When Hollywood sets its sights on something it wants to achieve in the piracy landscape, victory may not come this week or even next year. The MPA has been around for 100 years; it definitely has patience to see out a few more.

In Vietnam, despite changes in the law and visits by high-ranking MPA and ACE representatives, patience will be required to reduce piracy. The world’s largest pirate sites seem to operate freely there and even when giants like Zoro.to and 9anime came under direct pressure from ACE recently, immediate respawning under new domains was hardly conducive to confidence building.

MPA/ACE have enjoyed success, the closure of 2embed is just one example. But with Vietnam-based movie streaming giant Fmovies also announcing a domain switch/minor rebranding to Fmoviesz recently, more progress is needed and in an announcement this week, the authorities reported just that.

1,000 Piracy Websites Blocked

During an anti-piracy seminar held in Hanoi on Tuesday, data compiled by the Authority of Broadcasting and Electronic Information, a department under the Ministry of Information and Communications revealed that, during the past 12 months, 1,000 copyright-infringing sites were blocked in Vietnam.

The blocking reportedly took place between August 2022 and August 2023, but there’s not much for the MPA to celebrate, at least not in the short term.

It appears that most of the targets were sites offering pirate football streams, not the platforms offering movies, TV shows, manga, and anime that the MPA would like to shut down. Reading between the lines, these blocking efforts are considered a step in the right direction but were probably ineffective overall.

Blocking is 98% Successful Until it Immediately Isn’t

A representative of the state-run Vietnam Digital Copyright Center said that blocking of the 1,000 sites (a closer view reveals that’s actually the number of domains) was carried out in coordination with Vietnamese internet service providers. A similar approach last year allegedly reduced visits to pirate streaming sites by 98%, but general commentary on the scheme tends to undermine that.

Current blocking efforts are described as inconsistent, with some ISPs quickly blocking sites but others taking a much more leisurely approach. Given that sites reportedly switch to new domains in a claimed five to 10 minutes, blocking faces immediate challenges. A football streaming site known as ‘Xoi Lac TV’ is claimed to be the most notorious repeat offender and by ignoring bans and switching domains, it has remained online for around five years.

Pirate Sites Funded By Illegal Advertising

Media reports from 2018 indicate that Xoi Lac TV and many other sites were blocked on copyright grounds. And when 500 sites were reportedly blocked in 2021/22, copyright was again the headline reason.

Indeed, Vietnam already has a site-blocking mechanism in place; a verified complaint from a rightsholder can lead to the Authority of Broadcasting and Electronic Information (AEBI) instructing an online platform to remove content. If that doesn’t happen within the allocated timeframe, ISPs can be instructed to block the sites. Why that doesn’t happen to more sites more often isn’t clear, but there are other ways pirate sites can find themselves in more immediate trouble.

When football streaming sites are blocked in Vietnam, discussion of illegal betting advertising on the platforms usually appears as part of the discussion. Xoi Lac TV has appeared on lists of domains blocked due to illegal gambling promotions and the government seems very willing to bring those involved to justice .

Late 2022 an expert with Vietnam’s National Cyber Security Center said that the operators of local streaming sites obtain foreign streams, embed their own logos, and then use the content to promote gambling and fraud.

“The general method of these websites is to steal TV copyrights, ‘push’ the search engine optimization (SEO) to the top on Google to attract traffic, and then receive ads for gambling and fraud channels,” the expert said .

Xoi Lac TV streams reportedly promote the gambling game portal Zovip and sports betting sites including 1bet88 and fun88.

Vietnam Faces “Overseas Challenges”

This type of gambling-focused business model is largely absent from the large sites the MPA would like Vietnam to shut down. Whether that helps them to survive is up for debate but based on comments before and during the event on Tuesday, Vietnam isn’t averse to highlighting enforcement difficulties it faces in ‘other’ countries.

Xoi Lac TV is reportedly among around 70 football piracy sites that together generated around 1.5 billion views in 2022/23. However, figures cited by authorities in Vietnam claim that 200 local pirate movie sites only attract 120 million visits per month overall. Fmovies – now known as Fmoviesz – receives around 119.5 million visits each month in its own right.

