The Internet Archive (IA) is a non-profit organization that aims to save the history of the Internet for generations to come.

The digital library is a staunch supporter of a free and open Internet and began meticulously archiving the web over a quarter century ago.

Today, IA has more than 800 billion pages in its archive and offers a broad collection of digital media, including books. Staying true to the centuries-old library concept, IA patrons can also borrow books that are scanned and digitized in-house, with technical restrictions that prevent copying. At least, that’s the idea.

The self-scanning service is different from the licensing deals other libraries enter into. Not all publishers are happy with this scheme and when IA lifted its ‘one-digital-copy-per-patron’ policy at the start of the coronavirus pandemic, a massive lawsuit ensued.

Publishers Hachette, HarperCollins, John Wiley and Penguin Random House sued IA , equating the Open Library’s lending operation to copyright infringement. Earlier this year a New York Federal court concluded that the library is indeed liable for copyright infringement .

IA Sends DMCA Notice to Stop Book Piracy

The scale of the damages in that case are yet to be determined but in light of the legal battle, we noticed an interesting DMCA takedown notice this week through which IA tries to protect the publishers.

The Internet Archive sent a takedown request to GitHub, requesting the developer platform to remove a tool that circumvents industry-standard technical protection mechanisms for digital libraries. This “DeGouRou” software effectively allows patrons to save DRM-free copies of the books they borrow.

“This DMCA complaint is about a tool made available on github which purports to circumvent technical protections in violation of the copyright act section 1201,” the notice reads.

“I am reporting a Git which provides a tool specifically used to circumvent industry standard library TPMs which are used by Internet Archive, and other libraries, to permit patrons to borrow an encrypted book, read the encrypted book, and return an encrypted book.”

Not Authorized

Interestingly, an IA representative states that they are “not authorized by the copyright owners” to submit this takedown notice. Instead, IA is acting on its duty to prevent the unauthorized downloading of copyright-protected books.

It’s quite unusual to see a party sending takedown notices without permission from the actual rightsholders. However, given the copyright liabilities IA faces, it makes sense that the organization is doing what it can to prevent more legal trouble.

Permission or not, GitHub honored the takedown request. It removed all the DeGourou repositories that were flagged and took the code offline.

DeGourou is ‘Archived’ Elsewhere

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The publishers are likely pleased to see IA acting in their interests. However, as we often see on a free and open Internet, taking something completely offline isn’t always straightforward. After GitHub removed the code, it soon popped up elsewhere.

Apparently, some people are relentlessly trying to maintain an archive of the code in other places.

A Reddit thread that was initially posted five months ago linked to DeGourou’s GitHub page. After that was taken down it moved to Replit instead, but that instance was also targeted with a DMCA notice. DeGourou has now moved to GitLab, for as long as it lasts.

IA is clearly concerned about the potential copyright infringement implications of its library. The organization is currently finalizing a consent judgment with the publishers to establish the damages it owes in the earlier mentioned legal battle, while also leaving the door open for an appeal.

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

For at least five years , major rightsholders in the United States have issued regular warnings that Vietnam represents an emerging piracy threat.

Pirate site brands, including 123movies, Putlocker, Kisscartoon, 123movieshub, and GoMovies, were suddenly recognized all over the world, despite in many cases having been copied from ‘pirate’ brands already in existence. After the US Ambassador to Vietnam got involved in 2018, calling on government officials to launch criminal prosecutions , several persistent sites suddenly shut down .

Over time, several hundred domains reappeared online with similar branding, but none were as relevant or persistent as those previously removed from the market. Instead, a series of soon-to-be ‘mega brands’ were gaining a foothold, some on their way to 100 million, 150 million, then 200+ million visits per month – each.

Update: July 14, 2023 The domains zoro.to, zorotv.to, and zoronetwork.ru now fully redirect to the ACE anti-piracy portal. Visits are tracked by a “utm_campaign=Redirect” URL, a strong indication that ACE was behind the site’s closure.

Hollywood Visits Vietnam

Despite important legal developments in Vietnam earlier this year, it was still unclear whether the government would begin to take action against local pirate platforms.

On June 29, 2023, Deputy Minister of Public Security Lieutenant General Le Quoc Hung welcomed to Vietnam two important guests from the United States; Jan van Voorn, Head of the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment and Chief of Global Content Protection at the MPA, and Karyn Temple, the Hollywood industry group’s Executive Vice President and Global Chief Counsel.

The Ministry of Public Security described the visit as an opportunity for the two sides to have “open, substantive and effective exchanges” on the protection of content online. Vietnamese authorities offered assurances that the fight against intellectual property crime would be stepped up; for their part, ACE and the MPA were asked to share information to strengthen cooperation between the parties.

On the same day, local media published an interview with van Voorn, during which he took the unusual step of calling one pirate site by name; Zoro.to.

Zoro.to

With over 205 million monthly visits, ACE had a clear goal in mind for the giant pirate site. “To close the website completely, avoiding the situation of it closing and then opening,” a local news outlet reported.

