Over the years, copyright holders have tried a multitude of measures to curb online piracy, with varying levels of success.

 

Site blocking has emerged as one of the preferred solutions. While blocking measures are not perfect, they can pose a large enough hurdle for casual pirates to choose legal options instead.

Argentinian Blocklist Expanded

Blocking measures have spread around the world in recent years and have now arrived in Argentina. After filing a complaint last year, local anti-piracy group Alianza is now celebrating a big win after local ISPs were instructed to block 30 pirate streaming sites.

 

The order was handed down by the National Court of First Instance in Federal Civil and Commercial Matters in Buenos Aires. The case was filed by the local offices of DirecTV and Spanish football league La Liga, among others, who received support from Alianza.

 

National telecommunications body ENACOM instructed local Internet providers to block the 30 domain names. These include TV streaming services such as televisionlibre.net and cablegratis.online, plus sports streaming sites such as futbollibre.net and pirlotv.uk.

 

Several of the targeted pirate streaming portals have (or had) millions of monthly visitors.

 

Alianza informs TorrentFreak that the order sets a dynamic blocking precedent in Argentina. This means that ISPs can also be required to block mirror sites and new domains these streaming portals may switch to in future.

Much-Needed Dynamic Blocking Order

Alianza executive director Víctor Roldán notes that dynamic blocking orders are more effective than simply seizing or blocking single domain names.

 

“According to our research, many of these sites continue to operate through mirrors. That is the reason why we prefer to obtain judicial and administrative measures that can be extended to other websites and URLs, instead of the methods that other associations use,” Roldán says.

 

The ability to update the blocklist is a much-needed feature since many of the domains targeted by the Argentinian order are already outdated. For example, ACE previously shut down USTVGO and seized the domains of futbollibre.net and televisionlibre.net.

 

The blocklist also features extremotvplay.com and rojadirectatv.tv, which were taken down by the U.S. Government last December, as well as several domain names that are no longer active at the time of writing.

Silver Bullet?

Alianza says that it’s aware of these issues and will try to target mirror sites when they become available. The group is right to note that the dynamic nature of the order makes it more effective than a single-domain seizure. However, there are downsides to site blocking as well.

 

Unlike domain name seizures, which have a global effect, site blocking is relatively easy to bypass by switching DNS resolvers or using other circumvention tools.

 

That said, site-blocking orders are certainly better than doing nothing. According to Roldán, the first surveys from anti-piracy outfit NAGRA suggest that the measures are already having an effect.

 

“Judicial orders are always effective in our experience. We monitor the blocking effects through Nagra and the survey results we received thus far were very promising,” Alianza’s director tells us.

 

—

 

The list of blocked domain names that are included in the original court order (pdf) reads as follows.

 

1) futbollibre.net
2) televisionlibre.net
3) supertelevisionhd.net
4) rojadirectatv.tv
5) ver-television.online
6) photocall.tv
7) futboltv.online
8 ) cablegratis.online
9) telefullenvivo .com
10) extremotvplay.com
11) televisiongratishd.com
12) cablegratistv.online
13) lateleenvivo.club
14) chiringuitotv.online
15) tvconexion.com
16) futboltvenvivo.com
17) tarjetarojatv online.sx
18) supertelevisionhd.com
19) pirlotvonline.org
20) lacasadeltikitakatv.net
21) telebunker.com
22) televisiongratisen vivo.com
23) futbolparatodos.net
24) rojadirectatv.pro
25) ustvgo.tv
26) pirlotvonline.info
27) xtremostereo.net
28) pirlotv.uk
29) pirlotv.futbol
30) teleriumtv.me

 

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. “Knock at the Cabin” is the most downloaded title.

The most torrented movies for the week ending on February 27 are:

Movie Rank	Rank last week	Movie name	IMDb Rating / Trailer
Most downloaded movies via torrent sites
1	(…)	Knock at the Cabin	6.2 / trailer
2	(…)	The Whale	7.8 / trailer
3	(1)	Black Panther: Wakanda Forever	7.0 / trailer
4	(4)	Puss in Boots: The Last Wish	7.8 / trailer
5	(2)	Sharper	6.6 / trailer
6	(3)	Plane	6.6 / trailer
7	(6)	Babylon	7.4 / trailer
8	(7)	M3GAN	6.5 / trailer
9	(7)	Avatar: The Way of Water	8.1 / trailer
10	(8	Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania	6.6 / trailer

 

 

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

 

When an opponent fails to defend themselves in an ordinary fight, things tend to be over pretty quickly. The same isn’t true for copyright lawsuits.

 

In early October 2021, MG Premium – a subsidiary of adult entertainment giant MindGeek – filed a copyright complaint at a district court in Washington. It targeted Daftsex.com, an adult ‘tube’ site offering MG-owned videos from the Brazzers and Digital Playground series, among others, to dozens of millions of users every month – for free.

 

Daftsex had little chance of winning in court and completely ignored the lawsuit. It still took more than a year to conclude but with a damages award of $32 million and a broad injunction that included domain seizures, MG Premium prevailed in the end. In reality, however, very little had changed.

Domain Seizures Immediately Countered

Verisign was ordered to sign several domains over to MG Premium, including Daftsex.com, Artsporn.com, Daxab.com, and Biqle.com. Daftsex responded by switching to new domains – Daft.sex, Dsex.to, biqle.ru and biqle.org. The site took a traffic hit but managed to stay online.

 

Meanwhile, MG Premium redirected its newly acquired domains (and millions of former Daftsex users) to MindGeek-owned RedTube. Despite an external move to undermine domain transfers, the opportunity to convert pirates into paying customers would’ve been useful.

 

Unfortunately, further opportunities quickly dried up. Seized domain Daftsex.com received more than 41 million visits in November 2022. A month later, traffic plummeted to 6.5 million. According to SimilarWeb data, in January 2023, just three months after MindGeek took control, the domain received just two million visits.

 

In parallel, Daftsex continued to rebuild its traffic on new domains. In January 2023, Daft.sex received 22.7m visits and Dsex.to 5.7 million. In the background, MG Premium renewed its legal efforts to take the site down.

Contempt of Court

In December 2022, MG Premium filed a request to reopen the case so that alleged Daftsex owner Vasily Kharchenko held in contempt of court (1). Declarations in support were filed by Jason Tucker of anti-piracy company Battleship Stance, and MG Premium’s Anti-Piracy Strategy Manager, Steven Salway, a former Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit detective (1,2)

 

In addition to the court holding Kharchenko in contempt, MG Premium requested permission to take over the new Daftsex domains – Daft.sex, Dsex.to, and Biqle.org. Since Daftsex is using a Twitter account to communicate with its user community, MG Premium wants the court to issue an order compelling Twitter to shut down the account or transfer it to MG Premium.

 

As things stand today, none of those things have happened and Daftsex just keeps on growing. That doesn’t mean that MG Premium is simply letting it happen though.

DMCA Takedown Campaign Begins

Within hours of Daftsex announcing its new domains last November, MG Premium began sending DMCA notices to Google, hoping to make daft.sex, dsex.to, and biqle.org less visible in search results.

 

That went on to become what is almost certainly the largest and most intense DMCA notice-sending campaign by a copyright holder against a single site since the DMCA was introduced in 1998.

 

The first DMCA notices targeting daft.sex and dsex.to were sent to Google on November 14 and 21, respectively. In the first week, Google recorded takedown requests for 937,952 Daft.sex URLs and 941,424 URLs belonging to Dsex.to, but that was just a taster of things to come.

Largest Ever Copyright Holder Campaign Against Single Site

According to Google data – an entry dated January 9, 2023, covering a single week – Google received DMCA notices requesting the removal of 4,686,019 Dsex.to URLs. An entry dated January 16, again covering a single week, states that Google received DMCA notices requesting 5,025,742 Daft.sex URLs to be taken down.

 

Data shown in Google’s charts lag a little behind actual notices received but between November 14, 2022 and February 20, 2023, Google received ~11,000 individual requests from MG Premium targeting daft.sex.

 

Total daft.sex URLs requested for removal until March 3, 2023: ~45.6 million.

 

Between November 21, 2022 and February 20, 2023, Google received around ~11,000 individual requests from MG Premium targeting dsex.to.

 

Total dsex.to URLs requested for removal until March 3, 2023: ~45.6 million

 

URLs requested for removal overall (both domains combined): 91+ million

 

To put these figures into perspective, the number of URLs requested for deletion against The Pirate Bay’s .org domain currently sits at 6,008,980 – after being targeted since 2012.

Majority of Notices Had No Immediate Effect

Since Google reports what action it takes after receiving a DMCA takedown notice, we can see that the vast majority of these notices failed to have any immediate effect.

 

When considering all MG Premium notices sent to Google, targeting both daft.sex and dsex.to URLs, close to 80% were reported by Google as ‘not in index’, meaning that the reported URLs were absent from Google’s search so couldn’t be removed.

 

That raises the obvious question of why so many URLs reported by MG Premium as infringing were unrecognized by Google.

 

TorrentFreak requested comment from MG Premium on Saturday evening but received no response, most likely due to the timing.

 

We’ll publish an update if we receive a response, but we suspect that other factors could be at play here that only MG Premium will be able to properly explain.

 

Last fall, several of the world’s largest music companies including Warner Bros. and Sony Music prevailed in their lawsuit against Internet provider Grande Communications.

 

The record labels accused the Astound-owned ISP of not doing enough to stop pirating subscribers. Specifically, they alleged that the company failed to terminate repeat infringers.

 

The trial took more than two weeks to complete and ended in a resounding victory for the labels. The Texan federal jury ruled that Grande is guilty of willful contributory copyright infringement and must pay the record labels $47 million in damages.

 

U.S. District Court Judge David Ezra confirmed the judgment on January 31st, as can be seen below, but that doesn’t mean that Grande has given up the fight. Recent court filings show that the company is exploring several options to contest the decision.

Judge or New Jury

On February 27, Grande filed a renewed motion for judgment as a matter of law. Put simply, Grande wants the Judge to overrule the jury, which can happen if the evidence clearly weighs in favor of the requesting party, but when a jury found otherwise.

 

Grande hopes to find the court on its side and lists a variety of shortcomings in the presented evidence, casting doubt over the jury’s conclusion.

 

According to the ISP, the record labels failed to provide sufficient evidence to show that its subscribers committed copyright infringement. For example, there were no copies of the 1,403 original copyrighted works to compare against the alleged pirate copies, and it’s unclear if the infringers were actually Grande subscribers, instead of unauthorized network users.

 

The music companies also failed to show that Grande was “wilfully blind” to the alleged infringement, the filing argues. Tracking company Rightscorp sent many thousands of piracy notices but the ISP says it wasn’t convinced that the warnings were legitimate.

 

“At trial, the only evidence of actual knowledge was the collection of emails Rightscorp sent to Grande accusing certain Grande IP addresses of being the source of infringing activity,” Grande writes.

 

“This was legally insufficient because Plaintiffs presented no evidence that Grande could actually verify the accuracy of Rightscorp’s accusations. In fact, the evidence conclusively established that Grande had no way of knowing whether Rightscorp’s accusations were true.”

Who Owns the Music?

The motion also touches on several other presumed shortcomings. For example, the ISP says there was insufficient evidence to show that the music companies own each of the 1,403 sound recordings at the center of the lawsuit.

 

Leading up to the trial, the record labels requested summary judgment that could have decided the question of ownership, but the request was denied. The court later stated that it already ruled on ownership but Grande believes that was an error.

 

“At trial, there was no evidence from which a jury could reasonably conclude that Plaintiffs own the copyrights to the 1,403 sound recordings at issue,” Grande writes.

What’s Next?

All in all, the ISP believes that since several pieces of evidence are legally insufficient, that warrants a directed judgment. Alternatively, the trial could get a do-over if the Court agrees that the jury verdict goes against the weight of evidence or if there are other shortcomings or clear errors.

