANN’s failure to implement approved policies concerning privacy/proxy services, and (iii) ICANN’s overinterpretation of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which has almost entirely shut down access to registrant WHOIS data.”

 

Despite being a coalition interested in reducing infringement overseas, IIPA’s submission finds itself referencing a problem that is overwhelmingly seen in the United States and has already been mentioned in several anti-piracy reports; reverse proxy services and the layer of anonymity they provide.

 

IIPA doesn’t mention Cloudflare by name but on the basis that most significant pirate sites do indeed use Cloudflare, it’s safe to assume we’re talking about the American company with the same name. In any event, IIPA is calling for the U.S. government to get involved.

 

“While reverse proxy services serve a legitimate purpose, many pirate sites utilize reverse proxy services to hide true hosting information and to transmit large files faster. Such uses make enforcement against these sites extremely challenging. IIPA requests that the U.S. government include reverse proxy services in its efforts to address this widespread, systemic problem and to stop the misuse of such services.”

 

The IIPA’s submission is available here (pdf)