Traffic estimates aside, Pham Hoang Hai, Director of the Digital Content Copyright Center, notes that all of these sites have something in common; they use foreign domain names and services to hide their identities. It was previously highlighted that when Xoi Lac TV operated from Xoilac.tv, it was difficult to trace its operator due to the domain’s registration in the United States. That wasn’t made any easier by the site allegedly using a U.S. IP address and U.S. hosting.

Blocking or shutting down websites isn’t something to be taken lightly and it appears Vietnam will take its time before deciding how to proceed against the largest pirate platforms. Meanwhile, it’s being reported that the government has been drafting new rules that will compel ISPs to kick citizens off the internet if they share “law-breaking information.”

“The move threatens to throttle web access further in a country where an estimated 1,000 websites, from those of the BBC to Freedom House, are already blocked,” Nikkei reports .

From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

Signed by some of Russia’s most powerful tech and entertainment companies in 2018, a Memorandum of Cooperation saw the creation of a centralized database of pirated content.

Internet companies agreed to query the database every few minutes and then remove corresponding content from their indexes. Those who benefited from the system declared it a success but not all types of content enjoyed protection. Book publishers and music companies were excluded from the memorandum and despite repeated calls for equivalent protection, they were left outside in the cold.

Early this month, Vadim Subbotin, Deputy Head of telecoms regulator Roskomnadzor, announced that book publishers and music companies will be able to participate moving forward. Subbotin claims it currently takes between 15 and 20 minutes to remove a pirate link from search results and, thus far, over 100 million have been deleted following rightsholders’ complaints.

Steep Rise in Manga Consumption

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, discussion of copyright protection in Russia has trended towards the chaotic. With Hollywood and other major rightsholders still not releasing entertainment products in the region, enforcement measures appear to have taken a back seat. There are some outliers, however.

With Russians reportedly losing interest in comics produced by U.S. companies such as Marvel, appetite for Asian comics produced by companies in Japan, South Korea and China is reportedly on a steep upward trend. According to Yandex.market, consumption is up 20% in annual terms so for South Korean manga producers, that’s an opportunity to develop business in Russia, minus competition from pirates.

Manga Companies Target Pirate Manga Sites

Manga platform My Comics was launched in November 2022 by South Korean company MStoryLink. A Kommersant report published Monday reveals that with support from the state-controlled South Korean Creative Content Agency (KOCCA), My Comics is preparing to sue ReManga, a large manga piracy site focused on the Russian market.

KOCCA’s Russia representative, Kim Si-Woo, says that My Comics sent letters to several platforms last year which demanded the removal of unlicensed comics, but the outreach was only partially effective.

“Most have removed them, but ReManga is still ignoring the letter, undermining the activities of Moi Comics in Russia,” Kim Si-Woo says.

On one hand, KOCCA admits that “piracy is a natural step in the formation of a market.” On the other, it says that without intellectual property protection and enforcement, development of the South Korean creative industries won’t be possible in Russia. Unfortunately, if those creative industries get a little too creative, development might be curtailed by Russia itself.

Manga Sites Face Two Attack Vectors

ReManga is one of the most popular pirate manga sites focused on Russia. It currently enjoys around 17.8 million visits per month according to SimilarWeb data, with 71% of its traffic coming from inside Russia.

The platform has appeared on Russia’s ‘register of prohibited information’ three times previously, with the most recent entry dating back to 2021 attributed to telecoms watchdog Roscomnadzor. While that was probably due to an infringement of intellectual property rights, two other entries in the same year are attributed to Rospotrebnadzor, the Federal Service for Surveillance on Consumer Rights Protection and Human Wellbeing.

The exact reasons for these entries are unclear, but there’s no doubt that recent legal amendments present obvious risks for both pirate sites and their legal counterparts, My Comics included.

Manga Content Meets Legal Restrictions

In December 2022, Vladimir Putin signed a new law which among other things bans “LGBT propaganda.” Manga site Yaoilib.me was one of the early casualties and its permanent blocking is detailed on RuBlacklist , a portal maintained by digital rights group Roskomsvoboda .