Momentus Week in Vietnam

On Monday, July 4, we were able to confirm that ACE had already booked a significant win in Vietnam. The recent closure of 2Embed, a site that acted as a video library for hundreds of other sites, was the result of the anti-piracy group’s work.

“[T]he service was shut down through direct operator outreach,” ACE chief Jan van Voorn informed TorrentFreak, a possible reference to the “Knock-and-Talk” strategy now closely linked with the anti-piracy coalition.

Running in parallel, news began to emerge of big changes at Zoro.to. For reasons not immediately made clear, the site suddenly abandoned its Zoro.to domain and then reemerged at Aniwatch.to , sporting a brand new coat of paint and according to site staff, a new set of people at the helm.

Aniwatch.to is the new Zoro.to

“Everyone calm down, Zoro is acquired by a new dev team, they will now handle the whole website and social network accounts,” an announcement on the site declared. “Do not worry, all the data will remain the same, the old staff will keep supporting the server.”

Big Sites Never Switch Domain on a Whim

The suggestion that Zoro.to had rebranded simply because it had grown tired of its old domain and liked the idea of a fresh design, was implausible at best. Seizing a pirate site’s domain is one of the most punishing enforcement techniques, and sites don’t inflict that on themselves for no reason.

Soon after the switch, a site admin on the rebranded site – Animewatch.to – was a little more candid, although a DMCA issue seemed unlikely to dictate a change of theme.

That message was posted eight days ago, and in the past few hours, more information came to light supporting the theory that Zoro.to was probably under pressure from ACE/MPA directly, or maybe indirectly via local authorities.

As the image below shows, Zoro.to’s nameserver records have now been updated to point to ns3 and ns4.films.org. These nameservers are operated by the MPA and when site operators hand over their domains as part of a settlement, most of the time they are updated with these details.

To ensure that these records are indeed correct, we conducted a domain lookup directly at the Tonga Network Information Center (Tonic), the domain registration authority in control of the .to TLD. Those records confirm the details above and also provide a domain ‘edited’ time of 07:14 on July 13, 2023.

Domains offered by Tonic carry no personally identifying WHOIS records. Tonic says that maintaining that type of database would reveal registrant information, something that many of its customers consider “invasive of their privacy.”

This means that we cannot confirm that the Zoro.to domain has been transferred to MPA ownership already, whether it will ever be transferred, or indeed whether the addition of MPA nameserver details is intended to be permanent.

What we can confirm is that Zoro.to isn’t the only pirate site domain displaying these kinds of changes today. Pirate movie streaming site Goku.to displays similar domain records after enjoying around 32 million visits back in April and then slowly drifting away.

A similar domain, Goku.sx, on a very similar-looking site, made its first appearance in April and now receives almost 43 million visits per month.

Another domain, gokutv.me, is just getting started. Visitors from the United States are up 94% in a month, the United Kingdom 185%, and India 216%. Just another day at the office for pirates.

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

Millions of passionate Italian football fans, gorging on limitless top-tier matches for the price of a beer each week, was never likely to end well. It was only a question of how badly and when.

In common with similar businesses elsewhere in Europe, powerful Italian football clubs, broadcasters, and their powerful business associates in government, concluded long ago that only a draconian internet-blocking system supported by tough new law could force fans away from wallet-friendly pirate IPTV services and towards legal platforms.

During the summer of 2022, support for radical action against live-streaming piracy gathered momentum. New powers for telecoms regulator AGCOM would underpin an enhanced national ISP blocking system capable of taking down pirate IPTV streams in a matter of minutes. United as one against the ‘ digital mafias ‘ sucking the life out of the beautiful game, all that stood between an exclusive, tightly-controlled, piracy-free market was the Italian parliament.

Unanimous Approval from Both Houses

On March 22, 2023, the new bill was unanimously approved by the Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of the Italian Parliament. If subsequently passed by the upper house, the Senate of the Republic, telecoms regulator AGCOM would receive new powers to begin more intensive internet blocking, while football clubs and broadcasters could get back to selling their product to Italian football fans, minus the disruptive forces acting as competition in a market where very little tends to exist.

Proponents of the new law need not have worried. This week the Senate gave the bill a unanimous green light and welcomed its ‘ provisions for the prevention and suppression of the unlawful dissemination of content protected by copyright via electronic communications networks .’

Key Points From The Bill

– The Ministry of Culture, Ministry of Education, telecoms regulator AGCOM, and “representative” trade organizations, will deliver public awareness campaigns on social media, TV, and radio. These will “counter the unauthorized use, illicit dissemination and piracy of content protected by copyright, involving artists, writers and sportsmen.” Similar initiatives will also be conducted in Italy’s secondary schools.

– AGCOM will be given powers to order service providers, including network access providers, to disable access to content distributed illegally online, by “blocking the resolution of domain names using the domain name system (DNS) and blocking the routing of network traffic to IP addresses uniquely intended for illicit activities.”

– AGCOM will have the power to order the blocking of any other future domain names, subdomains, or IP addresses, which allow access to the same content previously blocked.