 

“For these reasons, the Court should grant JMOL in favor of Grande on Plaintiffs’ contributory infringement claim or, in the alternative, grant a new trial,” Grande writes.

 

With $47 million in damages on the line, the stakes are high. If Judge Ezra denies both requests, Grande says it will appeal the decision at the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.

 

—

 

A copy of Grande Communications’ request for a judgment as a matter of law or a new trial is available here (pdf). The notice to appeal is available here (pdf).

 

When people use search engines to find pirate sites or pirated content, the results they receive today represent a massively edited subset of what is actually out there.

 

In response to DMCA notices sent by rightsholders, billions of URLs have already been removed from Google’s search results. Every week, millions of new URLs are processed by Google and when individual domains are considered especially infringing, Google takes that as a downranking signal.

 

Rightsholders in many jurisdictions can obtain ISP blocking injunctions against substantially infringing sites but, in most cases at least, these have no direct effect on search results. Just over a year ago, everything changed.

 

As previously reported, these injunctions can now be presented to Google for recognition. The end result is voluntary deindexing, meaning that the targeted sites will completely disappear from search results for the specified region.

New Domains Switched For IP Addresses

For years pirate sites have deployed new domains to defeat ISP blocking. At least in the beginning, the tactic helped to keep the sites accessible, but switching domains today often provokes a swift response by rightsholders to have the new domains blocked.

 

New domains are also used to mitigate Google’s downranking measures, but whether that remains effective for long is doubtful. A more recent trend in some regions has seen pirate sites dump domains entirely and rely on IP addresses instead.

 

That may sound like a trip back to the Stone Age (and it is), but short-term benefits do exist.

IP Address ‘Domains’ Reappeared in Google Search

The Lithuanian Radio and Television Commission (LRTK) has responsibility for blocking actions in Lithuania. Court orders are required to block pirate sites and over the years, dozens have been blocked by ISPs in Lithuania (list.txt).

 

When pirates attempt to circumvent blocking with new domains, these are handled under an administrative process and then added to the existing ISP blocking list. Since LRTK has a court order, these are sent to Google and the referenced domains are deindexed from search results.

 

However, it appears that the administrators of more than a dozen previously blocked and deindexed sites managed to reappear in Google search.

 

“It should be noted that the domain names of the aforementioned 13 websites were removed from the Google search system earlier by the order of the LRTK, but the administrators of these websites, trying to avoid the restrictions applied to them, made it possible for users to connect to the websites using only IP addresses without domain names,” LTRK explains.

 

“[This month] Google representatives informed us that the URLs containing IP addresses reported by the Lithuanian Radio and Television Commission, that allow access to illegally publicly published copyrighted content, have been removed from the Google search system.”

 

LRTK says that it considers the removal of domain names and corresponding IP addresses from Google search “an extremely effective means of preventing access to illegally published copyrighted content.”

 

Using IP addresses instead of domain names has another potential upside too.

IP Addresses Thwart DNS Blocking

When sites use human-readable domain names, those domains need to be converted to an IP address so that sites can be accessed. That’s achieved by using the Domain Name System (DNS), which usually works extremely well.

 

However, when pirate sites are blocked by court orders or administrative processes, ISPs are required to poison DNS records so that domain names no longer resolve to the resource they’re supposed to. By doing away with domain names altogether, DNS becomes surplus to requirements. This means that poisoned records are never accessed, and DNS-only site-blocking measures are instantly defeated.

 

Due to the many downsides, direct IP address access to pirate sites seems unlikely to become the next big thing, but it is happening. One example relates to Indonesian piracy giant Indoxxi, which reportedly shut down in December 2019 but lives on through an endless supply of clones and copies.

 

Blocking is carried out by Kominfo, the government communications ministry responsible for general internet censorship in Indonesia. In 2022 it was reported that 3,500 pirate sites had been blocked by local ISPs but only in more recent months has the prospect of IP-address blocking emerged following requests from rightsholders.

 

Around 200 sites have been blocked thus far in 2023, ostensibly on copyright grounds (factors other than copyright may also be required) but no specifics related to IP address-only blocking are detailed.

 

The darker side of encouraging Indonesia to develop its blocking arsenal is that the last thing the government needs is encouragement; it already abuses internet blocking measures to silence critics and the public (pdf). More technical ability to block is almost guaranteed to be abused.

 

The Pirate Bay has had its fair share of technical issues over the past years, sometimes resulting in hours or even days of downtime.

 

When the notorious torrent site goes offline, the associated SuprBay forum usually remains online. This is helpful, as the forums have a dedicated page where outsiders can check the status of the main site.

 

More recently, the tables have been turned. At the time of writing The Pirate Bay is online but the forums are unreachable. People who try to access SuprBay get a connection timeout instead, which has been the case for several days now.

Dark Web Message

The Pirate Bay website doesn’t have any information on the issue but on the dark web, the .onion domain shows a little more information.

 

“Moe is still playing with himself, but we are slowly getting things sorted,” the brief notification reads.

Hacked

The message doesn’t reveal much but suggests that if Surpbay admin “Moe” takes action, the site will eventually make a full comeback. This is confirmed by fellow administrator Spud17, who explains that the server was compromised.

 

An outsider reportedly hacked and messed up the server but Spud17 says that user data was not compromised in the process. The main Pirate Bay site was unaffected by the whole ordeal.

 

The good news is that there are recent backups in place. This means that the forums can be brought back online with relative ease. According to the SuprBay team, that should take a week, or perhaps two.

 

The “repeat infringer” issue remains a hot topic in U.S. courts, with ongoing lawsuits against several ISPs.

 

Internet provider RCN is one of the companies targeted. In 2021, the ISP was sued by several film companies, including the makers of The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard, London Has Fallen, and Hellboy.

 

The movie companies alleged that RCN wasn’t doing enough to stop subscribers from pirating on its network. Instead of terminating the accounts of persistent pirates, the Internet provider turned a blind eye, the companies argued.

 

The stakes are high in these liability lawsuits. Internet providers face damages claims reaching hundreds of millions of dollars, while tens of thousands of Internet subscribers risk having their accounts terminated.

Redditors as Evidence

The two camps are currently in the discovery phase where they gather evidence to support their arguments. In this quest, the filmmakers stumbled upon several comments from Reddit users which they believe could be useful.

 

A few weeks ago the movie companies obtained a subpoena asking Reddit to share the personal details of these users, including IP-address logs. The filmmakers believe that the commenters can provide evidence to show that RCN didn’t have a proper repeat infringer policy, among other things.

 

Reddit was unhappy with the subpoena and characterized it as overbroad. According to Reddit’s lawyers, the subpoena was more akin to a fishing expedition than regular evidence gathering. As such, Reddit only handed over the details of one user whose comment mentioned RCN, denying other ‘less relevant’ ones, citing the users’ First Amendment right to anonymous speech.

Reddit Opposes Motion to Compel

Reddit’s rejection prompted the filmmakers to file a motion to compel. They argued that the targeted comments are relevant, proportional, and may help to back up their legal arguments in court.

 

In court this week, Reddit filed its official response. According to the discussion platform, courts have repeatedly protected people’s First Amendment right to anonymous speech.

 

If a party wants to unmask users through the court, it has to meet a stringent standard, which isn’t the case here.

 

“That standard requires the requesting party to establish that it is an ‘exceptional case’ where a ‘compelling need’ for the discovery outweighs the users’ First Amendment rights,” Reddit’s attorneys write.

 

“Plaintiffs are far from meeting that strict standard here. First, they cannot overcome the Reddit users’ First Amendment rights because the users’ posts Plaintiffs have identified as the basis for this subpoena are completely irrelevant to Plaintiffs’ lawsuit.”

Irrelevant & Unneeded

Reddit writes that the targeted posts are “completely irrelevant” to the lawsuit against RCN. In fact, four of the comments don’t even mention the provider by name, and simply refer to “my provider”.

 

Other comments are not about piracy or are too old to be relevant, including one comment published nine years ago. A summary of these irrelevancy factors is shown in the table below, which accompanied Reddit’s objection.

 

Reddit further argues that the type of information the filmmakers seek can be obtained elsewhere. If the companies want to know more about RCN’s repeat infringer policy, they could get this information from the company directly, instead of targeting anonymous third parties.

 

“Most obviously, Plaintiffs could seek discovery directly from RCN. That would be far more efficient than taking wild guesses about which Reddit users might be RCN customers or might have engaged in copyright infringement at some point in the last decade.

 

“And, more importantly, it would not involve setting aside the fundamental First Amendment rights of uninvolved third parties,” Reddit adds.

Redditor Responds

The filmmakers previously argued that the Redditors didn’t seem to have any objections, as they didn’t respond in court. However, we later learned that Reddit didn’t inform the eight remaining users until after the motion to compel was submitted.

 

TorrentFreak spoke to one of the targeted Redditors, who wasn’t aware of the filmmakers’ request until it hit the news. This person, who wants to remain anonymous for obvious reasons, expects Reddit’s opposition to be succesful.

 

“My attorney and I are both under the assumption that the court will side with Reddit, and that the motion to compel will be denied,” the Redditor says, warning that the alternative will set a dangerous precedent.

 

“Granting the motion would set a precedent, allowing other companies to do the same. That would be a huge violation of everyone’s privacy and, in my opinion, Reddit would take action and ban the piracy subreddit.”

 

Whether Reddit would take such drastic action is unknown. The company informs TorrentFreak that it is committed to protecting our users’ privacy” and that it will oppose legal requests when appropriate.

 

At the same time, history has shown that the filmmakers don’t give up easily either. They will likely counter Reddit’s arguments, so it will eventually be up to the court to decide which party is right.

 

—

 

A copy of Reddit’s opposition to the motion to compel, filed at a federal court in California, is available here (pdf)

 

In an effort to make ends meet, many people in the UK are cutting back on luxuries. Fewer nights out or perhaps none at all. Downgrading Netflix or even dumping it altogether.

 

Subscription television is even more expensive and often demands longer-term commitments people simply can’t afford. To some, cheap but illegal streaming services might prove tempting but it appears that Sky TV and police in the UK are working hard to limit supply.

Police & Sky Conduct Raids

A statement by the Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit (PIPCU) says that in partnership with Police Scotland and subscription broadcaster Sky, officers have executed a series of raids around the UK as part of an illegal streaming crackdown.

 

Officers reportedly searched four premises in London, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Stoke. Four people were arrested on “suspicion of involvement” in the illegal streaming of premium content, including channels belonging to Sky. During these operations, computer equipment, laptops and phones were also seized.

‘Disrupted’ Services / 500K Customers

Given that the names of the services have not been announced by police, it’s impossible to say what effect the raids may have had on the targeted services. That being said, the announcement itself carries enough information to cautiously assess a few things.

 

“Officers believe that the illegal streaming services disrupted by the operation had more than 500,000 customers.”

 

The word ‘believe’ obviously removes a level of certainty here and use of the word ‘disruption’ could mean that no services were actually shut down. No doubt some media reports will take the ‘500,000 customers’ comment and run with it but nowhere here does it say that 500,000 lost access to one or more services.

 

That being said, beginning around February 20/21 until around February 25/26, social media ‘chatter’ showed a significant increase in people from the UK, particularly in the Midlands and further north, complaining about IPTV services going offline.

Police Delivered Cease and Desist Notices

In addition to the four arrests, police say that more than 200 ‘cease and desist’ notices were delivered to individuals “suspected of running illegal streaming services around the country.”

 

The definitions of ‘running’ and ‘service’ aren’t made clear, but on the basis that 200 physically separate IPTV services are unlikely to exist in the UK alone, this may be a reference to people who act as resellers.

 

If that’s the case, 200 is a completely believable number, and depending on how many customers each reseller has, the number of connections at stake if the cease-and-desist notices do their job could be significant.

Organized Crime, Malware Warnings

According to Matt Hibbert, Director of Anti-Piracy at Sky, these nationwide actions “made a significant impact against individuals involved in serious organized crime.”