The site was blocked by Rosmolodezh, Russia’s Federal Agency for Youth Affairs, for spreading “propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations.” It wouldn’t be the last manga site to suffer that fate. In March, Mangapoisk.ru was permanently blocked and two months later, Mangapoisk.com was added to the list. On September 21, Mangapoisk.org appeared six times on the ‘prohibited information’ list and is now blocked.

Other manga sites blocked in Russia this month include MangaHub (3.6m visits per month) and MintManga (11m), but falling foul of Russian legislation isn’t a pirate site exclusive.

Russian anime encyclopedia ‘Shikimori’ was blocked on September 21 . Platforms like these enable anime fans to learn more about the genre which in turn informs upcoming purchases. If these kinds of resources can be disappeared overnight, market growth may face sudden challenges in Russia. After receiving a fine for listing films containing ‘LGBT people’ without displaying adult age restrictions, even Yandex can face punishment.

My Comics and KOCCA seem prepared to overlook this threat, even though it’s directly related to discrimination against minorities. Russia’s actions in Ukraine and elsewhere also seem to be of limited concern , so for now at least, selling comics takes priority.

From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

In 2003, the World Wide Web was still in its infancy. Dial-up connections were still the default and YouTube, Facebook, and Gmail had yet to be invented.

There was a new technology making waves at the time. BitTorrent made it much easier for people to transfer large files, opening the door to unlimited video-sharing without restraints.

Many people started experimenting with BitTorrent by sharing pirated films and TV shows. These files made their way all over the world and remained available as long as all pieces were shared in the swarm.

Most of these early releases remained available for a few days or weeks, and some lasted well over a year before people lost interest. In extreme cases, some torrents have managed to survive for over a decade.

The Fanimatrix Torrent Turns 20

The oldest surviving torrent we have seen is a copy of the Matrix fan film “ The Fanimatrix ”. The torrent was created in September 2003 and will turn 20 years old in a few days. A truly remarkable achievement.

The film was shot by a group of New Zealand friends. With a limited budget of just $800, nearly half of which was spent on a leather jacket, they managed to complete the project in nine days.

While shooting the film was possible with these financial constraints, finding a distribution channel proved to be a major hurdle. Free video-sharing services didn’t exist yet and server bandwidth was still very costly.

Technically the team could host their own server, but that would cost thousands of dollars, which wasn’t an option. Luckily, however, the group’s IT guy, Sebastian Kai Frost, went looking for alternatives.

Promising New Technology

Frost had a bit part in the film and did some other work as well, but the true breakthrough came when he stumbled upon a new technology called BitTorrent. This appeared to be exactly what they were looking for.

“It looked promising because it scaled such that the more popular the file became, the more the bandwidth load was shared. It seemed like the perfect solution,” Frost told us earlier.

After convincing the crew that BitTorrent was the right choice, Frost created a torrent on September 28, 2003. He also compiled a tracker on his own Linux box and made sure everything was running correctly.

Today, more than twenty years have passed and the torrent is still up and running with more than a hundred seeders. As far as we know, it’s the oldest active torrent on the Internet, one that deserves to be in the history books.

A Proper Celebration for the 25th?

Initially, there was a plan to celebrate the 20th anniversary but that hasn’t come to fruition. Some of the original cast members have fairly successful careers now and are scattered around the world, so getting the team back together is a challenge.

Director and writer Rajneel Singh, who is still active in the film industry, would like to do something special for the 25th anniversary. Frost says that there is a plan to get the cast together to shoot and release a new clip, perhaps coupled with some fresh “Fanimatrix” merchandise.

Whether the torrent will still be going by that time is unclear, but Frost will do everything in his power to make that happen.

“I never expected to become the world’s oldest torrent but now it’s definitely become a thing I’d love to keep carrying on. So I’ll be keeping this active as long as I physically can,” Frost tells us.

There were a few times that the torrent almost died but after the news broke that this was the oldest active torrent, dozens of people stepped forward to donate their bandwidth.

