Rising interest in pirate IPTV services over the past several years has led to a limited number of people meeting demand while making considerable sums of money.

Technical ability, insider knowledge, and a keen eye for business all help to maximize pirate IPTV suppliers’ profits, but there can be considerable drawbacks too. The problem isn’t making big money, it’s managing to hold onto it when law enforcement agencies take an interest.

Pirate IPTV / Money Laundering Investigation

Published this week, a report from La Presse notes that as part of an investigation into IPTV piracy and money laundering, Canadian investigators from the Sûreté du Québec (SQ – Quebec Provincial Police) targeted Éric Grenier, identified by the publication as a director of companies behind streaming service, Arubox.TV.

Citing police sources, La Presse reports that the investigation began after a group of telecoms companies headed by Bell Canada filed a complaint with police alleging millions of dollars worth of damage to their businesses, attributable to the Arubox IPTV service.

In response, the Office of Criminal Assets Recovery and Money Laundering carried out five searches this week, including one at Grenier’s condo in Laval, another against an alleged accomplice in Saint-Eustache, and a third against a relative of Grenier in Brownsburg-Chatham.

As the investigation continues, police sources report that blocking orders will be requested against Grenier’s bank accounts and condo, valued at nearly $500,000.

At the time of writing, the main Arubox TV website remains online but the status of the underlying IPTV service is less clear. A Stalker login portal associated with Arubox appears functional but since logins are verified by device MAC addresses and valid subscriptions, verifying the status of the service wasn’t immediately possible.

When they sign up, Arubox subscribers are given a URL to put into their set-top boxes in order to access the service. That URL can be found on a completely separate domain that we’re informed may have links to another IPTV service. A source familiar with the situation says that the operator of the second service has connections to the first. A review of messages related to the second service indicates that its operator also received a visit from the police this week, in connection with the Grenier investigation.

Éric Grenier: Controversial and Media Friendly

As part of its own investigation, La Presse recently trawled Grenier’s Facebook account and discovered that he’s been promoting Arubox.tv since at least 2020. The image below tends to suggest he’s a fan of Formuler set-top boxes, widely considered to be among the best IPTV devices available, even if the Z8 model is a little outdated.

Grenier Advertising IPTV Boxes

This image from social media represents just the tip of a very large media iceberg that has kept Grenier in the public eye for years.

Know locally as the ‘Quebec Hugh Hefner’ due to his links with the adult industry, Grenier’s ownership of a strip club and appearances on a Canadian reality TV series sit alongside claims in the media, citing police sources, of alleged connections to a Hells Angels motorcycle club.

All of these pale into insignificance in light of a story published in the Montreal Gazette in 2014 . It features a computer containing 10kgs of a highly illegal substance, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, 10kgs of a less-expensive replacement substance, and an alleged loss to Grenier of $500K.

No set-top boxes were involved back then but nobody wants to go too hard, too soon.

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

Pirate sites come and go, often without being noticed by the public at large. That was certainly not the case when RARBG said its goodbyes yesterday.

The popular torrent site had millions of daily users spread across several domain names. This included the flagship .to domain which currently displays a farewell message .

After a brief intermezzo, many users simply began their search for alternatives, perhaps unaware that the effects of RARBG’s shutdown go beyond the site itself, leading to a much broader impact, including on popular ‘alternatives’.

RARBG Releases & Tracker

On the surface, RARBG looked like any other torrent site but it was one of the few platforms to release a steady stream of fresh content. All pirated movies and TV-shows come from somewhere and RARBG acted as a key bridge between scene sources and the public at large.

This content was picked up by RARBG’s bots from external sources before being posted on the site itself. ExtraTorrent’s in-house release groups worked in a similar way, including under the ‘ETTV’ label, before shutting down last year due to a lack of funds .

The absence of new releases is likely to make the overall piracy ecosystem more vulnerable. The same can also be said for RARBG’s dedicated tracker, which was also pulled offline yesterday, abruptly terminating millions of connections. And it doesn’t end there.

Torrent and Streaming Sites Feel the Pain

With another popular source of pirate movie and TV-show releases gone, the piracy supply side is shrinking. The vast majority of public torrent sites don’t have their own release channels. Instead, they relied on external parties such as RARBG.

This equally applies to direct download sites and streaming portals. While pirate streaming sites have become much bigger than their torrent peers in recent years, their movie and TV-show libraries can often be traced to torrent sources.

There are still alternative sources available, for now, but with RARBG gone the choices are more limited. This means there will be considerable pressure on the remaining suppliers, to say the least.

