Last fall, a Texas federal jury found Grande Communications liable for willful contributory copyright infringement and ordered the ISP to pay $47 million in damages to a group of record labels.

District Court Judge David Ezra confirmed the judgment in January. This was a clear mistake, according to Grande, which hoped to have it overturned.

ISP Wants a Do-Over

In March, the Internet provider filed a renewed motion for judgment as a matter of law. Put simply, Grande wanted the Judge to overrule the jury. This is warranted if the evidence clearly weighs in favor of the requesting party but when a jury finds otherwise.

If that is not an option, the ISP asked the court for a new trial to allow the piracy liability issues to be raised again before a new jury.

Yesterday, U.S. District Court Judge David Ezra ruled on the motion, denying both requests. According to the order, there is nothing wrong with the jury verdict and the court didn’t make any clear errors either.

Request Denied

To make its case, the ISP raised a wide variety of issues, including the argument that there was a lack of copyright infringement evidence at trial.

For example, there were no copies of the 1,403 original copyrighted works to compare against the allegedly pirated music tracks. In addition, it was unclear if the infringers were actually Grande subscribers, instead of unauthorized network users such as wifi-stealing neighbors.

Judge Ezra sees things differently. In his order, he writes that the evidence included a hard drive of download files and detailed testimony showing that the downloads matched the copyrighted sound recordings.

Self-Undermining Admission

The notion that strangers could have used Grande subscribers’ connections didn’t make an impact either. According to the order, Grande itself argued at trial that subscribers are liable for everything that takes place through their connection.

“Grande undermined its theory about unauthorized users conducting infringement by admitting at trial that it holds its subscribers fully responsible for all conduct occurring on their accounts, whether they are authorized users or not,” Judge Ezra writes.

The ISP also argued that the evidence failed to show that Grande users actually uploaded the pirated tracks to others. Again, the court found the argument unconvincing.

Judge Ezra stresses that “actual dissemination” of pirated content is not required to prove direct infringement on a distribution theory; showing that it was “made available” suffices.

Sufficient ‘Distribution’ Evidence

In this case, the court believes that there was sufficient direct and circumstantial evidence that Grande users uploaded pirated content. Part of this evidence comes from the music company’s piracy-tracking partner Rightscorp.

“Plaintiffs provided evidence of actual uploads by Grande users, and downloads by Rightscorp: Rightscorp reapproached Grande users who had previously offered the work for copying and downloaded at least one complete copy of the work,” Judge Ezra writes.

All in all, the court concludes that Grande fails to make a proper case for a new judgment or trial.

“Neither Grande’s legal nor evidentiary arguments warrant judgment as a matter of law or a new trial. Accordingly, the Court DENIES Grande’s Renewed Motion for Judgment as a Matter of Law or a New Trial,” the final order reads.

Appeal Forthcoming

This effectively means that the $47 million music piracy verdict stands. However, this still isn’t the end of the legal dispute, as there are more options to challenge the outcome.

The ISP previously indicated it would appeal the jury verdict at the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit if its motion was denied. We therefore expect an appeal to be filed in the near future.

Grande hasn’t been able to catch a break in court recently. In addition to the multi-million dollar verdict and this week’s rejection, its motion to dismiss in a separate piracy liability lawsuit against filmmakers was also denied .

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A copy of U.S. District Court Judge David Ezra’s order denying Grande’s renewed motion for judgment as a matter of law or a new trial, is available here (pdf)

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

After spending more than 16 years implementing intellectual property laws introduced in 2005, amendments to intellectual property law in Vietnam came into effect on January 1, 2023.

At that point, however, implementation was still to be determined so, over the past few months, the government has been drafting decrees.

Issued by the government in late April, Decree No. 17/2023/ND-CP offers guidance on various copyright matters related to ISP liability and enforcement measures, including disclosure of customer information. At first blush, it appears to herald a new world of opportunities for rightsholders.