“It’s really heartening seeing the community pull together around this torrent, despite its usually low transfer count, and work together to keep it alive and kicking. It warms my heart on the daily.”

“We’re super pumped that it’s still going and that people still take an interest in it. Looking forward to the 25th and having something special to share with the world,” Frost concludes.

From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

“You’re talking about things I haven’t done yet, in the past tense. It’s driving me crazy. Are you sure you have the right person?”

Sarah Connor’s bewilderment in the 1984 masterpiece The Terminator is convincing. Important actions she was yet to take had already led to events happening in the future; the Terminator’s job was travel back from the future and stop her doing the stuff she hadn’t even done yet.

Determining the Future

Time travel never makes sense in movies and the text of the DMCA makes no attempt to address any takedown grievances a T-1000 may have experienced in 2029. It states that if a copyright holder sees their work being infringed online, they can send a notice that identifies the location of the content along with a request for its removal.

This would not have confused Sarah Connor. The alleged infringement happened and as per the DMCA, the content that can be seen in the present can be removed, so it’s not seen in the future. No time-traveling conundrums, just past, present and future, in one direction.

Proactive Help For Rightsholders

For some time, rightsholders have been submitting DMCA notices to Google that request the removal of URLs in Google’s search indexes that do not yet exist in Google’s search indexes. By default, these ‘DMCA’ notices are invalid; no infringement means there’s a) no content to locate and b) nothing to take down.

The caveat here is that Google is simply going the extra mile to help rightsholders. One example is the tendency of pirate site URLs to follow a formula; it’s possible to predict an infringing URL in advance, and when Google crawls it, it’s immediately flagged and never appears in search results. There are other examples, but it’s the intent that’s important.

Google recently revealed that it preemptively blocks hundreds of millions of URLs before they appear in its indexes. This isn’t required under law so referring to them as DMCA takedown notices is immediately problematic.

Crimes of the Future

Google’s web takedown form states that it’s company policy to “respond to legally valid copyright removal requests.” In addition, however, it also accepts notices that aren’t legally valid, at least under the DMCA.

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

Given that no infringement has taken place, what happens when people start making predictions about future infringements that never happen, or they decide to start sending bogus notices to ensure that sites are punished by preemptive blocking?

Future Blocking Warning

In a post to the /r/google community on Reddit yesterday, a user reported that they had received “many DMCA notices from Google regarding a pornography actor.”

The notification from Google, which clearly references the DMCA, notes that some of the reported URLs in the complaint may not actually be in its search results.

“Although some of these URLs may not be available in our search results now, we are retaining these notices and will act on them if at some point in the future we do crawl these pages for inclusion in search results,” the notice reads.

Problem #1: The Allegations Are Bogus

The DMCA notice posted by the Reddit user is listed on the Lumen Database ( link ). It claims to protect the rights of an OnlyFans/Instagram user but actually targets a policy page on the Reddit users’ site, a mobile phone store , another mobile phone store , and a meme page .

Only one URL hits an appropriate target, unless beach footwear qualifies.

The sender is identified as ‘Venus Group’ and according to Lumen Database records, it represents a long list of similar OnlyFans/influencer-type people.

In another notice listed on Lumen ( link ), a page on the Reddit user’s website selling smartphones is a target, along with a site selling a dog-feeding device , and a site selling a specialist alcoholic drink .

Whether the company received a similar warning about future piracy is unclear, but the same DMCA complaint also requests the removal of a Sony Pictures Publicity administration portal .

Problem #2: Doing Nothing Isn’t An Option

As Google’s notification explains, if URLs aren’t in its indexes now, as soon as it sees them there’s a reasonable chance they will never appear in its search results and the notices will form part of a demotion signal. So what are the options for those wrongfully targeted?

The suggestion from Google is to file a DMCA counter notice; Sarah is confused again.

On the basis that a DMCA notice may only reference an infringement that has actually happened and must state the current location of the infringing content, any notice that fails to do so is invalid.

Regardless of whether Google accepts infringement notices to enable it to respond proactively, how can a DMCA counternotice attempt to revoke an invalid DMCA notice that references allegedly infringing content that simply doesn’t exist in Google’s search results, but may appear sometime in the future?