In addition to the typical pirate sites, RARBG links also appeared in dedicated pirate channels on platforms such as Telegram. These no longer work. The same also applies to users of software such as Sonarr, for whom RARBG was a popular source too.

From the Ashes?

The above may sound grim but it does illustrate the important position RARBG held in the piracy scene. That said, pirates have shown to be resilient in the past so there will likely be others willing to take the risk and fill the void.

Those will include copycats who will try to take over the RARBG brand. The same happened in the past with EZTV, YTS, KickassTorrents and Torrentz, with various levels of success.

Things aren’t getting any easier though. In its farewell message, RARBG summed up several reasons for shutting shut. Aside from tragic personal issues, they included rising hosting costs and a decline in revenue. That’s becoming a trend too.

Inflation…

While we haven’t seen inflation mentioned as a reason to shut down a pirate site before, financial struggles are prevalent. As mentioned earlier, ETTV cited the same reason to close shop last year and others went before them .

So what about the sites that remain? Speaking with TorrentFreak, the operator of LimeTorrents mentions that the site has no plans to stop but they confirmed that rising hosting costs and low adverting revenues are indeed a real concern.

That said, inflation and other cost-related issues also work in favor of pirate sites, the site’s operator mentioned. After all, legitimate platforms such as Netflix and Disney+ cost money, while torrent sites are free and offer more content.

All in all, we can conclude that the broader piracy ecosystem has lost a key player that was much more than just another torrent site. While others could take its place, if they are willing to take the risk, the loss of RARBG is undoubtedly a considerable setback.

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

After well over a decade of pushing back against pirate site blocking applications, many European ISPs now see little value in putting up a fight.

Earlier confirmation from Europe’s highest court, that site-blocking injunctions are legal when they proportionately protect third-party rights, is one of the key reasons for not contesting blocking applications today. In the Netherlands, where ISPs have a strong tradition of resisting site blocking injunctions, a recent application for a dynamic, shape-shifting blockade prompted ISP KPN into action.

Movie Companies Want to Block Lookmovie and Flixtor

In common with similar groups everywhere, Dutch anti-piracy BREIN is a proponent of site-blocking as part of an overall anti-piracy toolkit. The problem BREIN faces is a growing tendency for pirate sites to shift to new domains or receive assistance from proxy and mirror sites, in response to static site-blocking measures targeting specific domains.

Hoping to reduce infringing access to pirate streaming sites Lookmovie and Flixtor, while reducing the potential for domain switching and proxy/mirror site countermeasures, BREIN took legal action at the Court of Rotterdam in April against ISP and fiber optic network provider, KPN.

When presenting its case for the blocking of Lookmovie, BREIN explained that the platform provides free access to movies and TV shows, including some with Dutch subtitles, without any permission from copyright holders.

As the traffic statistics for just one of its domains show, the site receives millions of visitors overall according to SimilarWeb data.

BREIN notes that users who prefer not to watch ads on Lookmovie can pay a fee to avoid them, either on the site’s main domain, 13 others it also operates, or via a network of proxy and mirror sites.

BREIN’s Request For a Dynamic Injunction

BREIN’s case against Flixtor is broadly the same, with the anti-piracy company noting that the site is readily accessible from any of 11 domains and an unknown number of proxy and mirror sites.

Countering Perpetual Domain and IP Changes

To counter the growing phenomena of sites switching to domains and IP addresses not specifically mentioned in injunctions, BREIN asked KPN to comply with the terms of a dynamic injunction. When sites deploy new IP addresses, new domains or use sub-domains, dynamic injunctions are usually able to cope.

BREIN believed that as long as any proxy or mirror sites were the same or virtually the same as the originals, KPN would be ordered to prevent its customers from accessing them in the same way it can be required to block the original sites. KPN begged to differ.

KPN’s Site-Blocking Objections

The District Court of Rotterdam’s judgment notes that KPN objected to BREIN’s site-blocking application on several grounds. The ISP took the position that blocking websites is not an effective response to infringement because the infringing websites themselves remain online. As a result, internet users are free to circumvent site-blocking measures using VPNs, for example.

The Court agreed that circumvention takes place but said that isn’t an obstacle when awarding a site-blocking injunction.

“Closing access to Lookmovie and Flixtor by blocking domain names, proxies and mirrors will prevent access to the protected works through those addresses. As BREIN also acknowledges, a blockade does not completely prevent unauthorized calls from protected works, as some internet users will find detours to access blocked websites,” the judgment reads.

“It cannot be ruled out that internet users bypass blockades via VPN connections, but it is plausible that a blockade of the websites will lead to these sites no longer being accessible, at least considerably more difficult to access, for the normal internet user, as a result of which carrying out infringement becomes seriously complicated.”