“Most Voluminous” Copyright Decree Ever Issued in Vietnam

Global IP services firm Rouse reports that with 8 chapters and 116 articles, Decree 17 is the most voluminous copyright decree ever issued in Vietnam.

“[T]he Copyright Decree provides significantly detailed guidance on copyright enforcement, especially which disputes can be classified as a copyright dispute, how to establish acts of copyright infringement, and how to calculate damages caused by infringements,” the company reports.

“The long, detailed section in copyright assessment is also expected to pave the way for the growth of the currently limited copyright assessment services in Vietnam.”

Hollywood studios and publishers of Japanese anime and manga have long complained of difficulties enforcing their rights in Vietnam. However, if the new amendments take shape as the Decree suggests, Vietnam may be on the cusp of a whole new era.

For rightsholders struggling to tackle major piracy platforms including Fmovies, 9anime, and BestBuyIPTV, the balance of power may have begun to shift.

Internet Service Providers

Given that pirate site operators can be difficult to identify, rightsholders believe that entities providing infrastructure services, such as connectivity or hosting, should shoulder some responsibility for infringement, if they are in a position to act but fail to do so.

According to a report from IP experts at Baker McKenzie , Article 198b of the Amended IP Law as laid out in Decree 17 broadly identifies an ISP as a mere conduit, caching, or on-demand digital content storage/hosting service. Entities that qualify for ISP status include cloud storage providers, social network providers, and search engines.

Hosting ISPs must develop tools to receive requests for content to be removed or blocked, when that content infringes on copyright and/or related rights. They will also be required to remove or block content in accordance with new regulatory procedures when receiving “substantiated requests” from users or a competent state agency.

“Failure to comply with this requirement may result in joint liability for losses caused by the infringing act of the user,” the experts note, adding that hosting ISPs will also be required to notify Vietnam’s Copyright Office of the name of the person responsible for copyright issues.

Know Your Business Customer Rules

Platforms are also responsible for warning their users of the liability incurred if they commit copyright infringement. In theory, that should be easier than before. The new law requires ISPs to verify their customers’ identities when they first register for an account. These so-called Know Your Business Customer (KYBC) rules are always popular with rightsholders, even though many countries in the West choose not to implement them.

Adherence to KYBC protocols means that when ISPs receive a written request from a competent state agency, they must provide information on their users in copyright infringement matters.

That still falls short of standards elsewhere where courts can authorize disclosure based on rightsholder complaints, but as part of a package of measures, rightsholders appear much better equipped than they were under the previous regime. How things will play out in practice will remain to be seen.

The Vietnam Copyright Decree (Decree No. 17/2023/ND-CP) is available here (pdf)

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

Over the years, Z-Library established itself as a premier source of pirated books, serving an audience of millions of users.

Up until a few months ago, this all happened relatively quiet. However, when the United States launched a criminal case against two alleged operators, everything changed.

Z-Library lost access to over 200 domain names late last year and, just last week, the authorities carried out a new seizure round . Despite these enforcement actions and the pending criminal case , the remaining Z-Library team has no plans to hide in the shadows.

Seizures Sow Confusion

The site swiftly switched to backup domains and remained online. However, speaking with TorrentFreak, the team says that this game of whack-a-mole likely isn’t over yet and more seizures are expected in the future.

“We have already replaced these [seized] domains with others, but it is likely that this will not be a long-term solution as the authorities continue to seize domains,” Z-Library noted.

These evasive actions are likely to make the site an even bigger target for U.S. law enforcement agencies including the FBI, who will be motivated to bring those responsible to justice. That’s not the only concern for Z-Library, however, as the domain seizures are having another side-effect; the rise of copycats.

Copycat Warning

After the crackdown last year, the popular pirate library has become rather hard to find through search engines such as Google. Instead of the official site , the top results now point to copycat platforms.

These knockoffs use the Z-Library brand to draw visitors and that appears to be working quite well. For example, Zlibrary.to had an estimated 9.1 million visits last month, while Z-Lib.is had a reported 7.8 million visits.