This is one of the inevitable problems of letting people predict the future and mess around with the normal flowing of time. The logical progression from here is for people to get their DMCA counter notices in first, to counteract the bogus notices that haven’t been sent, referencing content that doesn’t exist.

If the past can change, then so can the future.

From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

In recent years, rightsholders of major sports events have repeatedly complained that piracy of live sports is getting out of hand.

Ideally, they would like to see updates to the current legislative frameworks so the problem can be targeted more efficiently. These comments have prompted lawmakers to look into the matter but, for now, the status quo remains.

That’s not to say that it’s impossible to address sports streaming piracy under current laws. The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment has used its network and law enforcement connections to take out several large sports streaming operations , for example.

U.S. Domain Seizures

The U.S. Government also proved its abilities late last year, when it seized dozens of sports streaming-related domains in a FIFA World Cup-themed enforcement push.

In the initial wave, Homeland Security Investigations took down 55 domain names operated by pirate sports streaming sites and, in a follow-up , several more were pointed to a seizure banner.

This high-profile action affected millions of pirates and was successful in shutting some sites down permanently. SoccerStreams, one of the main targets, initially moved to a new domain but later announced that it had shut down permanently .

New Crackdown?

Earlier this week, several websites associated with brands that were targeted by U.S. seizures suddenly became unreachable. The domain names of popular sites such as NFLbite.com, NBAbite.com, and freestreams-live1.top stopped resolving.

More than a dozen sports streaming domains appeared to be taken out. These domains were registered through Njalla, which advertises itself as the “world’s most notorious privacy provider for domains.”

Privacy doesn’t mean that domains will remain online at all costs though. Njalla changed the nameservers of the domains to 1-ceci.njalla.do, 2-nest.pipe.ma, 3-pas.njalla.in, sending traffic into a sinkhole. Or as the French would say, Ceci n’est pas .

Indian Court Order

Given the recent history, it seemed likely that the U.S. Government might be involved, but that’s not the case. Njalla informs us that it took action following a court order from the New Delhi High Court in India.

“The domains are all with our ICANN-accredited partner and it’s out of both ours and their hands because of the court decision,” Njalla explains.

If Njalla or its partner, presumably Tucows, ignored the court order the latter would risk losing its ICANN accreditation. That could effectively put the company out of business.

Njalla still doesn’t have all the information but may share more details in the future, if the domain registrants give permission. What’s clear is that the targeted domains can’t operate through Njalla.

Not All Domains Remain Suspended

This enforcement action isn’t as broad as it first appeared, however. Several domains that initially pointed to “suspended” nameservers have resurfaced again on their original nameservers. Apparently, these domains are not listed in the court order.

Njalla informs us that the domain names that currently have a ‘clienthold’ status are the real targets. That appears to include freestreams-live1.top, which currently points to “shut-for-fraud.com” nameservers.

Needless to say, the domain suspension immediately stopped all traffic to this site, albeit with a slight delay due to DNS caching. However, sites that have previously survived U.S. domain seizures are not quick to back down, so the domain whack-a-mole will likely continue.

Demand for pirated streams doesn’t appear to wane either. A recent poll by Oddspedia among 3,200 American football fans shows that 93% don’t have any moral objections to using pirated streams. According to most respondents, the legal options are simply too expensive.

—-

Freestreams-live1.top is now on Clienthold. There may be more of these but without a copy of the court order, we’re not able to confirm that.

Below is a list of the domain names that (previously) pointed to suspended nameservers.

– rcrackstreams.com
– rboxingstreams.com
– nhlbite.com
– nflbite.com
– nbabite.com
– methstreams.link
– linestreams.com
– karmastreams.me
– karmastreams.com
– fsl-streams.click
– f1bite.net
– crackstreams.nu
– cokestreams.com
– buffstreams.sx
– boxingbite.net
– 2720pstream.tv
– 720pstream.nu
– 720pstream.me
– 101streams.net

From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

It’s no secret that French file-hosting platform Uptobox has been in the crosshairs of rightsholders for some time.