 

PIPCU Detective Chief Inspector Gary Robinson says that “organized criminal groups often view the distribution of illegal streaming services as a low-risk, high-reward crime,” that can “expose end users to the risks of data theft, fraud and malware.”

 

These types of statements are certainly not unusual and there’s no doubt that, depending on the contact point, IPTV subscription buyers face at least some element of risk. The problem is getting people to believe that the threats are real and not just another deterrent message that only applies to other people.

Vultures Move In

What was glaringly obvious to us during the period IPTV downtime was being reported in February, was the number of ‘people’ posting on social media offering IPTV services with a billion channels and billions of movies as a good replacement.

 

Just like the people who send bogus delivery or banking alerts by SMS, fraud is the endgame and there is no service. People can try and report them, but that rarely works out.

 

Police say that of the four arrested in February, one person has been charged in relation to intellectual property theft and three people have since been released under investigation.

 

In common with most broadly comparable countries, internet users in Denmark enjoy movies and TV shows, music, videogames, and ebooks.

 

The problem for rightsholders is that a subset of the population prefers not to pay for the privilege.

 

Local anti-piracy group Rights Alliance (Rettigheds Alliancen) mitigates all types of piracy but for the past few years, has maintained a keen focus on torrent sites.

 

Working in partnership with the Danish government’s SØIK IP-Task Force, Rights Alliance forced several sites to close down and successfully prosecuted site operators, staff members, and users who uploaded content to those sites.

 

In 2021, Rights Alliance targeted specialized servers that not only supply content to torrent sites but also play a role in boosting download times while improving security.

Seedbox Providers Appear in the Crosshairs

In basic terms, every BitTorrent user already operates a potential ‘seedbox’. A computer (box) loaded with a correctly-configured torrent client and content to upload can ‘seed’ or share content with others. However, the term ‘seedbox’ usually refers to a pre-configured remote server running a torrent client.

 

Accessed via a web interface in the user’s browser, these remote torrent clients have several advantages, including 24/7/365 uptime, high-speed connections, and depending on the provider and many other factors, varying levels of protection against rightsholders’ lawsuits.

 

In 2021, news broke that six people had been arrested in Denmark due to their alleged connections to several local torrent sites. Among them was Kasper Nielsen of internet services company HNielsen Networks, a supplier of servers under various brands that could be configured for ‘seedbox’ purposes.

 

Available information indicated that the servers had been used by an unknown number of users to share content on private torrent sites ShareUniversity, Superbits and DanishBytes.

Prosecution

Targeting the operator of a service provider, offering access to fundamentally legal servers and software, isn’t the same as targeting a user of those services who act as direct infringers. In order to hold a third party liable for someone else’s infringement, rightsholders usually need to show negligence or demonstrate that the provider or similar third party is somehow complicit.

 

In Denmark, the bar has been set fairly low. In 2015, a man was arrested for running a site that carried no pirate software but did advise users how to use piracy app Popcorn Time. The case went all the way to the Supreme Court, and the man ultimately received a six-month conditional sentence for contributory infringement.

 

When Rights Alliance filed its criminal complaint against HNielsen Networks, the anti-piracy group referenced the landmark Filmspeler case which involved the sale of piracy-configured media players.

Seedbox Seller Sentenced

According to statements published by Rights Alliance and NSK (Særlig Kriminalitet) Denmark’s Special Crime Unit, Nielsen was convicted yesterday for selling seedboxes in the knowledge they were being used by others to share movies, TV shows, eBooks and other content, without permission from rightsholders.

 

“On February 28, the Court in Aalborg ruled against the Danish owner behind a seedbox company for, in the period November 2020 to May 2021, having sold seedboxes and server capacity to an unknown number of people, knowing that they were used for illegal sharing of no less than 3,838 copyright-protected works on the Danish and Nordic file sharing services ShareUniversity, Superbits and DanishBytes,” Rights Alliance reports.

 

Nielsen was handed a three-month conditional (suspended) sentence and a confiscation order for DKK 300,000 (around $42,600), the amount users had paid his company to access the seedbox servers. The 35-year-old must also pay compensation of DKK 298,660 to Rights Alliance.

 

“Providers of seedboxes have a responsibility to ensure that their services are not used for illegal uploading and downloading of copyrighted content, which the Rights Alliance can clearly see that they are doing,” says Maria Fredenslund, Director of Rights Alliance.

 

“Therefore, this case helps to send a signal to other providers that you cannot deliberately sell services to the illegal market.”

Defendant Did Not Contest The Case

Since court documents are yet to be published and Rights Alliance was unable to share copies with TorrentFreak, we asked Nielsen if he could provide more background detail on the case. An important detail is that Neilsen was advised by his lawyers to take a plea deal, and did so at any early stage.

 

This came to light when we requested details relating to the Rights Alliance claim that “no less than 3,838 copyright-protected works” were shared on the torrent sites. Since 3,838 is pretty specific number, how was that proven?

 

The simple answer is that when Nielsen took the plea deal, there was no need to prove anything in court. The 3,838 figure and any evidence related to ‘knowledge’ of infringement carried out by seedbox customers on the sites, were accepted as true.

 

In respect of the 3,838 titles shared on the sites, there was apparently no indication of how many clients were sharing that content, so one user per title was assumed. No data is available to confirm or deny that claim but Neilsen says that the decision yesterday renders that moot, and he’s pleased the case is all over.

 

“I am quite happy that the case is over and that I can now focus on the future for myself and my company. The sentence is what we aimed for. The financial side is naturally tedious but we’ll overcome that,” he says.

 

Over the past several years, several videogame companies have taken cheaters to court in the United States.

 

In 2021, American videogame companies Bungie and Ubisoft joined forces in a lawsuit against “Ring-1”, a developer and distributor of cheat software targeting Destiny 2, Rainbox Six Seige, and other popular titles.

 

Bungie and Ubisoft identified four defendants who allegedly ran the cheating business. Filed at a California federal court, their complaint named Andrew Thorpe (aka ‘Krypto’), Jonathan Aguedo (aka ‘Overpowered’), Wesam Mohammed (aka ‘Grizzly’), and Ahmad Mohammed as key players.

Three Settlements

Aguedo and the two Mohammeds were tracked down in the United States and eventually admitted their wrongdoing. This resulted in settlement agreements totaling $600,000 in damages.

 

Thorpe, a resident of the UK, was the only defendant who failed to respond to the allegations, despite being properly informed. In the absence of a formal defense, Bungie and Ubisoft asked the court to issue a default judgment.

 

According to the videogame companies, Mr. Thorpe was a “prominent” member of Ring-1 who, among other things, “ran” the group’s official website. This claim was corroborated by the testimony of one of the co-defendants.

 

Bungie and Ubisoft requested $2.2 million in damages, a figure that includes compensation for several claims, including copyright infringement and trafficking in circumvention devices.

 

Unrepresented defendants run the risk of evidence weighing in favor of the plaintiffs. In this case, however, U.S. District Court Judge Edward Chen took a more balanced approach.

Court Denies Default Judgement

After reviewing the arguments and evidence presented by the videogame companies, Judge Chen denied their motion for default judgment. This means that the fourth and final defendant won’t be required to pay any damages.

 

The key issue at stake is whether the California federal court has personal jurisdiction over the UK resident. Specifically, Bungie and Ubisoft were required to show that he was a key player who directed his actions at the United States.

 

In his order, Judge Chen first considers the role of the defendant, relying on the evidence provided by the game companies. This evidence failed to show that Mr. Thorpe was a prominent Ring-1 member.

 

“Mr. Thorpe is not an original developer of the software or an original participant in the Ring-1 enterprise, but only joined after Ring-1 had already attracted many users,” Judge Chen writes.

 

“His role at the Ring-1 enterprise appears to be akin to a customer service representative. For example, customers have asked him for information related to the Cheating Software such as its features, operations, and updates.”

Jurisdiction

Bungie and Ubisoft argued that the defendant’s actions were targeted at the U.S., based on the notion that the broader actions of Ring-1 can be attributed to him. That goes too far in this case, as the court fails to see him as a leader.

 

Co-defendant Mr. Agueda testified that Mr. Thorpe ran the Ring-1 website. However, Judge Chen believes that the term “run” is vague and is therefore insufficient to consider the defendant an alter ego for the entire Ring-1 group.

 

Instead, the court decided to evaluate whether Mr. Thorpe specifically directed his personal actions at the U.S., which would be sufficient to establish personal jurisdiction. Again, Judge Chen found the evidence unconvincing.

 

“First, contrary to what Plaintiffs argue, the fact that the two Plaintiffs are located in the United States does not mean that Mr. Thorpe has thereby targeted the United States,” Judge Chen writes.

 

Second, Mr. Thorpe may have assisted customers, but there is no evidence that any of those customers were based in the United States. More fundamentally, there is nothing to indicate that Mr. Thorpe reached out and solicited those customers. Rather, the evidence indicates that the customers reached out to him.

Insufficient Evidence

Judge Chen ultimately decided that there wasn’t enough evidence to conclude that Mr. Thorpe purposefully directed his activities at the United States. As such, the court doesn’t have personal jurisdiction over the UK resident.

 

That left no other option than to deny Bungie and Ubisoft’s motion for default judgment and the $2.2 million in compensation they requested.

 

“Without the requisite minimum contacts, the Court does not have specific personal jurisdiction over Thorpe pursuant to Rule 4(k)(2), and thus a default judgment is not warranted,” the order reads.

 

In a footnote, Judge Chen writes that the injunctions awarded against the other defendants – prohibiting the Ring-1 members from engaging in any infringing conduct going forward – also apply to Mr. Thorpe but notes that his court has no power to enforce compliance.

 

Whether Mr. Thorpe is still part of the operation is unknown but, despite the previous settlements, the Ring-1 continues to be online and publicly accessible to this day.

 

The ruling in this lawsuit stands in sharp contrast with the criminal conviction of Gary Bowser, who was a relatively low-level ‘salesperson’ of the Team-Xecuter ‘hacking’ group. Last year, a U.S. court sentenced the Canadian to 40 months in prison for that role.

 

—

 

A copy of U.S. District Court Judge Edward Chan’s order, denying the motion for a default judgment, is available here (pdf)

 

In September 2021, a grand jury returned a 62-count indictment charging Bill Omar Carrasquillo with crimes related to his Gears-branded IPTV services.

 

Better known online as YouTuber ‘Omi in a Hellcat,’ Carrasquillo ran an illegal internet-based television and movie streaming service using video content fraudulently obtained from cable providers.

 

From March 2016 through November 2019, Carrasquillo and his co-defendants opened fraudulent accounts with TV providers Charter Communications, Comcast, DirecTV, Frontier Corporation, and Verizon Fios.

 

These companies supplied hundreds of set-top boxes and similar equipment to multiple properties owned by Carrasquillo. At these locations, content supplied by the TV providers had its copy protection stripped before being transmitted, stored, and then retransmitted to Gears subscribers using servers and other hardware controlled by Carrasquillo and his co-defendants.

U.S. Government Attorneys Submit Sentencing Memorandum

In a sentencing memorandum submitted in a Pennsylvania federal court on Tuesday, U.S. government attorneys say the infringement amount associated with the defendants’ services had been “conservatively” calculated at $176 million.

 

“Carrasquillo personally profited from the conspiracy in an amount of $30,095,204,” the memorandum notes.

62 Count Indictment

The original indictment charged Carrasquillo with a laundry list of crimes:

 

Conspiracy to commit copyright infringement, circumvention of access controls, access device fraud, wire fraud, criminal circumvention of copyright protection measures under the DMCA, and 20 counts of criminal copyright infringement.

 

And the list continued: six counts of wire fraud, three counts of false statements to a bank, 19 counts of monetary transactions from specified unlawful activity, two counts of false statements, two counts of removal of property and, finally, four counts of tax evasion.