The Court further noted that since BREIN requested a dynamic injunction covering new IP addresses and domain names as they appear, these alternative routes of access will also be subjected to a permanent blockade. As a result, blocking can be considered sufficiently effective overall..

Are Dynamic Injunctions Overbroad?

KPN further argued that BREIN’s blocking request was too broad, with associated costs and the risk of over-blocking increasing over time as more proxies and mirror sites are added. The ISP also complained that injunctions should be time-limited but the Court wasn’t convinced.

“KPN has been blocking domain names, mirrors and proxies for several years now, and it has not been found that implementation has led to major problems. On the contrary, BREIN has made it clear that it always sends updated lists of new domains to be blocked by e-mail to KPN, after which KPN implements the blockades within a short period, sometimes within an hour,” the judgment notes.

The suggestion here is that blocking may have been automated by KPN and since detailed checks may not be carried out, any inconvenience is minimal. In any event, KPN’s historically speedy response to blocking also helped to satisfy the Court that BREIN’s request for a blocking response in five working days wasn’t unreasonable either.

Dynamic Injunction Granted

After considering the freedom to access information and KPN’s freedom to conduct a business, the Court found that BREIN’s application is compatible with these fundamental rights.

“BREIN’s claims to block and block KPN subscribers’ access to the (sub) domain names and IP addresses through which Lookmovie and Flixtor operate or will operate are therefore granted,” the judgment reads.

BREIN believes the Court made the right decision.

“The measures requested by BREIN are judged to be reasonable; KPN’s freedom of enterprise is not unreasonably restricted. The defense that the blocking of proxies and mirrors would be too broad is also rejected: KPN has been implementing blockades for several years now and this has not led to any implementation problems,” BREIN reports .

Injunction Implications Go Beyond KPN

In October 2021, BREIN and several ISPs – KPN included – entered into an agreement known as the ‘ Covenant .’ Signatory ISPs promised that when a judgment is handed down against an ISP, requiring it to block websites following an adversarial process, the other ISPs would voluntarily comply with the same decision. As a result, blocking of Lookmovie and Flixtor will be deployed across the Netherlands.

Another useful side effect for BREIN is likely to involve Google. As previously reported , when Google is presented with a court order that requires an ISP to block pirate websites, Google recognizes the injunction by voluntarily deindexing the listed domains, resulting in their complete removal from search results, in the territory where the injunction is valid.

The District Court of Rotterdam’s judgment can be found here

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

The shock closure yesterdau of one of the world’s oldest and most reliable torrent sites ranks as one of the biggest surprises in recent years.

Founded in 2008, RARBG had a reputation for taking the fundamentals seriously. The site offered the usual spread of movies and TV shows, available in various qualities and numerous file sizes. The site didn’t cover every single release but when trawling the archives, it certainly felt like it might.

Consistent, Organized, Predictable

RARBG also became known for consistently offering subtitles for most movie and TV show releases. Long before legal streaming services made any serious attempt, RARBG’s curation of subtitles helped the deaf enjoy films again, without any of the frustrations associated with mislabeled files and out of sync releases.

In common with other torrent sites operating publicly, most RARBG users downloaded their files and headed for the hills. For the majority, seeding was either a dirty word, one they’d never heard before, or perhaps didn’t understand. Hit-and-run rates of 98%+ showed the scale of the problem but on RARBG, a lack of public seeders rarely presented a problem.

As if by magic, a single seed would often pop up when people needed one most, meaning that incomplete torrents were a rare occurrence. At least until yesterday.

Torrented Back to Life?

With RARBG’s indexes gone and trackers offline, the file-sharing scene may never be the same again. It will continue, of course, but filling that type of gap at scale, with the same level of accessible reliability, won’t be easy to pull off.

And then there’s the not insignificant loss of RARBG’s content indexes. With releases meticulously labeled and then tagged by genre, actor, director and more, replacing something like that in the public torrent scene would take considerable effort, if anyone could summon up the motivation to even try.

In short, an otherwise ordinary Wednesday offered nothing when it began, yet still took everything away from RARBG users in the space of a few hours. Whether the middle of the week had second thoughts is unclear but a few hours ago, the keys to much of the RARBG torrent network suddenly reappeared online in an unexpected format.

Yo! Magnets!

While RARBG supplied users with .torrent files to download content via BitTorrent clients, the site also offered magnet links, accessible by clicking the magnet-shaped icons next to each release.

For those with torrent clients configured to accept magnet links, transfers took place much like regular torrents, largely because magnet links provided by RARBG received help from RARBG’s regular BitTorrent trackers.