Founded in 2011, Uptobox gained popularity by making it easy for users to upload, store, and share files with others. In April 2023 alone, Uptobox received 34 million visits, roughly a third of those from France.

News that Uptobox domains had been blocked by French ISPs emerged in May, but the service remained unfazed. Rather than panic, it offered unblocking advice instead.

Serious Technical Issues…

Roughly three hours ago, the official Uptobox account on ‘X’ tweeted that the service was experiencing issues.

“It appears that we have a technical problem, we are currently investigating, the network seems to be severely disrupted,” the platform reported.

Reports from all over Europe confirmed that Uptobox was down, accompanied by differences of opinion as to the cause. Soon after, French news outlet l’Informé broke the news that no user of the service wanted to hear.

Police Raids on Two Datacenters

According to l’Informé sources, around 20 police officers raided Scaleway and OpCore, two cloud service providers based in Vitry-sur-Seine, an area in the southeastern suburbs of Paris.

At the time of the report, police were still on the scene, reportedly carrying out a court-ordered “counterfeit seizure” operation targeting Uptobox, which presumably utilized servers at Scaleway and OpCore.

According to l’Informé, the raids were carried out on behalf of the world’s largest entertainment companies; Columbia, Paramount, StudioCanal, Warner Bros, Disney, Apple and Amazon. All are members of the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment, the world’s largest anti-piracy coalition.

(Update: ACE has just confirmed its involvement in the operation. Statement below)

No Uptobox domains are functional at the time of writing.

One Image Reportedly Sealed Uptobox’s Fate

A remarkable detail in l’Informé’s report suggests that an image posted to Twitter almost five years ago may have marked the beginning of the end for Uptobox. It was posted to the @Starouille account just before Christmas 2018 by an individual believed to be the chief technical officer of Uptobox.

‘Online’ is a reference to Online SAS, the cloud hosting company that rebranded as Scaleway in 2015. DC2 is a reference to datacenter 2, a 4,500 m² facility located in Vitry-sur-Seine, the same suburb targeted by police this morning. Images courtesy of Google comprehensively clear up any remaining doubts over the location.

When contacted by l’Informé for comment, representatives of the movie industry, Scaleway and OpCore all declined to answer any questions.

‘Expert’ Opinions Should Be Ignored

Some ‘experts’ posting on social media are claiming that the l’Informé article is bogus. Unfortunately, they have to overcome two massive hurdles to remain credible.

Most importantly, the news was broken by journalist Marc Rees , so we can safely bet the house it’s authentic. Secondly, the official Uptobox account on ‘X’ has just provided important updates.

“Following the incident, we lost access to the servers containing the user files, they are no longer reachable, we have not yet had any documented confirmation of the seizure of our servers by anyone,” the first tweet reads.

“The database was not affected, and for security reasons, it was relocated off-web and the servers operating the site were erased in their entirety.”

Uptobox reports that no user data is currently lost and if it can regain access to its servers, files and user accounts may be reconnected.

“In the meantime, your files remain anonymous on our servers and are unusable. As for Premium subscriptions, these are frozen and will be restored and credited with compensation as soon as we regain access to the file servers. We are not going to give up, our team is working hard to resolve this situation as quickly as possible.”

Update: Statement from the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment:

The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE), the world’s leading anti-piracy coalition, today announced it has shut down Uptobox and Uptostream, two of the digital piracy world’s most notorious illegal video hosts.

The action, conducted in France and the United Arab Emirates, puts an end to a piracy operation that was well known for a decade among distributors of infringing content. The illegal service boasted massive audiences, mainly from France, but also from Indonesia, India and Mexico, with 1.5 billion visits over the last three years. The services hosted a sizable infringing library of film and television titles affecting all ACE members and many other rightsholders, allowing users to stream and download copyright-protected content at no cost or through a paid premium subscription.

The two French nationals who ran the illegal service are based in Dubai, where they amassed illegal gains from selling advertising and premium subscriptions.