IPTV: Live Event Blocking

– In cases of “seriousness and urgency” involving content being made available related to live broadcasts, first-run movies, sports events, or those of social or public interest, AGCOM will have the power to order service providers to block domain names and IP addresses without a hearing.

This will only be permissible when the affected rightsholders use protection entities with “particular capabilities and expertise in the fight against the abusive dissemination of content” who are able to carry out their activities “in a diligent, accurate and objective manner.”

IPTV Blocking Protocol (machine translated)

– Taken together, the disabling provision and the term ‘service provider’ mean huge powers for AGCOM. The telecoms regulator can instruct network access providers, search engines, and any online entity involved in the accessibility of any infringing website or service in any capacity , to “ execute its blocking instructions without any delay and, in any case, within the maximum term of 30 minutes from the notification, by disabling the DNS resolution of the domain names and the routing of network traffic to the IP addresses .”

– In the event that an IP address or domain name subject to DNS blocking is located within the European Union, AGCOM can use “partnerships with counterparts on a voluntary basis to combat more effectively the distribution of illegally distributed content in the territory of the European Union.”

Information gathered as a result of blocking requests and subsequent blocking will be sent to the Public Prosecutor’s Office at the Court of Rome with a view to identifying the suppliers of pirated content.

Certainty Over What Must Be Done, But Not How

The above represents a summary of the first 11 pages of a 202-page document, the remainder of which we will report on in due course. In the meantime, it’s worth highlighting that while there is certainty over the blocking instructions to be handed out and to whom, it’s far from clear that everyone involved knows how that will be achieved from a technical perspective.

Within 30 days of the law entering into force, AGCOM and various government ministries, in collaboration with the National Cybersecurity Agency and the Agency for Digital Italy, will reportedly convene a “technical table” with the participation of service providers, internet access providers, rightsholders, content providers, audiovisual media service providers, and the “most representative” anti-piracy groups.

The purpose will be to “define the requirements and the necessary technical and operational tools to allow the disabling of domain names or IP addresses..”

According to the text, blocking will be actioned through a “single technical platform with automated operation for all recipients of disabling instructions.” While that sounds impressive, the system doesn’t exist, at least not yet. The requirement is that the system will be built within six months from the convening of the technical table.

What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

Fears that such an ambitious system could cause collateral damage via unjustified or erroneous blocking were mostly brushed aside. As recently as April, the Association of Italian Internet Providers spoke of the creation of a “ mega-firewall ” and warned that the blocking proposals were being pushed through too quickly.

Concerns over a potential imbalance between the protection of intellectual property on one hand, and the protection of the internet ecosystem on the other, were entirely justified but always destined to be crowded out by competing interests.

Eyes on the Goal, Only the Goal

Throughout the whole process, the contribution of football clubs to Italian society appeared to outweigh fears of a draconian internet blocking system, with alleged losses to piracy always being pushed to the foreground as justification. Every single time Italy’s football clubs came out on top, even when financial facts put them firmly at the bottom.

Losses in VAT, income tax, and corporation tax to piracy were valued at 319 million euros when widely publicized in March 2022. The fact that Italian football clubs still owed the state nearly half a billion euros in unpaid taxes from 2020 felt like a footnote referencing a small cash flow issue.

The fact that top-tier league Serie A itself was sponsored by a piracy-supporting online gambling company, at exactly the same time it complained about the Italian public using IPTV, received very little coverage. When that gambling company went bankrupt ( and didn’t pay its taxes ), the news barely moved the needle.

The fact that some of the top clubs in Italy are owned by businessmen who are also politicians, was obviously coincidental to the recent deal that allows tax debts to be paid back over five years, with none of the complicated penalties usually levied when companies spend all of their own money and then spend all of that owed to the state too.

If all goes to plan, Italian football fans will soon have no other choice than to spend their money with legitimate providers, who will no doubt reduce their prices to make content more affordable for regular people, because business will be booming.

The blocking system will be completed on time as well, obviously.

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

With more than 13 million books available for download, Z-Library is one of the largest repositories of pirated books on the Internet.

The site has millions of regular readers who find a wealth of free knowledge and entertainment at their fingertips.

Z-Library’s very existence was put to the test last November when U.S. law enforcement agencies seized over 200 domain names connected to the site. The site survived this initial crackdown and a new round of domain name seizures in May also failed to take it permanently offline.

Alleged Operators Arrested and Indicted

While the shadow library remains operational, two alleged operators of the site are in serious trouble. Following an FBI investigation, the authorities identified Russian nationals Anton Napolsky and Valeriia Ermakova as prime suspects. The pair were arrested in Argentina last year and now face potential extradition to the United States.

According to the U.S., the Russian duo amassed over a million dollars a year through donations, while engaging in criminal copyright infringement, wire fraud, and money laundering,

The extradition proceedings are still underway but the defendants don’t want things to get that far. They have retained U.S. attorneys who asked the New York federal court this week to dismiss the criminal indictment.