Carrasquillo’s Plea Agreement

Carrasquillo and the government subsequently entered into a written plea agreement, the details of which are now revealed for the first time. On February 1, 2022, Carrasquillo pled guilty to the following:

 

• 1. Conspiracy to commit felony & misdemeanor copyright infringement, circumvention of access controls, access device fraud, & wire fraud from March 2016 through November 23, 2019, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 371
• 2. Circumvention of an access control device, from March 2016 through November 23, 2019, in violation of 17 U.S.C. §§ 1201(a)(1)(A), 1204(a)(1) and 18 U.S.C. § 2
• 3. Reproduction of a protected work (felony copyright infringement via reproduction of copyrighted video works) from May 24, 2019 to November 20, 2019, in violation of 17 U.S.C. § 506(a)(1)(A) and 18 U.S.C. §§ 2319(b)(1) and 2
• 4. Public performance of a protected work (misdemeanor copyright infringement through via “streaming” of copyrighted video works) of three specific copyrighted video works between February 11, 2019, and November 20, 2019, in violation of 17 U.S.C. § 506(a)(1)(A) and 18 U.S.C. §§ 2319(b)(3) and 2 (Counts 4, 13, and 18)
• 5. Access device fraud from June 6, 2018 through June 5, 20198, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 1029(a)(2), (c)(1)(a)(i) and 2
• 6. A wire fraud scheme against the victim cable companies from March 2016 through November 23, 2019, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1343
• 7. False statements to a bank June 14, 2019, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 1014 and 2; and
• Engaging in monetary transactions derived from specified unlawful activity (money laundering) on December 20, 2018, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1957
• 9. False statement, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1001
• 10. Tax evasion, in violation of 26 U.S.C. § 7201

 

Carrasquillo agreed to forfeit $5,895,507.76 in cash seized from his bank accounts.

 

The YouTuber also agreed to forfeit more than 50 vehicles (including his infamous supercar collection), and close to 50 real properties, most with Philadelphia addresses.

 

Carrasquillo agreed to the entry of a forfeiture money judgment of all of the proceeds he received from his Gears TV empire, and to pay restitution to the victims in an amount to be ordered by the court.

Possible 98 Years’ Imprisonment, $3.5 Million in Fines

Having pled guilty to crimes carrying a maximum sentence of 98 years in prison, Carrasquillo’s focus will be on convincing the court that a much shorter sentence will be sufficient. Meanwhile, the U.S. government’s sentencing submission attempts to quantify the scale of Carrasquillo’s offending to arrive at a suitable sentence, all things considered.

 

Carrasquillo’s pirate service relied on the decoding, copying, and retransmission of more than three years of cable programming broadcast on hundreds of channels. Each channel aired different programs 24 hours a day, seven days a week. That is a huge amount of infringement but almost impossible to quantify.

 

“Assuming each channel aired only one show per hour each day, and further assuming that the Gears Service had illicitly transmitted only 100 channels, if the infringement amount were calculated based on the total number of times the defendants copied and transmitted an infringing copyrighted television program to one of their subscribers, the government would have to determine the individual retail value of an astounding 3,066,000 programs,” the government explains.

Quantifying Infringement Amount

The government details two options for calculating the overall infringement amount.

 

The first method begins with subscription fees paid to the Gears service (around $34,826,402) and divides that by $19 (subscription price per month) to arrive at a total of 1,832,968 ‘subscriber months’. The cost of a subscription in the legal market is estimated at $120.68 per month, so when multiplied by all of Gears’ ‘subscriber months’, the government reaches a total estimated infringement amount of $221,202,578.

 

The second approach is more straightforward. Using a customer database seized from the defendants (which does not include start/end dates for 148,807 customers who purchased subscriptions from resellers, the government estimates a total of 1,390,595 ‘subscriber months’. Multiplying that figure by a legal monthly subscription cost of $120.68, the total estimated infringement amounts to $167,817,004.

Government Believes 15 Years+ in Prison is Appropriate

In summary, Carrasquillo’s infringement was massive and complicated by other offenses, such as money laundering and tax evasion, etc. The government says that advisory guidelines indicate a sentence of 292 to 365 months but concedes that even the lower figure (24 years in prison) would be “highly unusual” for a copyright matter.

 

“Accordingly, based on Carrasquillo’s leadership of this organization, his culpability, the seriousness of his offense conduct, and his existing criminal record, the government calculates his advisory sentence range to be 188 – 235 months’ imprisonment (15 years and 8 months – 19 years and 7 months),” the sentencing memorandum concludes.

 

Carrasquillo will be sentenced next month.

 

Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN has built quite a reputation over the years. For many Netherlands-based file-sharers, BREIN was considered a mortal online enemy.

 

Passions don’t run anywhere near as high today, but not because BREIN took its foot off the gas. Anyone involved in the Dutch piracy scene still risks running into BREIN, and while that isn’t exactly ideal, it isn’t necessarily the end of the world either.

 

BREIN usually has a handful of key goals. Most importantly, any infringement of its clients’ rights must come to an immediate end. After that, BREIN seeks compensation to cover its costs and, depending on circumstances, a reasonable financial penalty.

 

The final component is a signature on a legal agreement that outlines what will happen if piracy somehow restarts. Agreement terms vary, but settling with BREIN and then breaching the agreement has a tendency to multiply any financial components.

Pirate Couple Caught Uploading

Although it probably wouldn’t shy away from the opportunity, BREIN tends not to chase down casual pirates. The group is more interested in making a difference where it really counts, i.e removing pirate sites and their uploaders from the ecosystem. In a case dating back to 2018, BREIN focused on a torrent site and eliminated both.

 

According to BREIN, the site was small but persistent, offering movies, TV shows, ebooks and games for download. BREIN identified three people involved in the site, including the site’s administrators, a middle-aged married couple.

 

Since all three were out of work, BREIN adjusted its settlement offer accordingly. The couple agreed to pay 2,500 euros but also signed an agreement that detailed the consequences should they return to their old ways.

Pirate Couple Caught Uploading Again

BREIN references a married couple in an announcement published today. The man and woman signed an abstention agreement back in 2018, just like the couple mentioned above. While the anti-piracy group rarely identifies infringers by name, uploading cases involving married couples are rare, particularly given the timeframe.

 

BREIN reports that during an investigation into various sites illegally offering movies, TV shows, music, ebooks and games, information came to light that various aliases responsible for thousands of illegal uploads belonged to a couple with whom BREIN had previously settled. As a result, BREIN determined that the terms of their settlement agreement had been breached.

Financial Consequences

“Despite their promise in the 2018 abstention statement, they had secretly continued their illegal uploads, hiding with the help of those involved in the illegal websites,” BREIN explains.

 

“It has now been agreed with them that they will pay 16,200 euros and, in the event of non-payment, will immediately owe 55,000 euros.”

 

Using the 2,500 euro settlement figure cited by BREIN in 2018, 16,200 euros represents a six-fold increase for a second offense and breach of the original settlement terms. With the amount for non-payment more than three times the amount now owed, any additional infringement will result in significant additional penalties.

 

According to BREIN, any future infringement carries a penalty of 5,000 euros per day or the same amount per infringement. Since this type of penalty is instantly enforceable, a visit from a bailiff could happen sooner rather than later.

Unintended Personal Consequences

BREIN notes that the married couple at the center of the case are no longer a pair. Marriages can collapse for any number of reasons and usually more than just one, but the suggestion is that being found in breach of the agreement didn’t help at all.

 

That information might sound overly personal, but it’s highly relevant to the case.

 

BREIN doesn’t go into additional detail, but since the man and woman signed an agreement together and are confirmed as jointly and severally liable, even when separated they must pay the full amount jointly, or face liability for the full amount individually. That’s obviously not ideal under the circumstances.

 

That raises the speculative question of whether one or both breached the original agreement to abstain from illegal uploading. Even if only one breached the agreement, both are still liable. It’s not hard to imagine a scenario like that being even more controversial.

 

Back in the 1980s, all computer nerds were familiar with Datel. The company produced peripherals for the 8-bit computers of the day, including RAM packs, keyboards, joystick interfaces, even sound samplers.

 

Datel’s venture into the new world of videogame cheat devices was more controversial. The company’s Action Replay range battled against Codemasters’ Game Genie, with the latter eventually backing out of the market. Datel went on to release products for mainstream consoles, facing legal action on the way.

 

One of those lawsuits saw Sony Computer and Entertainment sue Datel in Germany over cheat software produced for the Playstation Portable (PSP) console. The PSP was discontinued in 2014, but after more than a decade, Sony’s lawsuit is still alive and inching toward a conclusion – one way or another.

Sony Sends in the Lawyers

When Sony released the PSP in 2004, the race to run ‘homebrew’ software on the PSP also began. The inevitable game of cat-and-mouse saw Sony continuously updating PSP firmware, hoping to shut down exploits that allowed ‘backups’ and ‘homebrew’ to be played on PSP.

 

In parallel, Datel saw opportunities to ‘enhance’ the PSP with software that changed how games were supposed to be played. Gaming giant sony responded with a copyright infringement lawsuit targeting two companies and a director connected to the Datel products.

Hamburg Regional and Higher Courts Disagree

Datel’s software – Action Replay PSP and Tilt FX – enabled gamers to cheat in Sony games. An example in the lawsuit describes how restrictions on “turbo” availability in racing game Motorstorm Arctic Edge were bypassed. Datel’s product achieved this by manipulating code stored in the PSP console’s main memory.

 

 

In January 2012, the Hamburg Regional Court found largely in Sony’s favor. The Court found that Datel’s software intervened in the ‘program flow’ of Sony’s games and by changing the flow, the original code was modified to create a revision or derivative of Sony’s copyrighted work.

 

The Court ruled that it made no difference whether the modification occurred in the game software itself or in the data stored by the game in the PSP’s main memory. Even though the modification of data in memory was temporary, the Court said this still amounted to a revision under § 69c Nr.2 UrhG.

 

“The translation, adaptation, arrangement and other adaptation of a computer program” require permission from the copyright holder, the relevant section reads.

 

Datel filed an appeal and in 2021, the Higher Regional Court overturned the district court’s judgment and dismissed the action.

 

The Court found that the changes apparent in the gameplay were the result of “parallel commands on the variables stored in the main memory.”

 

The defendant’s software intervened by changing the effect of data stored in the game console’s main memory, but did not change commands in the game software itself.

Federal Court of Justice Appeal

Unhappy with the decision, Sony filed an appeal at the Federal Court of Justice (Bundesgerichtshof, BGH), Germany’s highest court.

 

On February 23, 2023, the BGH said it had stayed proceedings in the appeal and referred key questions to the Court of Justice of the European Union for a preliminary ruling.

 

The questions are as follows: (translated from German)

 

1. Is the scope of protection of a computer program according to Art. 1 Para. 1 to 3 of Directive 2009/24/EC (pdf) encroached upon if neither the object nor source code of a computer program or a copy is modified, but something else running at the same time as the protected computer program changes the content of variables that the protected computer program has created in the main memory and uses in the course of the program?

 

2. Does a revision exist within the meaning of Art. 4 (1)(b) of Directive 2009/24/EC if neither the object or source code of a computer program or a copy is modified, but something else running at the same time as the protected computer program modifies the content of variables that the protected computer program has created in the main memory and uses in the course of the program?

 

When the CJEU will publish its decision is unknown, but it’s unlikely to be anytime soon.

 

Details of earlier hearings and decisions here (1,2) and the referral here (3)

 

When Amazon launched the first Kindle fifteen years ago, book piracy was already a common problem.

 

When publishers clashed with The Pirate Bay over illegally shared copies, we envisioned that things could get much worse if Kindle-ready pirate sites began to pop up.

Rampant Book Piracy

Fast forward to today and book piracy is easier and more widespread than ever. It has reached a point where the highest echelons of U.S. law enforcement stepped in to tackle this issue, with the crackdown on Z-library. Thus far, this hasn’t achieved the desired result.

 

The frustrations of publishers and authors is understandable. Many see their books being openly shared for free, just hours after they hits the stores. This isn’t limited to bestsellers either, it affects independent authors too.