The beauty of magnet links is that the lack of trackers when a site disappears doesn’t stop users from downloading content. Furthermore, .torrent files are bulky, unlike magnet links which are easily represented in a line of plain text. In short, regular text files can contain thousands of magnet links in a just a few kilobytes. As such, they are easily shared online.

A few hours ago two repositories appeared on GitHub with zero fanfare. Created by user ‘2004content’, the first repo labeled ‘rarbg’ contains nothing. The same can’t be said about the other.

Three Ordinary .TXT Files

The three files of interest are basic .txt files. When loaded into a capable text editor, the first file (moviesrarbg.txt) appears to contain magnet links related to RARBG movie releases; a staggering 117,233 releases overall.

The remaining pair (showsrarbg.txt and showsothers.txt) appear to contain magnet links related to TV shows and series previously released on RARBG. The first contains 12,969 magnet links but the second contains considerably more – 137,669 magnet links collectively referencing the same number of releases.

Random Text or The Real Deal?

Verifying that these magnet links are indeed what they claim to be presents two key problems. The first is the huge number of links versus sensibly available resources. The second comes with a standard reminder; downloading and sharing copyrighted content, even using a magnet link, is illegal almost everywhere.

As a result, we don’t recommend the use of the magnet links listed in the text archives, and certainly not for infringement purposes. However, through the use of a small number of specialist tools, it is possible to obtain detailed metadata from a magnet link, without downloading or sharing any of the referenced content, infringing or otherwise. For a general idea of how someone might go about that, the TorrentParts project on GitHub may be of interest, although other techniques do exist.

We can’t confirm that the text file data references the entire RARBG movie/TV show collection but with some magnet links now confirmed as referencing the material they claim to reference, it’s certainly possible that a large part of RARBG’s video indexes appear in this three file collection on GitHub.

Image credit

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

Founded in 2008, RARBG evolved to become a key player in the torrent ecosystem.

The site didn’t only attract millions of monthly visitors from all over the globe, it was also a major release hub, bridging the gap between the Scene and the broader pirate public.

Today, the site’s fifteen year run unexpectedly came to an end. In a message posted on the site’s front page, the team says its farewells. This message has been separately confirmed by a source familiar with the matter.

RARBG cites multiple reasons behind the surprise decision, including COVID-related health problems which led to the tragic death of one of the people involved. The war between Russia and Ukraine also impacted the team, with RARBG suggesting that it had members fighting on both sides.

“The past 2 years have been very difficult for us – some of the people in our team died due to covid complications, others still suffer the side effects of it – not being able to work at all. Some are also fighting the war in Europe – ON BOTH SIDES,” the team writes.

The rising costs of operating from data centers in Europe also played their part. And with revenue having trouble keeping up with the rising costs, shutting down the site ultimately seemed the best solution.

“Inflation makes our daily expenses impossible to bare. Therefore we can no longer run this site without massive expenses that we can no longer cover out of pocket. After an unanimous vote we’ve decided that we can no longer do it.”

“We are sorry :( Bye,” the message concludes.

The shutdown also marks the end of the popular RARBG releases, many of which were shared through other torrent sites as well. These high quality releases, which never included CAMs, are among the most downloaded in history.

Today’s shutdown is one of the largest in the history of torrent sites. It’s also the first major closure since the 2015/2016 period, when KickassTorrents, Torrentz, and ExtraTorrent all left the scene.

—

This is a developing story, more information and details may be added.

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

In recent years, website blocking has become one of the most widely-used anti-piracy enforcement mechanisms in the world.

ISPs in several dozen countries prevent subscribers from accessing a variety of ‘pirate’ sites, often in response to a court order.

These orders often started as basic injunctions, requiring providers to block one or more domain names. Today, many courts issue dynamic injunctions too, allowing rightsholders to add new domain names or IP-addresses, without returning to court.

Dynamic blocking orders are also common in India with courts noting that the flexible approach helps to combat pirate site ‘hydras’. India is also known for another progressive site blocking strategy, one that targets piracy before it happens.

Preemptive Spider-Man Piracy Blockade

This week the High Court in New Delhi granted a site blocking order requested by Sony Pictures. This injunction aims to protect the upcoming release of “ Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse ,” which is scheduled to premiere in theaters later this week.

As far as we know, no pirated versions of the film are currently available online. Sony doesn’t mention any in its application either but expects rogue copies to appear on known pirate sites in the near future. To limit this potential piracy, these sites should be blocked, the studio argued.