Motion to Dismiss the Indictment

The defendants are represented by attorneys Maria Temkin and Anna V. Brown , two American lawyers who both speak Russian. They submitted a motion to dismiss the indictment, arguing that the allegations are not sufficient to support a criminal prosecution in New York.

“Defendants are two Russian nationals that have neither resided in the United States nor visited the United States during the time relevant to the Indictment. While traveling as tourists in Argentina, Napolsky and Ermakova were detained pursuant to an arrest warrant issued in this case.

“No facts were presented in the Indictment or any supporting court documents that either Defendant’s conduct took place in this district,” the defense attorneys add in their preamble.

Deficient Copyright Infringement Claims

The indictment lists five counts and charges Napolsky and Ermakova with criminal copyright infringement, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, two counts of wire fraud, and money laundering conspiracy. These claims are all deficient, according to the defense, but here we’ll zoom in on the copyright allegations.

The motion to dismiss doesn’t deny allegations the pair were involved with Z-Library, nor does it refute that there are copyright-infringing books on the site. Instead, it argues that the defendants can’t be held accountable for copyright infringement in the United States.

“There is no such thing as an international copyright that automatically protects an author’s writings throughout the world. Protection against unauthorized use in any country is within the national justice system of each country,” the motion reads.

“There are no facts in the charging documents to support the legal conclusion that Defendants reproduced or distributed copyrighted materials within the United States. Defendants neither resided nor traveled to the United States during the time relevant to the Indictment.”

Copyright-infringing books on Z-Library were accessible from American IP addresses, but that doesn’t mean that Napolsky and Ermakova ‘reproduced’ or ‘distributed’ books in the United States.

The defense also responds to the allegation that an FBI agent was able to request and received copyrighted books through Z-Library’s ‘send by email’ function. While that may be true, this isn’t conduct that can be ascribed to the defendants, the lawyers argue.

“There is no allegation Defendants knew the location of the undercover FBI agents and willfully directed the materials to the United States.”

The alleged financial benefit is not directly tied to the U.S. either, the defense notes. Z-Library received many donations in Amazon gift cards but they could be spent in Russia too, before the Ukraine-related sanctions.

What Copyrights?

In addition to failing to state offenses, the indictment also lacks specificity with regard to these same offenses. For example, it’s not clear which specific works were infringed and who holds the copyright to those books.

“The Indictment fails to identify any book titles that Defendants had allegedly distributed in this district without the permission of a copyright holder. Nor does the Indictment identify any valid copyrights in existence at the times alleged in the Indictment.

“The dates or circumstances of such reproduction and distribution are also missing. It is also unclear what specific acts Defendants undertook ‘to infringe copyright’,” the motion adds.

In addition to the copyright issues, the defense further argues that the fraud and money laundering claims are not sufficient to establish jurisdiction in the United States. Based on these and other arguments, it believes that the indictment should be dismissed.

This is the first time that Napolsky and Ermakova have responded to the criminal claims in a U.S. court. The prosecution will likely oppose the motion to dismiss, after which the court will decide whether the case can move forward.

—

A copy of the motion to dismiss the indictment, submitted at the federal court for the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York is available here (pdf)

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

Some people believe that the early internet received a welcome uptake boost when the adult industry began to move online. Three decades later, many countries believe the internet – and children especially – would be better off if adult content was heavily restricted online.

The main problem is readily accessible ‘tube’ sites. Once hated by the adult industry because they were filled with pirated content that was never paid for, big-name tube sites like Pornhub are today owned by corporations which finance, produce, and distribute their own adult entertainment content.

As a result, these ‘legal’ tube sites now find themselves trying to rid the internet of ‘illegal’ tube sites, which prefer the original model where sites don’t pay for any content at all.

PornEZ Doing Business in the United States

On January 18, 2023, MG Premium, the adult entertainment giant behind brands including Reality Kings, Brazzers, MOFOS, Babes.com, and Twistys, filed a copyright complaint at a California federal court. The MindGeek subsidiary targeted pirate tube site PornEZ.net, its alleged operator Nguyen Hoi, and Does 1-20.

According to the complaint, PornEZ.net received an average of 27.6 million visits per month in the last quarter of 2022, with almost 22% of its visitors hailing from the United States. Building on the site’s U.S. connections, the complaint notes that visitors to U.S. social media platforms such as YouTube, came predominantly from the United States, with Facebook, Reddit, Instagram and Twitter users adding to the total. Those that didn’t arrive at PornEZ via U.S. social media platforms did so via U.S.-based search engines like Google.

Anyone in doubt that PornEZ was doing business in the United States could look at its domain name registrar (Namecheap) and its delivery network provider (Cloudflare), the plaintiffs continued. The site’s popups were geo-located to the United States “on the city level” and the site claimed to be in compliance with 18 U.S.C. 2257 , a U.S. law focused on the adult industry,

Claimed Commitment to the DMCA

It’s common for certain types of pirate sites to claim compliance with 17 U.S.C. § 512 of the DMCA, which under appropriate circumstances can limit liability for the existence of infringing content on a platform. PornEZ claimed similar compliance and noted that it would take down infringing content in response to DMCA notices. MG Premium’s experience told a different story.