 

In the midst of this drama, Amazon is making things worse. Generally speaking, the company is a blessing to many smaller authors because of its accessible self-publishing options and promotional features. This includes KDP Select, through which books are made available on Kindle Unlimited.

 

As part of the KDP Select agreement, authors promise to make digital versions of their books exclusive to Amazon. This makes sense, as it comes with various perks. However, this rule doesn’t only apply to competing stores, pirate sites are included as well.

Amazon Punishes Authors for Piracy?

Over the past few weeks, several authors complained that Amazon had removed their books from Kindle Unlimited because they violated their agreement. The piracy angle is front and center, raising plenty of questions and uncertainty.

 

Raven Kennedy, known for The Plated Prisoner Series, took her frustration to Instagram earlier this month. The author accused Amazon of sending repeated “threats”. This eventually resulted in the removal of her books from Kindle Unlimited, ostensibly because these were listed on pirate sites.

 

“Copyright infringement is outside of my control. Even though I pay a lot of money to a company to file takedown notices on my behalf, and am constantly checking the web for pirated versions, I can’t keep up with all the intellectual theft.

 

“And rather than support and help their authors, Amazon threatens me. The ironic thing is, these pirates are getting the files FROM Amazon,” Kennedy added.

 

A similar experience was shared by Carissa Broadbent, author of The War of Lost Hearts Trilogy. Again, Amazon removed a book from Kindle Unlimited for an issue that the author can’t do much about.

 

“A few hours ago, I got a stomach-dropping email from [Amazon] that Children of Fallen Gods had been removed from the Kindle store with zero warning, because of content ‘freely available on the web’ — IE, piracy that I do not have any control over,” Broadbent noted.

Petition

These and other authors received broad support from their readers, and sympathy from the general public. A Change.org petition launched in response has collected nearly 35,000 signatures to date, with new ones still coming in.

 

Author Marlow Locker started the petition to send a wake-up call to Amazon. According to her, Amazon should stand behind its authors instead of punishing them for the fact that complete strangers have decided to pirate their books.

 

Most authors will gladly comply with the exclusivity requirements, but only as far as this lies within their control. Piracy clearly isn’t, especially when it happens on an almost industrial scale.

 

“Currently, many automated systems use Amazon as a place to copy the e-files that they use for their free websites. It’s completely absurd that the same company turns around and punishes an author by removing their book from KDP Select,” the petition reads.

 

From the commentary seen online, several authors have been able to resolve their issues with Amazon. And indeed, the books of Broadbent and Kennedy appear to be back online. That said, the exclusivity policy remains in place.

Amazon Takes Note

Amazon is aware of the complaints and informs TorrentFreak that it’s working with the people involved to find an appropriate solution. The company stresses that, if books are removed from Kindle Unlimited, they remain for sale on Amazon’s regular store.

 

The company further explains that, before taking action, it sends authors an advance warning with an extended timeline so they can try to resolve the issue.

 

“We welcome author feedback and work directly with authors to address any issues or errors affecting their accounts,” an Amazon spokesperson said.

 

The problem is, of course, that individual authors can’t stop piracy. If it was that easy, most authors would be happy to do so. However, if billion-dollar publishing companies and the U.S. Government can’t stop it, Amazon can’t expect independent authors to ‘resolve’ the matter either.

 

It would make more sense for Amazon to update its KDP Select policy to exclude pirate sites from the exclusivity rule. With book piracy being as rampant as it is, no title can ever guarantee to be piracy-free, ever.

 

Perhaps it’s also a good idea to use all the vocal and social media-savvy authors as an asset to educate the broader public on piracy. That will do more than having them stress over book removals and pointless DMCA takedown campaigns.

 

Minecraft is, without doubt, one of the most iconic and recognizable videogames of recent times.

 

The game was originally created by Markus “Notch” Persson, who also founded Mojang Studios, which continues to develop the software today.

 

In the years following its first release in 2011, Minecraft captured a truly massive audience. With more than 238 million copies sold, it’s also the best-selling video game in history, a reign that looks set to continue.

 

Minecraft’s success inspired a subset of players to get creative by tinkering with the original game. Homebrew Minecraft mods and hacks that spice up the action are in plentiful supply.

 

Mojang is totally fine with this, as long as people don’t charge money or distribute modded copies of the game. Mods can’t use substantial content or code from the original game either, so when the rules get broken, Mojang reserves the right to step in and take action.

Eaglercraft Crackdown

This week, the Microsoft-owned game studio did exactly that. Mojang sent a DMCA takedown notice to its sister company GitHub, targeting 92 copyright-infringing repositories. All repositories are reportedly linked to copies of Eaglercraft.

 

Eaglercraft is a Minecraft variant playable in a web browser. This can come in handy for people who want to bypass blocking measures, which are common on some networks, schools included. Another main perk is that this Minecraft variant is totally free.

 

After seeing enough, Mojang urged GitHub to take the repositories offline, citing trademark and copyright infringements.

 

“The Repo and corresponding websites are a remake (decompile) of Minecraft 1.3. Their repo states this and the website running their code clearly shows a 100% reuse of our code and assets,” the game studio writes.

 

“This user has presumably decompiled and reverse engineered portions of our code to find how to reuse/repost. Their code goes against our EULA and Terms of Use by modifying and reposting source code and the game.”

 

The takedown request was successful and the repositories were swiftly removed from the developer platform. Instead, visitors will now see a notice pointing them to the DMCA takedown request.

 

This isn’t the first time that Mojang has gone after browser-based copies of Minecraft, and Eaglercraft isn’t a new target either. Over the past several months, Mojang has been working hard to take these free copies offline.

Eaglercraft Developer Gets Creative

Eaglercraft developer “lax1dude” took down the code from his own website after running into trouble with Mojang. However, he didn’t stop tinkering; on the contrary.

 

Lax1dude’s GitHub account currently lists an “EaglercraftX 1.8” repository that provides tools and instructions on how to decompile Minecraft 1.8.

 

Mojang may disapprove of this repo, but Lax1dude believes the game company can’t take it offline. The repository doesn’t include any copyrighted code or other infringing content.

 

“Attention Mojang/Microsoft employee assigned to stalk me: this repository does not contain your intellectual property. Filing a false DMCA is illegal and immoral,” the developer writes in all caps.

 

Whether Mojang agrees is yet to be seen. Simply using Minecraft images and the trademark can already cause trouble, depending on the context, so this dispute might not be completely over just yet.

 

At the time of publication, Lax1dude’s EaglercraftX 1.8 repository is still online.

 

 

During international holidays, news in a tight niche like ours can completely dry up, so when an exciting headline suddenly appears after 14 hours at a desk, things aren’t so bad after all.

 

Sadly, ‘exciting’ headlines that began appearing around 2017 didn’t help.

 

Dramatic news articles in UK tabloids often plagiarized articles published by TorrentFreak. But worse than that, many featured massive exaggerations that insulted even basic common sense, with irrelevant bits of information tacked on for SEO purposes.

 

Over time the trend went in a different direction. When Kodi addons became the new piracy bogeyman, the tabloids gorged on the drama. Headlines containing phrases such as FREE STREAMING WARNING and NEW KODI THREAT appeared alongside JAILED and POLICE in almost unlimited quantities, regardless of what actually happened.

 

When the tabloids started spreading complete nonsense about a change in UK law, people with influence could’ve helped put that right. We certainly tried, but it only made things worse.

 

After giving Android streaming apps the same treatment, recent claims in the media that ‘illegal streaming detector cars‘ have been deployed on the streets of Britain are depressing. They also highlight a continuing theme.

 

Every instance of outrageous ‘reporting’ sends a message of danger to the general public, warning that something terrible will happen if they aren’t careful. Curiously, misinformation never leans in a direction that isn’t beneficial to the entertainment industries. At least until now.

Piracy: A Problem Shared

The Industry Trust For IP is part of the British Association for Screen Entertainment. Sony, Universal, Disney, and Warner are listed as member companies, but its scope is much broader than that.

 

In a new Industry Trust For IP report, the UK’s piracy problems are outlined once again. In broad terms, the report contains familiar talking points but with a fresh approach. ‘Taking a Whole Society Approach to Infringement in the UK’ suggests that if everyone makes a contribution, a big problem becomes much more manageable.

 

“We have created this infringement overview to shed light on the ways in which we can make sizeable change to the current state of infringement through understanding, collaboration and actions,” it reads.

 

“It suggests a fully supportive policy framework, more consistent use of technological measures and a more responsible media environment, all underpinned by proven education and enforcement that can match the growing scale of the threat and will encourage audiences to value and support creative endeavors.”

 

Having waited six or so years for people with real influence to do something meaningful to prevent industry and legal matters being deliberately distorted in the press, the media reference came as a breath of fresh air. Unfortunately, a different problem is considered much more of a priority than factual reporting.

Irresponsible Articles

Listed as one of five “Key Problems” facing the UK and presented in the report under the heading Media Misinformation, the explanation reads as follows:

 

A growing number of mainstream news articles and film blogs are offering consumers suggestions for how they can seek out content that they may not have permission to view.

 

Creating clickbait “where can I watch X?” headlines, advocating internet search for unauthorized access, and advising on how to circumnavigate permissions with VPNs all serve to devalue the importance of copyright more broadly and may introduce a gateway to other forms of piracy, according to research.

 

While the language dances around the topic, it’s fairly obvious what the report is driving at. Since no regular consumer has permission to view or obtain content from a pirate source, the phrase “may not have permission to view” seems to introduce a variable known as ‘licensing’.

 

The next paragraph seems to reinforce that with the phrase, “advising on how to circumnavigate permissions with VPNs.” Nobody can ‘circumnavigate permissions’ to view pirated content, so this is about articles that promote the use of VPNs to access legal streaming services from unlicensed locations.

 

The report doesn’t call out publications by name but does explain how to find them. A search for ‘where can I watch’ and ‘VPN’ (no film titled needed) returned this mainstream article. There’s no suggestion this particular article is considered offensive by the authors of the report, but it fits the criteria based on search parameters and content.

 

The whole article makes for interesting reading and, of course, members of the public will reasonably argue that since they have paid for Netflix in the UK, what’s the big deal? We’ll leave that question open, at least for today.

 

A more interesting example can be found in the section that reads, “The best streaming VPN can unlock thousands of new episodes of hit TV shows, live Premier League fixtures, and blockbuster movies unavailable to stream in your country.”

 

Articles with a similar theme can be found on The Mirror (1,2), The Sun (1) and many, many others. They’re certainly not uncommon and even appear in pro-Hollywood publications.

 

The Hollywood Reporter (1,2) does highlight some legal caveats but according to the Industry Trust report, even this could “serve to devalue the importance of copyright” and “introduce a gateway to other forms of piracy” – at least according to research.

So what should the media do?

“Media could ensure that reporting about ways to watch respects the value of IP and always directs audiences to legal routes,” the recommendation begins.

 

“Journalists and bloggers could take greater accountability for how they promote access to creative content, ensuring that advice on ways to watch respects the value of copyright and promotes legal routes. They should be mindful that endorsing internet search and VPN use for unauthorized access could create gateways to other forms of piracy.”

 

These suggestions are completely reasonable but let’s turn this around. When describing how easy and straightforward piracy has become in the UK, the report uses this statement: Convenience and ease of access fuels engagement.

 

If that philosophy was applied to legal content instead, there would be no need for anyone to circumvent anything.

 

It’s a “whole society approach to infringement” and a solution, all in one.

 

The full report is available from The Industry Trust

 

Image credit

 

After thriving in what was once a localized traditional market, Japanese comics known as ‘manga’ took the world by storm. Publishers and authors could only watch as their work fueled a huge but unlicensed black market.

 

By offering free localization and distribution services in what was once a chronically underserved overseas market, hobbyist translators and pirate sites made manga more accessible in every way. The problem for manga creators and publishers today is that pirates offer their copyrighted content for free in the same global market.