These sites have nothing to do with the official site and, according to the Z-Library team, these copycats are unsafe. The fraudulent sites pose a security risk, the team warned its users this week.

“We want to remind you to be cautious when searching for Z-Library on Google, as there are currently several unsafe and fraudulent websites appearing at the top of the search results. These websites may steal your personal information and compromise your security,” Z-Library wrote.

Scammy Google Takedowns

It’s not possible for us to verify these claims in detail but it is clear that these sites intentionally set out to confuse the public. That’s also happening on Twitter, where one of the copycats is having fun with more than 20k followers.

These sites don’t stop at simply impersonating Z-Library either. We previously noticed that some of these copycats use DMCA notices to protect ‘their’ brand .

For example, someone named “Mahut Aydin” didn’t like this Reddit thread that claims Z-lib.is is a scam. They sent Google a DMCA notice asking to remove it from search results, but that effort failed.

Zlibrary.to also sent an unusual takedown notice to Google. The copycat website asked Google to remove several URLs from Ebookchase.com from its search engine, claiming that the site is “stealing” their works.

Google likely realized that something was off as the search engine didn’t comply with either of these requests. That said, the same copycat sites continue to take the top “Zlibrary” spots of search results today.

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

Over the past two decades, online piracy has proven a massive challenge for the entertainment industries.

Some copyright holders have pursued legal action against individual pirates, but today it’s not uncommon for third-party intermediaries to also be considered legitimate targets.

Over the past several years, internet service providers, hosting companies, and VPN providers have faced infringement liability lawsuits. Most of the VPN companies chose to settle disputes but when LiquidVPN was sued, the provider simply ignored the lawsuit.

Filmmakers Win $15m in LiquidVPN Lawsuit

LiquidVPN was previously owned by David Cox, who was initially listed as a defendant . As the case progressed it emerged that Cox had sold the VPN provider before the lawsuit was filed, with Puerto Rico company 1701 Management identified as the buyer.

Despite facing serious allegations, 1701 Management and its alleged owner, Charles Muszynski, failed to answer the claims filed at a federal court in Florida. This prompted the film companies to request a default judgment of more than $15 million, which was eventually granted a year ago.

The default judgment marks the end of the road on the question of liability but doesn’t necessarily mean that the filmmakers automatically get the money. As it turns out, that can be quite a challenge.

Chasing The Money

Over the past several months, the filmmakers’ attorney Kerry Culpepper has submitted several writs of garnishment to the court. Through these requests, the court can order the seizure of property owned or controlled by the debtors.

In this case, those efforts targeted a yacht, docked at a Florida harbor, and various other types of properties. In addition, the filmmakers obtained a worldwide restraining order against the assets of Mr. Muszynski, 1701 Management, and the third defendant AUH2O.

This hunt for assets connected several companies to Muszynski, including the New Mexico company “WasteResources LLC.” According to the legal paperwork, there is evidence to show that the company is owned and controlled by the defendant.

In January, the filmmakers filed a request to apply the $15 million default judgment against garnishee WasteResources. Part of this judgment also includes trademark infringement damages in favor of a company owned by Kerry Culpepper, the attorney in this case.

$15m Judgment Against WasteResources

After considering the presented evidence, and without the waste company showing up at a court hearing, this week District Court Judge Beth Bloom granted the default judgment.

“At the Hearing, WasteResources did not appear. Plaintiffs presented multiple exhibits demonstrating that WasteResources is an alter ego of Defendants which the Court accepted into evidence,” Judge Bloom writes.

“Pursuant to the evidence presented […] the Court finds that Default Judgment in favor of Plaintiffs and against WasteResources is appropriate in the full amount of the unsatisfied Final Judgment against Defendants which is $15,172,403.00,” the judgment adds.

The default judgment is a big deal for the filmmakers, as it allows them to seize the company’s assets, including any payments owed by its customers.