“The action we announced today demonstrates that even the most sophisticated piracy operations are not above the law,” said Jan van Voorn, Executive Vice President and Global Content Protection Chief of the Motion Picture Association and Head of ACE. “This case sends a strong message to criminal operators that their illegal actions will be put to an end eventually. They may think their operations are undercover, but ACE has the network, resources and expertise to identify them and shut them down.”

“Canal+ supports swift action when acts of piracy compromise intellectual property rights, which in turn has an impact on our business,” said Céline Boyer, Head of Content Protection at Canal+. “Our partnership with ACE is essential to ensuring that the creative marketplace continues to thrive by addressing content piracy at its source.”

“France Televisions has zero tolerance for piracy and illegal distribution of content and channels,” said Nathalie Bobineau, Senior Vice President of International Development of French public broadcaster France Televisions. “By collaborating with ACE, we reinforce our commitment to upholding the principles of copyright protection and preserving the value of original content.”

From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

When Italy passed new law on July 14, many believed that when the new Serie A football season began on August 8, IPTV pirates would draw their last breaths as legal football platforms burst back to life.

In the event, none of these things happened. For various reasons, Italy’s new blocking system wasn’t ready and was never likely to have been. Initial technical meetings on security matters, even blocking itself, still hadn’t taken place.

A meeting eventually went ahead on September 7; telecoms regulator AGCOM turned up, as did the government’s cybersecurity experts. Also in attendance, anti-piracy groups FAPAV and SIAE, representatives from the football league, plus Amazon and Google.

Those who didn’t take part included cloud providers, satellite broadcasters, and VPN companies. According to DDay.it, AGCOM told the meeting that more companies need to participate in the project and everyone needed to “hurry because there is a deadline to meet.”

With the new season now five weeks old, the new deadline remains unclear. As recently as late August, insiders said that the system would be up and running late September or early October. That isn’t going to happen, but there will be another technical meeting in October to talk about what should happen when it eventually does.

Piracy Shield: It Does What It Says

One thing running to schedule is the system’s name. Telecoms regulator AGCOM has opted for the self-explanatory brand ‘Piracy Shield’ accompanied by a shield-shaped fingerprint logo with Piracy Shield written on the front. A splash of pink perfectly matching the theme on TorrentFreak rounds things off nicely.

Interestingly, Italian tech news site DDAY managed to obtain some screenshots of Piracy Shield. Whether they depict the software in action isn’t clear but from a presentation perspective they are pretty basic, to say the least.

Piracy Shield Tickets

Information on how the system will operate also falls short of expectations, at least when compared to the media hype of the last few weeks and the inherently technical nature of sophisticated pirate IPTV operations.

“The platform will be automatic, and is a sort of Content Management System that manages tickets. Nothing sophisticated or complex,” DDAY reports.

“Rightsholders will have access to the dashboard via an account and will be able to create a new ticket where they enter a name, the IPs or domain names to block, and the digital proof, then a screenshot.”

Get it Right in 60 Seconds

The report suggests that once a ticket has been created, there will be just 60 seconds to cancel it. Once that time has expired, the blocking request will be sent to AGCOM where an unspecified automated system will first check to ensure that all fields have been populated as required.

While it would make more sense to fix deficiencies before they’re submitted to AGCOM, DDAY reports that AGCOM will not check any blocking requests before it validates them.

Once validated, AGCOM will instruct all kinds of online service providers to implement blocking. Consumer ISPs, DNS providers, cloud providers and hosting companies must take blocking action within 30 minutes, while companies such as Google must block or remove content from their search indexes.

Automation and APIs

Given that an entirely manual system would be hilariously inadequate, Piracy Shield will be accessible through APIs. These will allow rightsholders to automatically create tickets which, according to DDAY, will trigger an automatic block with no human intervention whatsoever.

Whether there are provisions for quickly correcting errors or taking action in the event of inadvertent overblocking is unclear. DDAY reports that during the meeting on September 7, someone asked who is responsible for the blocking ‘whitelist’ containing domains or IP addresses that should never be blocked because they’re crucial for the functioning of the internet.

“[At] the moment there appears to be no plans in this sense,” DDAY reports.