 

A new breed of highly-commercialized pirate entities, many of which seem to love money more than manga, only add to what is already a complex problem. And when Japanese rightsholders seek to mitigate infringement in overseas legal processes, new challenges appear around every corner.

Publishers Seek Help From U.S.

In August 2022, Japanese manga publisher Shueisha filed an ex parte application at a California district court seeking information for use in a foreign proceeding – a lawsuit in Vietnam or Japan targeting pirate site operators.

 

Hoping to identify the operators of pirate manga sites including gokumanga.com and doki1001.com, Shueisha sought permission from a court to obtain information from U.S. companies including Cloudflare, PayPal, Visa, Mastercard, and Google.

 

Even at this early stage, some of the pirate sites had moved to new domains. At least one site had been targeted in a DMCA subpoena obtained a year earlier and may have switched domains around that time too.

New Request For Information

On February 10, 2023, Shueisha teamed up with major publishers Shogakukan, Kadokawa, and Kodansha in another ex parte application (1) and proposed order (2), filed this time at a district court in Delaware.

 

Once again, the companies requested access to information held by U.S. internet companies to support a potential lawsuit in Vietnam or Japan.

 

GoDaddy and eNom customers had registered domains for two pirate manga sites, and the rightsholders were keen to receive any information that might help their investigation. Those domains – gokumanga.com and doki1001.com – were also among the targets in the ex parte application filed last August.

 

More than six months later, the first process is still ongoing, and according to the recent application, no pirates have been identified. The domains they used have long since been replaced, but in the past, redirected to other domains listed in the same application. It’s complex and messy, almost certainly by design. In this space, domain names may redirect, hibernate or even die, but the underlying sites prefer reincarnation.

Rightsholders Test Every Possible Option

Manga publishers, anti-piracy groups, the recording industry (RIAJ), movie and TV show companies (JIMCA and the MPA), trade organizations, tech companies players, search engines, and Japan’s government, are engaged in almost constant communication over potential anti-piracy tools and the issues they raise.

 

Overseas legal procedures are considered burdensome, expensive, and a strain on both time and resources, says manga publisher Shogakukan. Plans to partner with overseas entities to create a more effective international legal network could help, but that will also take time.

 

In the short term, rightsholders will continue to request subpoenas, hoping that information held by U.S. service providers will help them to identify pirates. At the same time, every possible enforcement idea is considered worthy of exploration.

Liability, Pressure on Intermediaries

Other options under discussion include increased liability for intermediaries and requirements for ISPs and OSPs to obtain and retain more detailed customer information. Along those same lines, the MPA and its Japanese partners have drawn attention to U.S. Executive Order 13984.

 

The order is supposed to deter foreign malicious cyber actors’ use of US-based Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) platforms. Hollywood’s goal is to ensure that every domain name company, DNS provider, CDN, web hosting service, reverse proxy provider, advertising company and payment processor are bound by the same rules, so that pirates can be more easily identified.

Site Blocking and CDN Providers

Large international rightsholders are broadly in favor of site-blocking measures, but the topic is controversial in Japan. Proposals to restrict access to information would almost certainly face challenges under Japan’s constitution.

 

At least as things stand, site-blocking proposals seem to lack momentum: freedom of expression, the protection of confidentiality of communications, and the prohibition of censorship, carry significant weight in Japan. These red lines may never be overcome but more immediate issues already have universal support.

 

One of the most discussed issues concerns CDN providers, Cloudflare in particular. Despite various angles and mounting criticism, Cloudflare has thus far refused to give any ground. If rightsholders in Japan want content taken down, they should focus on hosting companies. These are the entities that can actually remove content; removing Cloudflare leaves infringing content online, the company says.

 

Suggestions that Cloudflare faces liability for pirate sites are directed to the Mon Cheri v. Cloudflare lawsuit in the U.S., from which the CDN company emerged with a clear win.

 

Claims that Cloudflare ‘hides’ the IP addresses of pirate sites are met with the usual response: if a site is infringing, any complaints will be forwarded to the site’s host. If personal information is required, rightsholders should present a court order.

 

The reasons are unknown, but discussions with Cloudflare on this topic are sometimes marked ‘undisclosed’ or confidential in reports that openly discuss other companies’ input.

 

In broad terms, few of those who express an opinion are happy with Cloudflare’s position. Paraphrasing comments made over the last few months, the general sentiment is that if Cloudflare has a primary goal of protecting sites from abuse on the internet, why is it the primary protector of pirate sites that are abusive in themselves?

 

Since Cloudflare’s position is both clear and consistent across markets, the end result is a circular argument from which there are no obvious means of escape.

Search Engines

Google appears to be taking the same position in Japan as it does elsewhere. If a court rules that a site is illegal and should be blocked in its entirety, Google is likely to deindex its domain so it never appears in Japan’s search results.

 

One of Yahoo! Japan’s anti-piracy contributions is more immediately visible. When users search for the term ‘海賊版’ (English: pirated version/pirate copy) Yahoo! returns an unmissable promotion for the STOP! anti-piracy campaign run by Authorized Books of Japan (ABJ) to protect manga and similar content.

 

Other suggestions receiving support include educational or ‘enlightenment’ campaigns to guide casual pirates back on the right track. The music industry hopes to ensure that anti-piracy education reaches Japan’s children, preferably during the early years of school.

Advertising, Domains, Security Software, Web Browsers

The Japan Network Information Center (JPNIC) is Japan’s internet registry with responsibilities that include the allocation of IP addresses and AS numbers. JPNIC has reported discussions with ICANN relating to anti-piracy issues, noting that the Japanese government’s “continuous efforts at ICANN are paying off.”

 

Exactly what that means is unclear, but there does appear to be some pressure on ICANN to ensure that domain registries and registrars remain in compliance with the terms of their contracts. Those terms require customers to provide identifying information but by various means, that’s usually not the case.

 

Overall, and in common with rightsholders elsewhere, there’s a general sentiment that pirate sites abuse domain names. People who abuse domain names in the trademark arena tend to lose them; some feel that should be the case with pirates too.

 

On the understanding that advertising fuels many pirate sites, disruption in this area is seen as a priority. A music industry group says that identifying and obtaining contact information for advertising companies placing ads on sites should be a short-term priority. Longer term, technical measures to prevent adverts ever appearing on pirate sites should be the goal.

 

Non-profit organization Virtual Rights suggested that companies behind web browsers (e.g. Google LLC, Mozilla Foundation, etc.) could provide assistance on this front.

What Can Be Done About Vietnam?

Pirate sites with connections to Vietnam are recognized as causing global problems for companies in publishing, movies, TV shows, music and beyond.

 

Manga publishers Kadokawa and Kodansha say that all overseas pirates cause problems, but the latter concedes that the Vietnam problem is “enormous.” Shogakukan says that when it comes to ‘malicious’ platforms with the most visitors, Vietnamese sites present the biggest problem.

 

Optimism that new legislation might ease the situation can be dampened relatively easily: Fmovies, BestBuyIPTV, Abyss.to, Fembed, 2embed.to – the list goes on and on.

 

Pirate sites have been shut down in Vietnam but as far as we can tell, mostly for displaying outlawed gambling advertising rather than piracy. Facing the same issues, the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment wants to recruit new members inside Vietnam, hoping that will turn the tide.

 

Various reports from the United States, EU, and UK describe a complex IP enforcement system in Vietnam featuring multiple agencies and overlapping jurisdictions, a lack of coordination among those agencies, limited institutional capacity and stretched resources related to IP enforcement.

 

Or as one Japanese anti-piracy report put it: Vietnam’s Intellectual Property Office “has brains but no limbs.”

 

These issues and others elsewhere seem unlikely to deter this systematic anti-piracy drive. At what point it will produce repeatable and sustainable results is unknown, but they will come, there’s little doubt about that.

 

 

Sources/image credits: (1) Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, (2) Agency of Cultural Affairs(3) Japan Institute of Law and Information Systems, (4) Japan Internet Governance Forum, (5) Taylor Vick/Unsplash

 

Over the years, copyright holders have tried a multitude of measures to curb online piracy, with varying levels of success.

 

Site blocking has emerged as one of the preferred solutions. While blocking measures are not bulletproof, the general idea is that they pose a large enough hurdle for casual pirates to choose legal options instead.

 

The blocking approach was very controversial at the start of the last decade, particularly in the U.S., but elsewhere it’s increasingly being normalized. Dozens of countries have legal or procedural options to request ISP blockades, which currently block in excess of 20,000 sites around the world.

The Star-Spangled Elephant

American entertainment companies are the driving force behind most pro-blocking campaigns, which currently span all inhabited continents. This can be seen as a great achievement but there’s a star-spangled elephant that’s rarely brought up in site-blocking discussions; the lack of pirate site blocking in the U.S.

 

This isn’t a minor oversight as the United States actually harbors many millions of online pirates, more than any other country in the world. At the same time, however, the U.S. was also where the first major site-blocking legislation push failed more than a decade ago, following fierce protests from the public.

 

In recent years major rightsholders have slowly started to put the issue back on the political agenda. This week, CreativeFuture CEO Ruth Vitale wrote an op-ed for The Hill, calling for action.

 

CreativeFuture is an organization that represents the interests of over 500 copyright-reliant companies, as well as 300,000 individuals who work in the creative industries. The group is a fierce proponent of stricter copyright legislation including site blocking.

 

“Despite the long history of innovation in our creative communities, the U.S. is somehow lacking a commonsense and extremely effective anti-piracy tool: site blocking. And we need it now more than ever,” Vitale writes.

 

According to Vitale, it is “incomprehensible” that the U.S. sits on the sidelines while other countries are taking these “commonsense measures”.

No-Fault Injunctions

Technically, U.S. courts can already order intermediaries to block sites, and that has happened in the past. However, the text of the law is not entirely clear on whether ISPs have to be held liable or not. This makes it a complicated legal issue.

 

Ideally, rightsholders would like to change the legal framework in the United States to allow for these orders on home turf. Concrete proposals are yet to be formed but according to Vitale, it’s clear that site-blocking schemes work.

 

With proper judicial oversight, courts should be able to require Internet providers to block foreign pirate sites, without holding the intermediaries liable.

 

“Such site blocking has proven to be an effective remedy against piracy in the more than 40 countries that have implemented court-adjudicated site blocking — including western democracies like Canada and the UK,” Vitale notes.

Western Democracy-Approved

The earlier “SOPA” site-blocking legislation became stranded after massive public protests were supported by tech giants including Google and Wikipedia. The main fear was that blocking would eventually lead to over-blocking and other problems affecting core internet infrastructure.

 

According to Vitale, those fears were overblown and unproven. There have been few issues in countries where site-blocking is operational. In fact, several of these counties rank higher on core democratic values than the United States.

 

“Many of the countries that permit judicial site blocking, including Canada, Australia, and the UK, ranked higher than the U.S. in the Economist Intelligence Unit’s latest annual index of the state of democracy around the world.

 

“The takeaway? There is little, if any, evidence of a negative correlation between site blocking and freedom of expression,” Vitale adds.

Calling on Congress

Opponents have pointed out that site blocking is a slippery slope that threatens free speech. In addition, the effectiveness of the measures are also in question, as they are easy to bypass or circumvent.

 

Vitale counters the latter by pointing to research that shows how site blocking can decrease piracy and increase legal consumption. It may not be perfect, but that’s besides the point.

 

“It is time for these outdated arguments against commonsense anti-piracy tools to stop. Protecting the creative industries has always been a bipartisan issue, and I hope that members of Congress on both sides of the aisle will soon be ready to discuss site blocking legislation,” Vitale concludes.

 

The fact that the headline of Vitale’s op-ed avoids the term ‘site blocking’ suggests that sensitivities remain. At this point, however, completely ignoring the site blocking issue is becoming increasingly uncomfortable.

 

There is some movement already, however. US Senator Thom Tillis previously asked the public to share their views on site blocking. This triggered unanimous support from the Motion Picture Association, but there was plenty of opposition too, as always.