“[D]efendants systematically refuse to comply with proper and compliant DMCA takedown notices against their own terms and conditions and displayed instructions,” the company informed the court.

MG Premium said that in December 2022, 7,818 of its copyrighted works were available on PornEZ via 51,375 URLs. A more recent accounting reveals that the company submitted 19,586 DMCA notices in an attempt to remove 116,757 infringements.

Aside from non-compliance with takedown requests, PornEZ failed to register as a service provider at the United States Copyright Office, meaning that in the event of a lawsuit, the safe harbor provisions of the DMCA would not apply.

The complaint concluded with a request for a broad injunction and statutory damages for willful copyright infringement, inducement of copyright infringement, and vicarious and/or contributory copyright infringement, in the amount of $150,000 for each work infringed.

Defendants Served But Did Not Appear

In August 2022, a DMCA subpoena obtained by MG Premium resulted in Cloudflare handing over information about the operator of PornEZ.

“In response, Cloudflare provided customer profile, billing and payment data, and user login information that shows the operator logging into Cloudflare’s US servers to control certain site operations,” MG Premium informed the court.

“Cloudflare production showed that the billing listed the ‘Responsible Party’ as customer ID 351754. The name provided was Nguyen Hoi with an email address. No physical address was provided. Through the email address, a total of 11 payments have been made to Cloudflare since August 7, 2021.”

While the payments were made via PayPal, these were tokenized payments, meaning that the operator obtained unique tokens or card account numbers from a third-party vendor, and used these to pay Cloudflare, instead of using their own account. It appears that left the plaintiffs with just a name and email addresses.

In February 2022, the defendants were served with PDF copies of the complaint and a court order, via email. Fairly predictably, they did not answer the complaint or appear in any way, so a default was entered against Nguyen Hoi on April 11, 2023.

Massive Claim For Damages

This week MG Premium filed a 33-page motion for default judgment against Nguyen Hoi, supported by 10 pages of declarations from Jason Tucker of anti-piracy company Battleship Stance and Andreas Alkiviades Andreou, a Cyprus-based director of MG Premium.

“The sale of memberships to MG Premium Ltd.’s paid membership websites where MG Premium Ltd. offers its copyrighted works is directly damaged by Defendant’s display of its works for free. Simply stated, potential MG Premium Ltd. customers will not pay monthly rates for the right to access and view content that is available for free,” the motion notes.

Sales lost to piracy are notoriously difficult to calculate, as unintentionally demonstrated below.

While over $275 billion would indeed be a lot of sales to lose every month, even the $275 million suggested as potential monthly revenue in the motion is optimistic. MG Premium admits that “not all 27.6M monthly visitors” of PornEZ would have been MG Premium customers, but that’s the purpose of statutory damages; precise calculation of loss isn’t required.

“Infringements here were and are willful and malicious. Defendant knew that his conduct was unlawful and acted without the slightest pretense of a justification. Defendant uploaded MG Premium, Ltd.’s copyrighted works onto PornEZ.net. At a minimum, Defendant was made aware of the infringements upon takedown notices sent by MG Premium Ltd. Defendant’s objective was to unlawfully display Plaintiff’s property for financial gain. There is no other plausible objective,” the motion states.

“Defendants’ illegal actions were not a momentary lapse, but part of a sustained commercial enterprise. To deter others from the same temptation, a large award is appropriate. Defendants willfully infringed 7,818 of Plaintiff’s works on 51,375 separate and distinct webpages resulting in millions of views. The sheer volume of infringements indicates the willfulness of Defendant’s actions and the value of using Plaintiffs content.”

For willful copyright infringement, MG Premium requests a total of $117,270,000 in statutory damages plus $4,670.47 in attorney’s fees and costs. The company also seeks a permanent injunction against the defendant and anyone acting on their behalf from infringing any of its copyrighted works moving forward.

Verisign should also hand over the PornEZ.net domain, while Cloudflare and Namecheap should be enjoined from continuing any service contracts or services to the defendant. It’s unclear whether that should also apply to any future business, but without being able to identify the defendant more positively, that could prove impossible.

The complaint, motion for default, declarations, and proposed order can be found here ( 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , pdf)

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

Most large torrent sites target a global audience, but there are many local favorites as well.

YggTorrent , for example, is one of the largest French-language torrent sites on the Internet, serving millions of users per month.

The French site is not the typical torrent indexer. YggTorrent sees itself as a community instead, one with a dedicated tracker, something that’s quite rare these days. The site was founded in 2017, to fill the gap left behind when T411 closed shop .

Like any other site of its stature, YggTorrent faces constant pressure from anti-piracy forces. The site is blocked by French Internet providers following a court order and rightsholders are doing all they can to expose the identities of its operators.

YggTorrent Domain Name Troubles

Thus far, these efforts haven’t brought down the site. YggTorrent sees the blocking efforts as ‘fair game’ and trusts that users will find their way around any obstacles. However, a recent intervention goes a step too far, the site believes.