Similar concerns noted that while IP address and domain blocking will be executed immediately, subsequent unblocking for even legitimate reasons will be subjected to an extended manual process.

Don’t Worry About Security…..

When an unnamed person asked if it was possible to see Piracy Shield’s source code, the question was reportedly “glossed over” with assurances that other people will carry out penetration tests. That the source won’t be made available is standard practice for anti-piracy companies; they have a product and ‘trade secrets’ to guard.

That raises the question of who developed Piracy Shield. Media reports last month indicated that Serie A bought it and then gave it to AGCOM as a gift. We couldn’t find any mention of the developer, so we turned to the screenshots published by DDAY for any potential clues, preferably something unique.

Impossible to find using regular reverse image search engines, it appears the Piracy Shield ‘fingerprint’ logo doubles as a favicon. Chinese ‘internet-of-things’ search engine FOFA indexes favicons and from there it was trivial to see where Piracy Shield had a web presence recently.

SP Tech appears to be a reference to SP Tech S.R.L , a brand protection, content monitoring, anti-piracy startup that has strong rightsholder connections in Italy and whose name appears in numerous industry piracy reports.

FOFA helpfully links an SP Tech website to AGCOM thanks to this code snippet, which also mentions Piracy Shield to round things off.

From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN has targeted pirates of all shapes and sizes for the last quarter-century.

It’s also one of the few groups that systematically tracks copyright infringers on Usenet, one of the oldest file-sharing systems which still has millions of users.

BREIN has a long track record of going after Usenet indexing sites. These portals don’t host any infringing material on their servers but, much like torrent sites, they offer NZB files or ‘spots’ that make infringing material easy to find on Usenet.

These enforcement efforts are not limited to these indexers. The anti-piracy group has also targeted players higher up the chain, including Usenet providers. On the other end of the spectrum, prolific uploaders are spotted as well.

BREIN Settles with Usenet Pirates

This week, BREIN reports that it settled with two members of a relatively new Usenet community. Several prolific uploaders had switched to this site after another NZB community was taken offline by the anti-piracy group. In hindsight, this was a costly decision.

The first uploaders who, similar to the sites, remain unnamed, offered pirated copies of books and settled for €7,200. The second person uploaded both music and books and agreed to a €5,000 settlement, which is partly conditional due to personal circumstances.

These settlement agreements further stipulate that the uploaders will have to pay an additional €500 per upload if they are caught for a similar offense in the future.

These are not the first people connected to the site to be tracked down. Last month, BREIN announced that it had settled with an administrator for €7,500, while an uploader agreed to pay €5,000. At the time, the anti-piracy group already said that more suspects were on its radar.

OSINT and Info from Intermediaries

All of these settlements took place outside of court. BREIN doesn’t explain in detail how these people were tracked but director Tim Kuik informs TorrentFreak that OSINT and information from previous enforcement actions proved useful.

In addition, BREIN also obtained information from online intermediaries, without going to court. Kuik clarified that companies are required to share information with rightsholders based on existing case law. “No court procedures were necessary,” Kuik notes.

According to the Lycos/Pessers ruling , online intermediaries are required to cooperate if, among other things, the requested personal information is required to address concrete harm and there’s no alternative option to obtain it.

BREIN doesn’t name any of the sites where these users were members, but did clarify that both were oriented at a Dutch audience and are no longer online.

Usenet a Piracy Refuge?

The anti-piracy group will continue to monitor Usenet activity going forward. It is particularly critical of some commercial Usenet companies, which it sees as a refuge for pirates, that facilitate and profit from widespread copyright infringement.

In a high-profile lawsuit, BREIN previously tried to hold Usenet provider News-Service Europe liable for copyright infringement. This case went on for fourteen years, going all the way to the highest court.

Earlier this year, the Dutch Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Usenet company, ordering BREIN to pay €65,000 in legal fees. This was a bittersweet victory for the provider, which found itself forced to shut down years earlier.

From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

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

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

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

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

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

Plex Bans Problematic Host

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sledgehammer Approach

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

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

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

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

VPN Proxy

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

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

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

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

From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.