 

The European Union recognizes that online piracy poses a serious threat to copyright holders and the public at large.

 

Last December, the EU published an updated version of its biannual piracy and counterfeiting watchlist, calling out some of the worst offenders.

 

“Infringements of intellectual property rights, in particular commercial-scale counterfeiting and piracy, pose a serious problem for the European Union,” the EU Commission wrote.

 

The report explained that the unauthorized activity leads to “high financial losses” for copyright holders. Members of the public face risks too, such as piracy-related malware and scammers determined to obtain their credit card details.

Europa.eu Pirate Scammers

As the EU published these cautionary words, its flagship domain name Europa.eu was already being exploited by piracy-related scams, including the worst type – credit card phishing spam.

 

When we alerted the European Commission to our findings, a spokesperson informed us that the origin of the incident has been identified and that proper action had been taken to resolve the matter.

 

“Concerned platform stakeholders have already taken the necessary measures such as removal of suspicious files and blocking further attempts for uploading them. We are closely monitoring the situation and continue scanning websites for suspicious files,” the spokesperson said.

The Piracy Problem Persists

Despite these reassuring words and the passing of three months, the problem is yet to be solved. Basic searches reveal that Europa.eu portals have been plagued by thousands of piracy-related adverts, with new ones being added daily.

 

The EU hosts a broad variety of projects on its official domain and several allow outsiders to contribute content. It appears that this weakness is easily exploited, yet hard to patch.

 

Below is just one of the many piracy-related adverts, promoting a 123movies website where people can supposedly stream free movies.

 

These and other variants appear on europa.eu and subdomains including school-education.ec.europa.eu, atlantic-maritime-strategy.ec.europa.eu, esdac.jrc.ec.europa.eu and more.

 

Like many others, the advert shown above arrives as a PDF file containing a link to the target site. In this case, the link goes to a dodgy movie platform that has to do with 123movies.

Phishing

Prospective pirates who click the link see a dummy streaming site, which may show short movie intros. Interestingly, the scammy streaming site appears to block certain countries but by using an American IP address, we managed to get in.

 

After a brief intro, users are prompted to register. We attempted to sign up but decided to abort the mission when our anti-virus software confirmed a phishing scam.

 

“Phishing websites persuade you to reveal personal data such as login or credit card details, usually by pretending to be a legitimate source. It uses social engineering to trick you,” the warning read.

 

The same scammy ads also promote specific movies, such as “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania”, The same is true for popular TV-series such as HBO’s “The Last of Us”.

 

TorrentFreak reached out to the Commission again, to get an update on how it sees the problem, but we haven’t heard back. When we last inquired about the issue a few weeks ago, a spokesperson informed us that the EU “won’t comment any further on this matter.”

IPTV, UFC, and the Super Bowl

The EU must have its reasons for the lack of communication, but the spamming only appears to be getting worse. In addition to classic pirate streaming sites, shady IPTV services are advertised too.

 

Several ads on the Europa.eu site are linked to tv.elaalam.com, which promises access to virtually all content imaginable, including live sports. You have to pay first, of course.

 

Whether this is a total scam or not is irrelevant at this point. The EU previously called out pirate IPTV services and is in talks with rightsholders to better protect themselves against live streaming piracy. Inadvertently running ads for these services at the same time is not ideal.

 

The spam doesn’t stop at pirate IPTV services either. We’ve seen ads for scammy , Premier League matches, NBA games, NASCAR races, and even the mighty has a dedicated promo in Europa.eu.

Male Enhancement Gummies

By now it should be clear that there’s a spam problem, but the deeper we dig, the more dirt we encounter. Want to ? Need a account? Or a app money generator? There’s an ad for that.

 

Gift cards also appear to be quite popular; Google Play, Xbox, Amazon, or Playstation, you name it. Even physical needs can be satisfied if you believe in magic.

 

The “CBD Male Enhancement Gummies” for “longer staying power” stood out to us in this regard; literally.

Upload Filter?

The above shows that the problem is rampant. However, it doesn’t mean that the EU is completely ignoring it. Several of the scammy ads have been removed and takedowns are ongoing.

 

That said, the spam avalanche is ongoing and has been for at least three months. on this article, dozens of new PDF files were uploaded.

 

In recent years the EU has passed legislation to ensure that large online platforms use technical tools such as upload filters to tackle online piracy. Perhaps that could be an option for Europa.eu too?

 

For people who enjoy movies and TV shows but prefer not to hand over a monthly subscription, Pluto TV is one of the most popular legal services around.

 

Depending on the region, Pluto TV offers up to 250 ‘channels’ covering TV shows, movies, general entertainment, documentaries, sports, and news. For those who prefer audio-only, Pluto TV throws in a selection of music channels too.

 

Pluto TV is available on mobile Android and iOS devices, media streaming devices such as Fire TV, Apple TV, Chromecast and Roku, and via apps on the Xbox and PlayStation gaming platforms. However, a condition of using Pluto TV is that it must only be consumed using through approved software.

Watch For Free, Pay in Other Ways

Official Pluto TV apps deliver video content and Electronic Program Guides (EPGs) to users who, incidentally, don’t even need to sign up. These apps play a key role in the advertising mechanisms that generate revenue for the Pluto TV service and support the free-to-watch model.

 

Viewed from a different angle, some users don’t like to be tied down to official apps and would rather use their own software. Users may also prefer less advertising or find the amount of user data scooped up by official apps a privacy risk.

 

Pluto TV uses systems that monitor and track user behavior (GitHub repo here), so when viewers completely do away with official apps, it undermines Pluto TV’s business model, and that has an impact on revenue. In a strongly-worded copyright complaint sent this week, rightsholders say that will not be tolerated.

M3U Playlists and Pluto TV

Playlists using the .m3u format have been around for years. Often used to instruct a media player to play a bunch of locally stored songs in a particular order, .m3u playlist files can also point to online locations where media streams can be found. While these playlists can be used to access pirate IPTV services, some are configured to access Pluto TV streams from their official sources.

 

Downloading a Pluto TV .m3u playlist takes a second and they can be used in anything from VLC Media Player to systems like TVHeadEnd, which enables streaming to locations in a network, no official apps required.

 

While this offers new opportunities for users, supplying .m3u playlists isn’t without risk. The GitHub repo shown below used to offer Pluto TV playlists for download before suddenly experiencing issues last week.

 

These issues were caused by a DMCA notice sent by the Motion Picture Association to GitHub. The complaint is dated February 14 but wasn’t officially published until this week.

Massive Copyright Infringement

The language used in the complaint makes it extremely clear that the MPA views playlists as a threat and illegal under copyright law.

 

“We are writing to notify you of, and request your assistance in addressing, the extensive copyright infringement of motion pictures and television shows that is occurring by virtue of the operation of the playlist file, PlutoTV_mr.m3u, which is hosted on and available for download from your repository GitHub Inc. at [former repo location],” the notice reads (minor edits for clarity).

 

“Specifically, at the URL, the Repository hosts and offers for download the Playlist, which in turn is used to engage in massive infringement of copyrighted motion pictures and television shows.”

 

The MPA references an attachment (not published on GitHub) that provides “a representative list of infringements” occurring via the playlist, along with screenshots to show MPA member studios’ content “being streamed without authorization through the playlist.”

 

GitHub responded by taking the playlist down and the associated repo no longer exists. While that solves the immediate problem, Pluto TV playlists and playlists for many other similar platforms aren’t going to disappear overnight.

 

Due to their nature, Pluto TV and similar playlist aren’t viewed in the same light as pirate IPTV service playlists, so taking a look at the MPA’s claims may prove informative.

Suppliers and Users Infringe Copyright

The MPA’s complaint basically accuses the entire chain of copyright infringement offenses, GitHub included.

 

“By offering this Playlist for download, your Repository enables the Playlists blatant infringement of the MPA Member Studios copyrights and countless other copyrights. Indeed, copyright infringement is so prevalent on the Playlist that infringement plainly is its predominant use and purpose,” the notice to GitHub reads.

 

Importantly, GitHub acted appropriately, so enjoys safe harbor protection. The same does not apply to the people involved in creating and then offering the playlist for download. The MPA cites several major copyright lawsuits where defendants were ultimately found liable for infringement, but Columbia Pictures vs. Fung seems to offer the clearest picture.

Contributory Copyright Infringement

Columbia Pictures sued Gary Fung, former owner of torrent index isoHunt, for operating a website that facilitated access to their copyrighted content. Fung was found liable for contributory copyright infringement on the basis that he induced third parties (isoHunt’s users) to download infringing copies of the studios’ copyrighted works. Fung later settled with the MPA.

 

The terms of Pluto TV’s license (section 5.2) forbid users from accessing the service in ways that are not expressly authorized by the platform.

 

Use of an unauthorized playlist breaches those terms, and for any user who claims not to have accepted or even read those terms of service, they may find themselves without any viewing license at all. In any event, claims of inducement (playlist suppliers/distributors) rely on the acts of primary infringers (users/viewers).

 

By citing MPA member studios’ content as being infringed, issues involving Pluto TV itself become less important, at least for the purposes of the DMCA takedown notice. That being said, we probably haven’t heard the last of ‘playlist piracy’ as featured here.

 

The MPA’s DMCA notice to Github can be found here

 

‘Operation 404’ is an ongoing law enforcement initiative in Brazil that aims to disrupt the availability of pirated content online.

 

Operation 404 took on pirate IPTV services in 2022, but earlier waves have targeted everything from regular websites to popular Android apps.

 

According to a government announcement, authorities have just shut down “the two biggest digital anime pirate sites” in Brazil as part of Operation 404 offshoot, ‘Operation Anime’.

Operation Anime

Information provided by the Ministry of Justice and Public Security states that Operation Anime was led by the Minas Gerais State Civil Police. The objective was to “repress crimes committed against intellectual property” on the internet, specifically piracy of Japanese cartoons, better known as anime.

 

“The action is part of a mobilization coordinated by the National Secretariat for Public Security, of the Ministry of Justice and Public Security (Senasp/MJSP), through the Cybernetic Operations Laboratory,” the announcement adds.

 

The Laboratório de Operações Cibernéticas, as it’s known in Brazil, is more closely associated with the mitigation of cyberattacks than it is piracy. However, since many crimes can have an online component, preventing serious crime and tracking down offenders is also part of the unit’s remit.

“Two Biggest Digital Anime Piracy Sites Taken Down”

The Ministry of Justice notes that the operation received support from the Content Overseas Distribution Association (CODA), an anti-piracy group that helps to protect anime content in Japan and overseas.

 

The statement indicates a significant operation; search and seizure warrants, blocking and/or suspension of websites, action against content in search engines, and the removal of profiles and pages on social networks.

 

“During the execution of the warrants, the objective is to seize computer equipment, including: internal HDs, computer devices, which demonstrate the materiality of the crime. The two biggest anime digital piracy sites have been taken down,” the government department adds.

 

Having supplied an abundance of information relating to who did what, where, and why, the names of the sites claimed to have been shut down are never mentioned, despite being the most important part of the story.

Report on Brazilian TV

The TV report embedded below doesn’t name the sites either but does reveal some details of the operation. Speaking in Portuguese, a police officer says that a target was identified in Arapiraca, the second-largest city in the Alagoas region.

 

An unnamed 22-year-old computing student is suspected of running a large anime piracy site.

 

 

The officer explains that running a piracy site could lead to four years in prison, “and with this regulation here in Alagoas, this young man must be indicted for the crime of piracy.”

Was BetterAnime Targeted?

When Brazilian authorities report Operation 404 successes, they rarely mention specific dates for individual actions. Indeed, there is some evidence to show that sites or applications may have been taken down or blocked over longer periods, weeks or even months.

 

Given the timing, some believe that BetterAnime.net was taken down as part of Operation Anime. The site enjoyed around six million visits each month, with users mostly complimentary regarding its speed and content selection.