The application lists 101 pirate sites including variants of The Pirate Bay, YTS, RARBG, LimeTorrents, Fmovies, Myflixer, 123movies and others. Many of these already share copies of the 2018 film “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” and are allegedly “in the process” of pirating the sequel too.

After reviewing the available evidence, Justice C Hari Shankar of the New Delhi High Court comments as follows:

“The facts of the case as recited hereinabove indicate that the plaintiff’s copyright in the films ‘Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse’ and ‘Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse’ have/are in the process of being infringed and violated by the Defendants 1 to 101.”

Mirrors and Copies are Covered

The owners of the pirate sites were alerted to the proceeding last week but it appears that none have objected formally. As a result, Justice Shankar issued an order that prohibits the operators from making pirated copies of the Spider-Man films available to the public.

In addition, Indian Internet providers are ordered to block access to the pirate sites’ listed domain names, as well as any proxies and mirrors that may come online in the future.

“[The Internet providers] are directed to block access to the websites at S. Nos. 1 to 101, as well as any mirror/redirect/alphanumeric websites which appear to be associated with any of the said websites,” the order reads.

This leads to the intriguing situation that ISPs must block domain names, including those that have yet to be registered, to protect a film that is expected to be pirated in the future.

These types of preemptive blocking orders are not new in India. Similar ones have been issued previously and there’s little doubt that rightsholders such as Sony will request more of them in the future.

—

A copy of Justice C Hari Shankar’s order is available here (pdf) . The full list of domain names mentioned in the order reads as follows:

1) flixhd.cc
2) www6.f2movies.to
3) www2.movieorca.com
4) moviekids.tv
5) moviesnation.vip
6) allmovieshub.party
7) 1xbetmovies.bio
8) hdtoday.tv
9) hdtoday.ru
10) 0123movie.net
II) www5.himovies.to
I2) bflix.gg
13) thepiratebayIO.org
I4) thepiratebay.party
15) thepiratebay.org
16) m.thepiratebayO.org
17) thepiratebay3 .to
18) fmovies.llc
19) fmovies.hn
20) fmovies.ps
21) uhdmovies.bio
22) psa.re
23) medeberiyas.com
24) proxyrarbg.org
25) rarbgdata.org
26) rarbgmirrored.org
27) rarbgp2p.org
28) rarbgproxied.org
29) rarbgto.org
30) rarbgunblocked.org
31) rarbggo.to
32) myflixer.vc
33) myflixer.center
34) filmkio.run
35) hurawatch.cc
36) wwwl.attacker.tv
37) cataz.net
38) soap2day.id
39) soap2day.mn
40) soap2day-online.com
41) ww6.soap2day.day
42) ww7.soap2dayhd.co
43) Putlokemew.sb
44) putlokemew.vc
45) putlockers9.live
46) aiofi lm.top
47) watchseries.id
48) watchseries.world
49) watchserieshd.live
50) watchserieshd.ru
51) 123-movies.pics
52) 123moviesite.one
53) arc018.com
54) bolly4u.cafe
55) desiremovies.lat
56) dopebox.se
57) emovtes.si
58) filmywap.com.pe
59) flixtor.id
60) goku.sx
61) grantorrent.bz
62) hdencode.org
63) hexdownload.co’~
64) hindmoviez.wiki
65) katmovieshd.ms
66) limetorrents.lol
67) losmovies.ru
68) membedl.com
69) mobomoviez.fun
70) movierulzhd.wiki
71) movies7.io
72) moviesj oy.plus
73) moviesmod.co.in
74) moviestowatch.tv
75) nkiri.com
76) Old3.rlsbb.cc
77) onionplay.rs
78) primewire.id
79) projectfreetv.space
80) sflix.se
81) solarmovies.win
82) solidtorrents.to
83) swatchseries.biz
84) tamilvip.city
85) terbit2l.art
86) tfpdl.seEmail:
87) Tgx.rs
88) theflixer.tv
89) themovieflix.eu.com
90) thenetnaija.net
91) vegamovies.chat
92) vhmovies.to
93) vumoo.to
94) watchsomuch.to
95) ww1.123moviesto.cc
96) wwl.streamm4u.ws
97) ww4.solarmovie.to
98) www3.yggtorrent.do
99) xmovies8.fun
100) yesmovies.lat
101) yts.rs

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

Operating from 2016 until 2018, the Flawless IPTV service copied subscription TV broadcasts from official (and unofficial) sources and then restreamed that content to tens of thousands of customers, at a dramatically cut down price.

For many UK football fans, Flawless granted access to the sport they love, at a price they could afford. Others viewed the service quite differently.

From the Premier League’s perspective, Flawless was a fraudulent, criminal enterprise that stole potential revenue from the country’s leading football clubs. Through its illegal participation in the subscription TV market, Flawless had a direct impact on Sky and Virgin Media subscription package sales.