Filmmakers Want Mr. Muszynski Arrested

The waste company isn’t alone in being targeted, there are other garnishees as well. Meanwhile, the filmmakers submitted a motion for an order to show cause why the defendants shouldn’t be held in contempt.

As part of this request, the rightsholders suggest that Mr. Muszynski should be arrested and held until he complies with the court’s orders.

In January, the court issued an order that requires the debtors to pay a fine of $500 per day, for as long as they fail to comply. The filmmakers note that this failed to move the needle.

“Neither a multi-million dollar judgment or a $500/day fine has persuaded Muszynski to comply with Court Orders. Accordingly, confinement of Muszynski will be the only means to coerce him to comply with the Court order,” the motion reads.

Two sides, Two Lawsuits

The above mostly represents the perspective of the complaining parties but in a rare move, Mr. Muszynski also made an ‘appearance’ in court, via letter (pdf) last month.

The former VPN operator noted that he doesn’t have any funds available, not even to pay for a lawyer. In addition, he maintains that the court doesn’t have jurisdiction over him, since he’s a citizen of St. Kitt’s & Nevis.

Mr. Muszynski further stressed that he isn’t, and never was, the owner of the companies held liable in the initial judgment.

“I have made this letter to avoid ‘appearing’ in the US court and to avoid lending legitimacy to any claim that I ever so appeared. I have been, since 2019, a citizen and resident of St. Kitts & Nevis, have never been served in this matter, and was not an owner of 1701 Management, LLC or AUH2O.”

The letter also mentions that the filmmakers filed a separate lawsuit in St. Kitt’s & Nevis, asking the Florida federal court to await the result of that proceeding before taking any further steps.

Tip of the Iceberg

These events represent just the tip of a legal iceberg. The U.S. case alone has hundreds of docket entries, most of them filed after the final judgment was issued.

All in all, this lawsuit shows that after an initial judgment, a case can continue for months or even years. Whatever the outcome, it’s clear that the filmmakers are willing to go to extreme lengths to collect what they’re owed.

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A copy of the default judgment, issued by Florida District Court Judge Beth Bloom this week, is available here (pdf) and the associated order can is available here (pdf) . A copy of the motion for an order to show cause why the defendants shouldn’t be held in contempt is can be found here (pdf)

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

Predicting whether specific torrent sites, streaming portals, or IPTV services will still be around in five years time, is difficult at best. At worst, almost impossible.

Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN has been tackling pirates of all types for the last 25 years. Not only has it seen huge numbers come and go, BREIN can claim direct responsibility for thousands going offline. A relentless production line of pirate platforms means that BREIN being around in five years’ time seems easier to predict.

458 Investigations, 449 Sites/Services Removed

Published this week, BREIN’s annual report for 2022 covers enforcement actions carried out on behalf of rightsholders across most sectors, including movies, TV shows, music, games, and publishing.

BREIN says it completed 458 investigations in 2022, leading to 449 illegal sites/services being removed from the internet. BREIN refrains from publicly naming its targets but these figures certainly aren’t unusual. BREIN reported the shutdown of 349 infringing platforms in 2021 and 466 in 2020 .

While sites returning under new branding may play some role in these persistently high numbers, the fact that full-blown pirate sites can now be deployed in minutes could be a more significant factor. But whatever the circumstances, BREIN has a tool for every occasion.

Preventing Big Sites From Getting Bigger

The Netherlands has long been associated with large piracy platforms but not necessarily because they were operated or hosted there. BREIN’s persistence on the legal front means that some of the largest torrent sites – The Pirate Bay, RARBG, 1337x, YTS, EZTV, LimeTorrents and KickassTorrents variants – are now dynamically blocked by major ISPs under the terms of a Website Blocking Covenant .

At the end of 2022, 196 proxies and mirrors were also blocked by IP address and/or DNS. BREIN further reports that an additional 328 proxies were ‘stopped’ by other means last year.