Earlier this week, the Yggtorrent.do domain was rendered inaccessible. The domain name was registered through Njalla (1337 Services) and pointed to Cloudflare nameservers. An ‘unknown’ third party then updated these to HOLD.NETIM.NET nameservers, effectively rendering the site inaccessible.

According to a YggTorrent operator, it’s not clear who took this action or why. Njalla doesn’t seem to be involved as all information is listed correctly there. The company instead told YggTorrent that the .do registry may have something to do with it.

Registry / Registrar?

While we can’t confirm anything at this time, the NETIM.NET nameservers suggest that the domain registrar Netim could be involved. Njalla typically uses a third-party registrar for its domains and Netim may be one of them.

We asked Njalla to confirm that it works with Netim but the company didn’t immediately reply. Netim didn’t respond to our request for comment either and the same applies to the NIC.do registry.

Whoever is responsible for this domain takeover, YggTorrent is not happy with the lack of due process and transparency.

“Frankly, we don’t find it normal that someone can hijack a domain name as they wish. Website blocking, ok, but outright taking control of a domain calls into question a lot of things like freedom of expression on the Internet,” one of YggTorrent’s operators tells us.

Down, Not Out

Needless to say, the domain takeover immediately stopped all traffic to the site, albeit with a slight delay due to DNS caching. YggTorrent shared a screenshot of its traffic stats on the day that this happened.

YggTorrent has no plans to throw in the towel. This isn’t the first time that one of its domains has been suspended, and it likely won’t be the last time either.

The torrent site previously lost its .com domain following a complaint from the French anti-piracy outfit SACEM. The .ws registry later took action against Yggtorrent.ws, following a complaint from an unknown party.

With the .do ‘suspension’ yet another domain name bites the dust. The torrent site swiftly moved to a .wtf domain, for as long as it lasts, and remains online at the time of writing.

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

Few countries welcomed pirate site blocking measures as they spread across the world over the past 15 years. Australian citizens were as vocal in opposition as expected but in common with their overseas counterparts, eventually accepted that blocking is here to stay.

The Australian government recently released the 2022 edition of its Consumer Survey on Online Copyright Infringement. According to the study , 17% of Aussie consumers encountered a blocked site in the previous three months.

Six out of ten “simply gave up” trying to access any content at all, regardless of the source. Of the remainder, 16% bypassed the block, 14% sought lawful access to the content, while a persistent 6% persevered hoping they could find another pirate site that rightsholders had not yet blocked.

In reality there are always new ways to access even freshly blocked sites. Unencumbered by the rule of law or the restrictions of a tightly governed legal process, pirates can bypass a block in minutes, safe in the knowledge that rightsholders will have to catch up, and the legal system will also have to catch up with them.

The Australian system is particularly thorough and at times, blocking decisions have taken a very long time to hand down. If a new blocking injunction handed down late last week is any barometer, the tide may have already turned.

Movie Studios File Statement of Claim at Federal Court

The studios filed their statement of claim at the Federal Court on June 2, 2023. Netflix, Disney, Columbia, Paramount, Universal, Warner Bros., Village Roadshow, and several affiliated companies informed the Court that 22 overseas streaming platforms were infringing their copyrights.

Since those platforms have the “primary purpose or the primary effect of infringing, or facilitating an infringement,” the entertainment companies said that a blocking injunction was warranted under Section 115A of the Copyright Act.

Most of the nominated domain names belong to streaming sites specializing in mainstream movies, TV shows, and the ubiquitously-popular content of the moment, Japanese anime. Popular platforms on the list include 9anime, Onionplay, and EZTV. (full list below)

Domains Listed in Blocking Injunction

The blocking application listed more than four dozen respondents, including internet service providers Telstra, Optus, Vocus, Vodafone and TPG. After gaining several years’ worth of experience handling these applications, the time from statement of claim to an award of an injunction has been improving. In most cases, however, the gap could still be measured in months, far from satisfactory in a rapidly-shifting piracy market.

Blocking Injunction Awarded in Record Time

As the screenshot above shows, at least three of the domains requested for blocking are already dead and up for sale, a position likely to worsen in the weeks and months ahead. While that’s not a problem as far as the injunction goes, there are signs that Australia’s blocking machine is being optimized.

Following a statement of claim filed in early June, the final documents were submitted by Netflix on July 7.

NSD509/2023 – Timeline/Documents Filed

The Federal Court handed down the requested order on the very same day, instructing the 49 ISPs to disable access to the sites’ domain names, IP addresses, or URLs, within 15 days of service of the instructions. If pirate site operators believe they have a genuine reason to oppose blocking, they have a limited time to make a complaint.

“The owner or operator of any of the Target Online Locations and the owner or operator of any website who claims to be affected by these Orders may apply on 3 days’ written notice, including notice to all parties, to vary or discharge these Orders,” the Federal Court order reads.

With that scenario extremely unlikely to play out, the site operators will have to commit to a game of cat-and-mouse if they want Australian users to retain direct access to their websites. The injunction is dynamic, which means that any alternative domains, URLs, or IP addresses deployed to undermine blocking, will also be subject to the same injunction and therefore immediate candidates for blocking.