More broadly, Flawless undermined the Premier League’s right to offer exclusive broadcasting licenses in the UK and that had the potential to affect how much broadcasters were prepared to pay for those licenses.

Today’s Sentencing Hearing

Following an extraordinarily deep and costly investigation, and a five-year Premier League private prosecution, five men behind the UK’s largest-ever piracy service were sentenced today at Chesterfield Justice Centre.

Mark Gould, Steven Gordon, Peter Jolley, Christopher Felvus and William Brown were sentenced to more than 30 years in prison combined. A sixth defendant, Zak Smith, did not appear in court.

In total, Flawless operated for just 22 months but still managed to generate an estimated £4.6 million in revenue. £3.7 million of that was profit, split very unequally between those sent to prison today.

Mark Gould, 36, was the driving force behind Flawless. His share of the profit was around £1.7 million. Today he received an unprecedented 11-year sentence on two counts of conspiracy to defraud and contempt of court.

Steven Gordon’s cut was significant too, roughly £1 million according to the prosecution. Two counts of conspiracy to defraud and contempt of court led to a sentence of five years and two months.

Peter Jolley’s share of the profit was reported as £773,000. He received a sentence of five years and two months, on two counts of conspiracy to defraud and money laundering.

Christopher Felvus’ share was a relatively modest £164,500. Two counts of conspiracy to defraud earned him a sentence of three years and 11 months.

William Brown made just £15,000 but after pleading not guilty and then losing his case, today he was sentenced to four years and nine months, on two counts of conspiracy to defraud.

Zak Smith appears to have made less than £5,000 from Flawless. He did not appear in court today and a warrant was issued for his arrest.

What follows are just some of the events that led to the men being sentenced today, including why Flawless was so successful, and how it all fell apart.

Flawless Won Fans By Exploiting a Restricted Market, Fraudulently

Top-tier football matches in England take place in the Premier League, a league operated by a company of the same name, owned by the clubs that play in it.

Premier League broadcasting rights cost billions, so when broadcasters like Sky and Virgin hand over their share of the cash for exclusive local rights, recouping that cash from UK football fans is reflected in costly subscription package prices.

For cash-strapped football fans in the UK, pirate IPTV providers represent choice and affordability in a market where very little exists. Subscriptions available at a fraction of the official cost are a huge draw but the elephant in the room is unavoidable.

Pirate IPTV services cost less and offer more, but that’s only because they pay nothing to rightsholders like the Premier League, while paying nothing to broadcasters whose transmissions they copy.

The end result of an aggressive Premier League private prosecution spanning five years, the sentences handed down today show that undermining corporations worth billions has the potential to end in complete catastrophe for IPTV operators. It also ends badly for football fans and the public in general.

While this was a private prosecution, the Premier League – and by extension Premier League clubs – will now recoup the costs of the investigation and prosecution from the Crown, meaning that tax paying football fans and taxpayers in general will pick up an incredibly large bill.

Flawless IPTV

Launched around August 2016, Flawless IPTV began as a three-way partnership consisting of Mark Gould, Steven Gordon, and Peter Jolley, all of whom had parted ways with another IPTV provider, known online as Overlords. Christopher Felvus, who was also active in the pirate IPTV scene, made up the quartet and for Flawless, it was game on.

In common with licensed services, pirate IPTV providers have broadly two options for reaching the market. Selling subscriptions directly to consumers makes the most money on paper but also causes the most headaches. Selling to customers via resellers makes considerably less, but in many cases a 40% cut may be considered worth it.

Flawless decided to cover both angles by selling direct from its own website and social medias, and also indirectly via a network of resellers.

With a heavy focus on Premier League content, particularly matches broadcast during the UK’s ‘3pm blackout’, Flawless and success went hand in hand. A big hit with football fans, the IPTV service went from strength to strength with a comprehensive, mostly reliable product, for just £10 per month. For a while, everything went broadly to plan.

Numerous behind-the-scenes dramas, some worthy of a TV series in their own right, kept the business on its toes in the months to come. Yet after signing up thousands of customers with no notable issues, a subscription purchased in 2017 sparked a massive criminal investigation and marked the beginning of the end for the entire service.

Charity Received Complaints

Crimestoppers, a UK charity famous for its anonymous tip lines, is said to have received complaints about Flawless in the summer of 2017. Instead of contacting the police, Crimestoppers alerted the Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT) which led to a covert purchase of a Flawless subscription in October of the same year.