Until relatively recently the sites mentioned above could still be found in Google’s search results, but BREIN helped to change that too.

In cooperation with Google late 2021, Pirate Bay domains were deindexed from search results. By the end of 2022, Google had deindexed all seven torrent sites mentioned above – 341 unique domains according to BREIN.

For domains and URLs not covered by the above, BREIN sends takedown notices directly to Google. In 2022, BREIN removed 290,324 results from Google search.

Other Strategies and Enforcement Action

In the event that users manage to circumvent the above, landing on a blocked site or any number of larger (and smaller) platforms, BREIN has a number of options available.

One is to interfere with a platform’s ability to generate revenue through advertising. In 2022, BREIN says it “addressed” 36 advertisers doing business on pirate sites and carried out 2,869 interventions against adverts promoting infringing content.

Since all pirate sites and services need people to run them, supply content, and in some cases sell a particular product, BREIN also targets key people in these roles.

Last year, BREIN says it brought the activities of 19 major uploaders, administrators, and ‘ scripters ‘ to an end. It also stopped 19 traders of IPTV/VOD subscriptions.

During the year, BREIN reached 45 settlements with individuals accused of various types of infringing activity. This included 16 unwelcome home visits, otherwise known as ‘knock and talks’.

In some of these cases, BREIN had already obtained an ex parte court order to restrain infringing activity so not answering the door wouldn’t have helped.

BREIN’s Annual Report 2022 can be found here

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

The Oscars are the most anticipated movie awards show of the year, closely followed by hundreds of millions of movie fans around the world.

This year’s Academy Awards ceremony received plenty of attention as well, with one film standing out from all the rest.

With seven awards overall, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actress, ‘ Everything Everywhere All at Once ‘ was the star of the night. The independent film impressed the voters, despite having a relatively tiny budget compared to competitors including ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ and ‘Avatar: The Way of Water.’

The success didn’t come as a complete surprise. The film had already scooped up dozens of accolades , including two Golden Globes, but winning seven Oscars was an entirely different level.

Oscar Boost

Renewed attention from the press and film fanatics boosted interest among the broader public. This typically increases legal sales and views on streaming platforms, especially for relatively small releases.

‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’ is no longer running in theaters, so there is no bump there. That said, there is another area where we observed a massive spike in interest, although that’s unlikely to please the filmmakers.

The Oscars typically have a direct impact on piracy activity, and the big Oscars winner is no exception. Based on a sample of torrent activity tracked by IKnow , we can report that pirated downloads of ‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’ skyrocketed this week.

Oscar Piracy

Before discussing the numbers, it’s important to highlight that pirated copies of the Oscars winner have already been circulating for months. The first high-quality copy leaked last May and it was in the top ten most pirated films for several weeks in a row .

Since its release, the film has been illegally downloaded and streamed millions of times. In January of this year, we observed two modest spikes in downloads , once after the Golden Globes win and again when the Oscar nominations were announced. After that, downloads leveled off again.

These earlier piracy boosts are notable, but they pale in comparison with the download boost observed in our sample this week. On Monday, pirated downloads of ‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’ increased by 761% compared to the week before.

This isn’t just a relative increase either; serious demand from pirates made the Oscar winner the most pirated film worldwide on Monday, beating many newer releases and blockbusters.

Interest dropped off on Tuesday, but there was still a five-fold increase in downloads compared to a week earlier. By then, however, Cocaine Bear had taken over the spot for the most pirated film.

More Oscar Effects

Oscar-related surges are nothing new. Last year we spotted a similar effect for Best Picture winner ‘CODA’ with a tenfold increase in downloads. In absolute numbers, it didn’t come close to this year’s winner, even when correcting for sample size.

The Oscar boost isn’t limited to the Best Picture winner either. Runner-up ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ won four Academy Awards and a 268% boost in pirate downloads. Meanwhile, Best Picture nominee ‘The Triangle of Sadness’, which didn’t win an award, failed to see a massive download boost.