Blocking will remain in place for three years and in the event the platforms still “have the primary purpose or the primary effect” of infringing or facilitating infringement, a short administrative process will extend blocking for a further three years.

The Federal Court order is available here ( pdf ) and the full list of domains reads as follows:

new.iyf.tv
flyv.tv
www.movieswatch.com.pk
kokoatv.net
kokoa.tv
bingewatch.to
wcostream.net
goku.to
goku.sx
koreanz.xyz
www.divicast.co
bt4g.org
5movierulz.sh
5movierulz.ws
5movierulz.lv
moviestowatch.t
ridomovies.com
ridomovies.pw
eztvstatus.com
eztv.re
eztv1.xyz
eztv.wf
eztv.tf
eztv.yt
jexmovie.com
9anime.gs
9anime.pl
9anime.id
9anime.me
animesuge.to
animension.to
animetake.tv
duboku.one
movie4kto.net
onionplay.se

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

If we didn’t know better, we might conclude that ‘Cuevana’ is Spanish for ‘mole’.

The popular streaming piracy brand first appeared on the radar in 2009 and anti-piracy forces have been trying to ‘whack’ it ever since.

The original Cuevana site was founded by Tomas Escobar , at the time an engineering student in Cordoba, Argentina. By offering a Netflix-type streaming experience, with a bigger catalog and without any subscription fees, the pirate service quickly took off.

Taking Down Cuevana

It didn’t take long before rightsholders started to take notice of the millions of users flocking to the site. That marked the start of a series of enforcement campaigns that continues to this day.

Rightsholders and their anti-piracy representatives are no longer battling Escobar. The original founder moved on many years ago, and with an unrelated innovator accolade from MIT Technology Review, he now builds a career as an entrepreneur.

Escobar’s change of plans opened the doors for aspiring pirate tycoons, of which there were many. Over the past decade, many dozens of new Cuevana variants have launched, using creative domain name variations such as Cuevanahd, Cuevana2, and Cuevana3.

It is not always clear if and how these new variations are linked, but Cuevana remained a thorn in the site of Hollywood and was repeatedly featured on the U.S. Trade Representative’s list of notorious pirate sites.

“Cuevana is the most popular piracy site in the Spanish-speaking part of Latin America, offering more than 7,000 unlicensed television and movie titles,” the USTR wrote in its most recent overview.

ACE’s 2021 Breakthrough

Two years ago, the Alliance of Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) appeared to have made a breakthrough . The coalition announced that it had sent a cease and desist letter to the streaming portal’s Chilean operators, who decided to throw the towel.

This shutdown was legitimate and notable as it affected millions of users, but it didn’t shut down the Cuevana brand. In fact, Cuevana3.io, the leading domain at the time, remained online.

Earlier this year, we reported how Hollywood’s relentless pursuit of several Cuevana3 domains had failed to shut down the site. Cuevana3.io switched domains to Cuevana3.me and then Cuevana3.be. More recently, it was serving millions of monthly visits from Cuevana3.ai.

ACE Shuts Down ‘Another’ Cuevana

In an announcement yesterday, ACE said that this seemingly endless battle had come to an end. After tracking down the operator of Cuevana3.ai in the Piura District of Peru, the site was effectively pulled offline.

People who visit Cuevana3.ai, Cuevana3.me, Cuevana3.be, or any of the other domains run by this operator, are now directed to ACE’s “ Watch Legally ” page.

ACE informs TorrentFreak that it took control of 22 domain names in total, which were good for more than 100 million visits between March and May of this year. Some of these domains didn’t get any traffic but were kept as a backup, just in case.

“The largest Spanish-language piracy streamer in Latin America is no more, thanks to a tireless, global effort involving law enforcement and judicial authorities in several LATAM countries and ACE’s global teams in LATAM and other parts of the world,” says ACE boss Jan van Voorn.

Whac-a-Mole

An ACE spokesperson says that, according to their knowledge, no criminal charges will be filed against the operator. As long as the site stays offline, the main objective has been fulfilled.

There is indeed no doubt that this is a big score for ACE. However, history appears to be repeating itself once again. When the group reported that it took Cuevana offline two years ago, Cuevana3.io remained online.

Now that this Cuevana3.io threat has finally been dealt with, another Cuevana is filling the void. With over 110 million visits over the past three months, Cuevana3.ch is now in pole position, meaning that the whac-a-mole continues.

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

The Signal Association (Stowarzyszenie Sygnał) is Poland’s leading audiovisual sector anti-piracy group.

Among the group’s stated objectives are protecting film and musical works from piracy and promoting intellectual property standards found in Europe and the United States.

Many Signal members are well known outside Poland, with the majority also members of other anti-piracy groups, including the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) and the Audiovisual Anti-Piracy Alliance (AAPA).

Coinciding with the publication of a Deloitte report on how to tackle piracy more effectively in the region, Signal representatives have appeared in Polish news reports and given several interviews in recent days.