 

A tweet published on the site’s official Twitter account yesterday confirms the closure of BetterAnime but says it had nothing to do with the government’s announcement.

 

“[F]or crying out loud. I wasn’t arrested,” the tweet insists.

 

“It happened to be at the same time. I received a DMCA notice with a ‘request’ to shut down the site. If you don’t comply, the thing could lead to court, etc.”

 

A message on the now-shuttered site adds the following: “For copyright reasons, the BetterAnime website has been closed down. It was a good journey and full of learning, but the time has come to close the project. Thank you to everyone who has supported us during this time.”

 

Case solved? Probably not.

Other Sites Targeted Recently?

With around five million visits each month and 95% of its traffic originating from Brazil, Animes-Vision has a similar profile to BetterAnime. Or rather it did, until recently.

 

A notice on the site confirms that its operators decided to close the platform down “for major and copyright reasons.”

 

There’s no direct information to confirm any arrests, but in any case, five million visits per month wouldn’t be anywhere near enough to claim the number one or even number two slots taken by the largest anime piracy sites in Brazil.

 

The recent shutdown of Anbient.com provides few additional clues. With over 60% of its traffic hailing from Brazil but with around 100,000 visits per month, the site simply wasn’t big enough to match the profile mentioned by the authorities.

 

The shutdown notice displayed on the former anime platform (above) is mostly generic, but in sticky situations, that’s often the case. Especially so when compliance with a cease-and-desist notice offers a much simpler way out.

Two Serious Contenders

Since anime-online.site is completely offline, there’s obviously no notice to report here. The site appears to have been popular in Brazil but with just a few hundred thousand visits per month, it can’t be considered a major player. A site with a similar name can.

 

Currently offline and displaying a Cloudflare error, animesonline.cc fits the profile perfectly. In December 2022 alone the site had over 20 million visits, and 99% of its traffic originated from Brazil.

 

The Cloudflare error appears regardless of visitor location but we can’t yet confirm the reasons for the message or the downtime. As far as we’re aware, the site’s downtime is yet to be explained and people are beginning to ask questions.

 

Interestingly, or potentially entirely coincidentally, the same Cloudflare message also appears on another massively popular anime piracy site.

 

Animefire.net had 10 million visits in December 2022, and almost 92% of its visitors were from Brazil. It meets the criteria mentioned by the Brazilian government perfectly. It may suddenly reappear online unscathed but that would contradict the government’s claims that the two largest anime piracy sites have been taken down. Stranger things have happened, of course, but there are other things to consider.

Mystery Solved or More Mystery?

While numerous moving parts can distort site popularity, Animes-Online.cc and Animefire.net seem likely to have been the two most popular anime piracy sites in Brazil, at least before they went offline. They may yet return but in the meantime, here’s an interesting coincidence.

 

With 22.3 million visits in December 2022 and over 99% of its audience coming from Brazil, Mangalivre.net is a hot contender for Brazil’s most popular site for Japanese comics, otherwise known as manga. Right now the site is down and displaying the same Cloudflare error as those on the anime sites. Again, user location seems irrelevant.

 

After pulling in millions of visitors in December 2022, sites also down and showing exactly the same Cloudflare message include Animeyabu.com and Animesbr.biz.

 

Other sites in the anime and manga niches appear to be offline too. Given that there are obvious links between some of these sites (and many other sites not even mentioned here), could that mean they’re all experiencing simultaneous but coincidental technical difficulties?

 

It’s also possible that they’ve all been taken down as a precautionary measure due to the recent actions in Brazil, and will eventually return as if nothing has happened. Or maybe, potentially, the authorities in Brazil – with help from Japan – have hit the jackpot.

 

Given that not even the names of the sites taken down are being made public, all options remain on the table. Coincidences happen – regularly. We’ll have to sit and wait patiently, just like everyone else.

 

In the summer of 2021, game developer Bungie filed a complaint targeting three well-known cheat sellers; Elite Tech Boss, Lavicheats & VeteranCheats.

 

The case against Elite Tech Boss has been the most eventful thus far. Within a few months, this resulted in a consent judgment where a key defendant agreed to pay $13.5 million in damages.

 

That judgment didn’t settle the matter completely as Bungie still has other targets in its crosshairs. Meanwhile, there are other cases to resolve.

 

LaviCheats and VeteranCheats failed to answer the complaints filed in the United States. As a result, Bungie requested a $12 million default judgment against the latter a few days ago, shortly followed by a similar, albeit lower, claim against Lavicheats.com.

You’ve Been Served

Late last week Bungie filed a motion for default judgment against LaviCheats at a Washington federal court. The game company asked the court to rule on the matter without hearing the defendant, as they apparently have no interest in making a court appearance.

 

Bungie believes that LaviCheats is operated by India-resident Kunal Bansal, AKA “Lavi”. However, no known address exists for this person. To alert Bansal to the legal proceeding, Bungie sent an email and posted a message in the LaviCheats forums.

 

These unusual serving options were authorized by the court and proved successful. Although there was no response in court, Destiny 2 cheats were removed from the LaviCheats website.

 

In a message posted on the website, LaviCheats explained that it will no longer sell Destiny 2 hacks because of the lawsuit. At the same time, however, LaviCheats advised people to buy cheats at Cobracheats instead.

 

The referral is not a coincidence; Bungie believes that Bansal is also the driving force behind this cheat shop, as well as others.

 

“[A]fter receiving notice of this lawsuit, Bansal moved his unlawful activities with respect to the Cheat Software to one or more other websites believed to be owned and/or operated by him, including the websites located at cobracheats.com, lavicheats.org, and protocolv.com,” Bungie explains.

$6.7 Million Default Judgment

As the defendant failed to show up in court, Bungie moved ahead on its own. In the motion filed last Friday, the company requests a total award of $6,700,973.34. This figure comprises damages, attorneys’ fees and other costs.

 

The bulk of the proposed award relates to Lavicheats’ alleged violations of the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provision. The game developer believes it’s entitled to $2,000 for each of the 2,790 cheat copies that were downloaded.

 

“Bansal’s […] ongoing conduct demonstrates a willingness to continue with his illegal activities, as to warrant a statutory damage award of at least $2,000 for each of the 2,790 Cheat Software for Destiny 2 that Bansal’s own website admitted were downloaded, for a total of $5,580,000.”

 

Bungie further alleges that Lavicheats infringed its copyrights, so is entitled to claim the maximum $300,000 in statutory damages for two titles. In addition, Bungie seeks $579,270 in damages for trademark infringements, an amount that equals Bansal’s Destiny 2 cheat profits.

High But Warranted

The $6 million figure is high but justified, Bungie tells the court. Stressing that the company had to spend millions of dollars to fight cheaters, it’s appropriate to send a strong message.

 

“[A]lthough the total amount Bungie seeks may be considered large, the damages are proportional to the harm caused by Bansal’s flagrant and willful violation of Bungie’s rights,” Bungie notes.

 

In addition to the damages request, the motion also seeks a permanent injunction, barring Bansal from engaging in any Bungie-related cheating or infringement activities going forward.

 

The Washington federal court has yet to review and rule on the motion. Without a defending party, however, little stands in the way of another Bungie victory.

 

—

 

A copy of Bungie’s motion for a default judgment against Kunal Bansal (LaviCheats) is available here (pdf)

 

In 2021, Bungie filed a complaint at a federal court in Seattle, accusing AimJunkies.com of copyright and trademark infringement, among other things.

 

The same accusations were also made against Phoenix Digital Group, the alleged creators of the software.

 

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

Court Dismissed Bungie’s Copyright Claims

Last May, U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Zilly largely sided with AimJunkies. The original complaint didn’t provide sufficient evidence for a plausible claim that the ‘Destiny 2 Hacks’ infringed any copyrights, the judge concluded.

 

This was bad news for Bungie, but the court allowed the game developer to amend its complaint, which it did. That copyright infringement dispute is still ongoing and on its way to a trial that’s expected to take place later this year.

 

In 2022, Judge Zilly referred several of the non-copyright-related complaints to arbitration, including allegations that AimJunkies’ cheats violated the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provision and were illegally sold to third parties.

Arbitration Judge Sides with Bungie

The arbitration process was conducted behind the scenes, but Bungie shared the outcome with the Washington federal court a few days ago. In a resounding win for the developer, Bungie walked away with an award of $4.3 million in damages and fees.

 

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

 

“May testified that on many occasions, he connected reverse engineering tools to the Destiny 2 process in order to reverse engineer it and develop a cheat for the game,” Judge Cox writes.

 

“He also testified that after being caught and banned by Bungie several times for doing so, he attempted various ways to bypass the bans and circumvent the protections Bungie had in place to prevent reverse engineering.”

All Liable for Circumvention

May is not an employee of AimJunkies or its parent company Phoenix Digital. However, the latter can be held liable; the reverse engineering was carried out to develop the cheating software, which was sold and profited from.

 

“Thus, the remaining respondents are liable for May’s violations. They are likewise liable for the circumvention by the many users of the cheats sold by Phoenix on the website,” Judge Cox writes.

 

The arbitrator concludes that the circumvention was malicious, which entitles Bungie to $2,500 per offense. Based on 102 violations, total damages amounted to $255,000.

 

In reaching this conclusion, the testimony of AimJunkies owner David Shaefer was disregarded. Judge Cox found his testimony non-credible, partly due to Shaefer substantially understating revenue from the sale of the cheats.

Trafficking

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

 

Sales of the cheats and loader, which effectively bypassed Bungie’s copyright protections, amount to 1,361 copies in total.

 

“The evidence shows that Phoenix sold more than one thousand copies of the cheats. They also distributed more than one thousand copies of the cheat loader that was used to inject the cheats into the Destiny 2 process.

 

“Given respondents’ egregious and willful conduct, including their ongoing concealment of sales, Bungie is entitled to the full statutory damages available,” Judge Cox adds.

 

Trafficking violations resulted in a $3,402,500 award, and when added to damages for circumvention violations, an award of $3,657,500 covered all DMCA violations.

$4,396,222 and Forward

The arbitrator also sided with Bungie’s claims regarding breach of contract, tortious interference, consumer protection, and spoilation. As such, the game developer is entitled to attorneys’ fees and other awards.

 

In total, an award of $4,396,222 was handed to the game developer.

 

Last week, Bungie asked the federal court to accept this final award and approve an associated injunction, which prevents the AimJunkies defendants from engaging in any similar activities going forward.

 

In addition, Bungie is using its arbitration successes to defend against AimJunkies’s counterclaims in the ongoing copyright battle.

 

AimJunkies argued that by decompiling and reverse-engineering its cheat software, Bungie violated AimJunkies’ terms of service and breached the terms of its contract. Bungie says that the arbitration result counters AimJunkies’ claims since it found the software itself illegal.

 

“Phoenix Digital’s Terms of Service, which apply to the sale/license of Defendants’ Destiny 2 cheat software, are void because they are in violation of public policy and/or illegal,” Bungie countered in a filing last Friday.

 

—

 

A copy of the arbitration Judge’s conclusions is available here (pdf). Bungie asked the federal court to confirm this (pdf) and enter a judgment accordingly

 

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 three newcomers on the list. “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” is the most downloaded title.

The most torrented movies for the week ending on February 20 are:

Movie Rank	Rank last week	Movie name	IMDb Rating / Trailer
Most downloaded movies via torrent sites
1	(1)	Black Panther: Wakanda Forever	7.0 / trailer
2	(…)	Sharper	6.6 / trailer
3	(2)	Plane	6.6 / trailer
4	(5)	Puss in Boots: The Last Wish	7.8 / trailer
5	(…)	Infinity Pool	6.2 / trailer
6	(3)	Babylon	7.4 / trailer
7	(5)	M3GAN	6.5 / trailer
8	(…)	Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania	6.6 / trailer
9	(7)	Avatar: The Way of Water	8.1 / trailer
10	(10)	Black Adam	7.1 / trailer

 

 

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