After concluding that Flawless offered streams broadcast by Sky and Virgin, among others, FACT leveraged its connections in government, law enforcement agencies, and civil authorities, calling for action to defend the Premier League’s rights.

A report to GAIN, the Government Agency Intelligence Network, led to the allocation of significant public resources. With the support of a dedicated financial investigator, a senior Trading Standards officer took over the investigation and a little over six months later, Flawless was all but finished.

Mark Gould Arrested First, Others follow

In May 2018, search warrants were executed at two addresses in London. Gould was arrested at his home in Greenwich, an apartment on the river recently purchased for £600,000 – cash.

Around a month later the authorities arrested Steven Gordon and Peter Jolley, and three weeks after that Christopher Felvus was detained. William Brown and Zak Smith were arrested early August 2018 but it would be another five months before the case was submitted to the court, and another three years before today’s sentencing.

Profitable Business, But Not For All

In total, Flawless operated for just 22 months but still managed to generate an estimated £4.6 million in revenue, £3.7 million of that in profit. As highlighted earlier, Gould is said to have made most from the operation, around £1.7 million.

William Brown made almost nothing from Flawless yet today received a sentence roughly on par with that handed to Steven Gordon, who made more than £1 million from the operation and was also held in contempt of court. In common with all of the defendants sentenced today, Brown had no previous convictions.

Warrant Issued For Arrest of Zak Smith

This curious anomaly leads us to Zak Smith, his apparent absence from court today, and a warrant for his arrest. Smith made roughly three times less than Brown, around £5,000, but was expected to receive a similar sentence today. The reasons for that are extraordinary.

The details of Smith’s involvement aren’t just interesting, they are arguably worthy of a Netflix drama series in their own right. Smith worked at anti-piracy company Friend MTS, known for working with the Premier League to ensure that pirate services are blocked by ISPs during match times.

This type of blocking is authorized by High Court injunction, the finer details of which are closely guarded secrets. Or at least that’s the usual plan. In some cases blocking programs appear suddenly ineffective, with services like Flawless operating broadly as usual, with Flawless competitors not doing anywhere near as well.

We’ll return to that story very soon and reveal how the dismantling of Flawless was interpreted as a prompt to launch more IPTV services that made even more money.

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

For many years, U.S. lawmakers have considered amending legislation so that today’s online copyright issues can be addressed more effectively.

Many proposals have come and gone, without resulting in any significant updates. Calls to change current legislation persist, however.

Before any new laws or policies are introduced, the Government typically seeks input from stakeholders. That’s also the case when planning future anti-piracy and anti-counterfeiting strategies.

Roundtable on Future Anti-Piracy Strategies

This coming October, the United States Patent and Trademark Office ( USPTO ) will hold a roundtable on the subject, with members of the public invited to join. There are no concrete proposals at this stage but the agency is interested to hear what strategies have proven to be effective.

The office is also open to new ideas for future anti-piracy strategies. The call is quite broad and could include hot topics such as no-fault injunctions , which would allow copyright holders to more easily pursue pirate site blocking orders in the United States.

“The USPTO seeks information from interested parties regarding their observations and insights into the future of anticounterfeiting and antipiracy strategies,” the Office writes.

Quoting data from the United States Chamber of Commerce, a lobbying group operating independently of government, USPTO notes that video piracy alone causes losses of up to $115.3 billion in reduced GDP per year, as well as 560,000 lost jobs.

Broad Range of Questions

The consultation doesn’t ask for input on any specific policies or plans. Instead, stakeholders and members of the general public are asked to share their thoughts on a wide range of piracy and counterfeiting issues, including harms and dangers to the public, voluntary collaborations, and common challenges.

“Are you considering new collaborative efforts to combat counterfeiting and piracy? What factors will affect your decision? How might those future collaborations be comprised?” one of the questions reads.

The consultation and roundtable will also explore how existing laws factor into current anti-piracy measures. And perhaps more importantly, whether any improvements are needed in this area.

“Do online enforcement strategies use existing copyright laws to combat online piracy? If so, please describe in detail those activities, and provide any suggestions for maximizing these practices.”

Needless to say, the roundtable and public comments will undoubtedly result in a wide range of opposing views.

It’s no secret that rightsholders would like to have more anti-piracy tools, including site blocking and increased ISP liability in the US. However, these measures tend to trigger opposition from digital rights activists and the broader public.

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A copy of the USPTO’s notice of the public roundtable and its request for comments is available at the Federal Register

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

Bungie’s pursuit of people behind Destiny 2 cheat operation Elite Boss Tech, is pushing forward and showing no sign of stopping.