Anti-Piracy Groups Follow Same Playbook

Given the international movement to align piracy with malware, identity theft and fraud, driven by Signal’s international members Disney, Columbia Pictures, Warner Bros. Discovery, NBCUniversal, and Viacom/Paramount, the Polish approach in the media is predictably identical .

“First, it’s a safety issue. Piracy is often associated with fraud and extortion,” says Teresa Wierzbowska, president of the Signal Association.

“Secondly, it’s a matter of quality. No one likes watching a sports stream that stutters or pops up with unwanted ads. After all, it is also a matter of legal responsibility and moral judgment. By paying pirates, you deprive producers of revenue. Lower income from activities means a lower quality spectacle, lower state budget revenues, damage to the economy and to the development of culture, sport and entertainment.”

According to Polish Chamber of Information data, Wierzbowska’s standing across the entertainment, communications, and anti-piracy sectors is very impressive. In addition to her role as president of Signal, Wierzbowska is chair of the board at the Intellectual Property Protection Section of KIGEiT, the Polish Chamber of Commerce for Electronics and Telecommunications.

Wierzbowska is also on the board of Creative Poland Association and the president of Lewiatan , an organization with 4,100 member companies employing over a million employees. Two other positions useful to copyright holders include a position on the board of the Advertising Ethics Committee at the Advertising Council, and a vice-presidency of the Supervisory Board at the Association of Internet Industry Employers.

Social Media Advertising Fuels IPTV Piracy

Signal colleague Adam Jankowski has also appeared in the media over the last few days, highlighting “a plague” of pirate IPTV adverts appearing on Facebook and pirate apps appearing on official stores including Google Play.

“We don’t know what is actually going on under the GUI that the user sees. If there are any hidden functionalities, only the author of the application knows about it. It is through such careless installation of programs that users’ passwords are stolen,” Jankowski told wirtualnemedia.pl.

Jankowski acknowledged the game of “cat-and-mouse” associated with attempting to shut down pirate services but said the aim is to wear providers down financially through persistence. “We educate policemen and prosecutors in this area, and soon also judges,” he said of the piracy scene generally, adding that Signal can’t reveal too many details on enforcement for operational reasons.

ACE/MPA Targets Popular Poland-Focused IPTV Service

Just days before Signal’s representatives began giving interviews, ACE – via the Motion Picture Association – went to court in the United States hoping to compel Cloudflare to hand over the personal details of several piracy platforms.

Among them is PlanetaPL, a pirate IPTV service that claims to offer 150 of the most popular Polish channels and a VOD library of 5000+ movies and TV shows.

MPA/ACE cited two movies allegedly infringed by the service, one owned by Disney and the other by Paramount, and requested the “identities, including names, physical addresses, IP addresses, telephone numbers, e-mail addresses, payment information, account updates and account histories of the users.”

PlanetaPL has official apps listed on Google Play and Amazon and its terms and conditions point to Planeta Media, Inc. in Florida as its corporate entity.

The website of PlanetaPL states that “We a not a TV Provider. We are not responsible for the content of television programs. We provide equipment rental services.” The company’s promotional YouTube video below doesn’t mention which equipment is available to rent.

Whether Cloudflare has anything useful to hand over will remain to be seen, but it seems likely that ACE already knows a little about PlanetaPL’s setup due to a series of SSL issues that expose parts of its infrastructure. Somewhat ironically, especially given its warnings to others about security, Signal’s SSL broke last week after its certificate expired and it still hasn’t been fixed.

The DMCA subpoena application ( pdf )

Major Sites in Hungary Under Investigation

While there is less anti-piracy action in Poland when compared to some other EU countries (Poland still has no site-blocking program), until recently both Hungary and Bulgaria had even less. Activity in the United States indicates that domains targeting the Hungarian market and enjoying dozens of millions of monthly visits are firmly on the radar.

New Target: online-filmek.me
Content: Movies, TV Shows (Hungarian)
Recent Traffic: Apr 14.8m / May 14.9m / June 14.1m
Most Popular: Hungary (80% of overall traffic)
SimilarWeb Rank: #32 most popular site in Hungary

New Target: mozinet.me
Content: Movies, TV Shows (Hungarian)
Recent Traffic: Apr 12.4m / May 13.4m / June 13.1m
Most Popular: Hungary (78%)
SimilarWeb Rank: #60 most popular site in Hungary

New Target: filmvilag.me (used by above)
Content: Movies, TV Shows (Hungarian)
Recent Traffic: Apr 13.8m / May 14.5m / June 14.5m
Most Popular: Hungary (78% of overall traffic)
SimilarWeb Rank: #37 most popular site in Hungary

Without drawing too many conclusions on the possible relationships between the sites/domains, all three have very similar levels of traffic, despite three distinct designs. As the image above shows, two clearly draw on the same content library.

The final site of interest to the studios is nu6i-bg-net.com. Offering TV shows and focused on the Bulgarian market, the platform received an average of 1.6 million visits per month between April and June, with 80% of that traffic attributable to Bulgaria.

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