The lawsuit began in August 2021 with the aim of shutting down the ‘Wallhax’ cheat. By June 2022, Bungie had a $13.5 million copyright infringement damages award in hand, and suddenly cooperative defendants helping to unveil others involved in the circumvention of Bungie’s technological protection measures.

Bungie Asks Court For More Time

Earlier this month, Bungie was awarded over $16 million against a single defendant, with claims spanning copyright law, breach of contract, and civil RICO violations.

Just two days later, the court instructed Bungie to voluntarily dismiss all remaining unnamed defendants and any named defendants yet to be served. Bungie followed up with a request for the court to partially reconsider, arguing that progress is still being made in its quest to track the defendants down.

“Bungie continues its efforts to identify the unnamed Doe Defendants, and is actively seeking further information that may allow that identification, but does not have that information yet,” Bungie informed the court.

“Bungie served Eddie Tran, who is the only Named Defendant believed to reside in the United States, on February 28th, 2023,” the videogame company continued, noting that the remainder are believed to reside overseas.

On February 23, Bungie emailed each of the presumed foreign defendants with a request to waive service, with a deadline of April 13 to respond. Hoping that the defendants would eventually respond and in an effort to reduce costs, Bungie said that it didn’t immediately press ahead with service proceedings under the Hague Convention. However, it does have someone working on the case with a track record of success.

Tracking Down Anonymous Cheaters

Kathryn Tewson, a paralegal and investigator at KUSK Law in New York, rose to fame in January after a ferocious teardown of DoNotPay, a company that claims to have developed “The World’s First Robot Lawyer.” DoNotPay says its AI product provides affordable legal representation but according to Tewson, the supposed AI amounts to a document wizard dressed up in Theranos-style marketing.

Being hounded by “ the world’s most tenacious paralegal ” is also reality for defendants in Bungie cheat lawsuits.

In a declaration filed last week in support of Bungie’s request for more time in the Elite Boss Tech lawsuit, Tewson revealed she was the person who identified Eddie Tran and six other defendants across Europe and China.

“All of the International Defendants operate incognito under assumed names and take other steps to hide their identities and avoid detection. Because of the International Defendants’ intentional efforts to evade identification and detection, it is time-consuming and labor intensive to locate physical addresses for them sufficient to effectuate service,” Tewson informed the court.

Just One Person Answered Bungie’s Emails

One of Bungie’s emailed requests to waive service was sent by Tewson to a defendant named as Marta Magalhaes, aka MindBender, aka Bluegirl. The email contained a copy of the complaint, a reminder about the duty to avoid unnecessary expenses, and a warning that if the waiver wasn’t signed and returned, Bungie would arrange to have the summons and complaint physically served, with Magalhaes potentially picking up the bill.

A response from ‘Bruno Silva’ dated February 24 via a Gmail account said: “sorry i dont know what destiny 2 is, i dont play online games.”

Tewson responded within minutes. “Our apologies. There may have been a mistake. Can you confirm your address?”

As seen in the image below, ‘Bruno Silva’ supplied an address in Bucharest, Romania.

Widely considered the most famous road in the entire country, Calea Victoriei is a major Romanian tourist attraction. The address provided by ‘Bruno Silva’ – Calea Victoriei 118 – is the home of the Romanian Copyright Office ( ORDA )

Defendant May Be Trying to Mislead

Tewson believes that the address provided by ‘Bruno Silva’ is probably false.

“Based on information received in settlement and my own investigation, I believe the information provided by defendant Magalhaes / ‘Bruno Silva’ is likely false and that the individual who responded to the email is the proper defendant in this case, and probably resides in Portugal,” Tewson informed the court.

“Bungie has issued a subpoena to Google in an effort to obtain information on Defendant Magalhaes (or Silva) sufficient to effectuate service under Fed. R. Civ. P. 4. The return date for that subpoena is June 15th.”

While it does seem highly unlikely that the defendant lives at the Romanian Copyright Office, email time stamps as they appear in correspondence suggest a time difference more closely aligned with Romania than Portugal, although other details tend to suggest the latter.

Gmail and Privacy

Exactly what information has been requested from Google isn’t unclear but in broad terms, Gmail and Google accounts in general can be a privacy nightmare for the unaware, even in the event Google refuses to hand anything over.

Simply knowing someone’s Gmail address can be the starting point for discovering their activities on other Google platforms that have nothing to do with email. In cases where users have previously contributed to certain Google platforms while unaware of the risks, those platforms can provide worrying amounts of location data.

In this case, none of that data relates to the Romanian Copyright Office.

Kathryn Tewson’s declaration & related documents available here ( 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , pdf)

Image Credit: Pixabay/ succo

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