The chart above shows the estimated number of pirated downloads for each of the three films over the past weeks, with ‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’ standing out with the most pronounced download surge.

In closing, we should stress that all data reported here are estimated based on a large sample of millions of global daily torrent connections. These numbers are not exact nor do they include other forms of piracy, such as pirate streaming sites and direct downloads.

It’s clear, however, that the Oscars continue to be a defining event for film enthusiasts, including those who can’t or don’t want to pay.

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

Focusing on MLB, NBA, NFL, and NHL content, Hehestreams was no ordinary IPTV service.

Instead of copied streams, captured from broadcasts, HeheStreams users were directed to genuine streams offered by sports broadcasters.

On one hand, that meant that HeheStreams didn’t run up huge server bills. On the other, streams were as reliable as any official stream, because they were official streams.

After being noticed by the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment, HeheStreams shut down mid 2021. A settlement agreement was reached but the terms remain confidential.

Bug Bounty Deal Gone Bad

When TorrentFreak reached out to Streit in the summer of 2021, he informed us that some official services have vulnerabilities that fail to prevent non-customers from piggybacking onto legal streams. He informed us that he’d been in discussion with one or more providers about disclosure.

A subsequent criminal complaint filed by the US Government confirmed that Streit had been in talks with MLB. Vulnerabilities were disclosed to the baseball organization and when Streit indicated that he should be paid for his work, the MLB asked for a specific amount. Streit indicated his work was worth $150K but was also informed there was no ‘bug bounty’ program at the baseball league.

An FBI agent later wrote that Streit had indeed made an approach and presented as helpful. However, he concluded that a “simultaneous intrusion” and “illegal streaming of MLB content” via HeheStreams indicated that the intent was “to extort MLB.”

Charged With Several Crimes, Pleaded Guilty to One

In October 2021, the Department of Justice charged then 30-year-old Streit with several crimes; accessing a protected computer in furtherance of a criminal act for financial gain, accessing a protected computer in furtherance of fraud, wire fraud, sending interstate threats, and illicit digital transmission.

After consulting with his attorney, Streit concluded that signing a plea deal was the most sensible course of action. The Minnesota man pleaded guilty to one count of ‘Computer Fraud – Unauthorized Access to Obtain Information From a Protected Computer’ and to the forfeiture of $500,000, an amount said to represent proceeds traceable to the commission of the offense.

Streit still faced a potential prison sentence of 51-60 months.

Pre-Sentencing Submissions

In advance of a sentencing hearing Thursday, family and friends shared letters with the court recalling their personal experiences with Streit.

One explained how Streit formulated a plan, hired a photographer, and built a website and reservation system for a family business in financial trouble, all for free. More personal submissions from those closer to Streit spoke of his kindness, generosity, and support in their difficult times, and of his support for those no longer around to thank him in person.

Another was submitted by Streit’s current employer; an “embarrassed and remorseful” Streit disclosed his predicament during the interview process, yet still landed the job. A good decision for the tech company since Streit went on to save the company $600,000 annually. Another spoke of how Streit had helped out with schoolwork, without which they would not have made it through class.

Streit Sentenced to Three Years in Prison

Streit appeared yesterday in a New York district court for sentencing. His plea agreement established guilt, all that was left was to determine his punishment. The Department of Justice claimed that “one of the victim sports leagues” sustained losses of approximately $3 million due to Streit’s conduct.

We understand that was MLB, the company that had reported Streit after he’d contacted them to discuss vulnerabilities in their systems.

“[A]t the same time STREIT was illicitly streaming copyrighted content from MLB, STREIT engaged in an attempt to extort approximately $150,000 from MLB via a threat from STREIT to publicize unrelated vulnerabilities in MLB’s internet infrastructure,” a Department of Justice statement reads.

“Specifically, in multiple communications with MLB employees, STREIT claimed that he knew MLB reporters who were ‘interested in the story,’ and stated that it would be bad if the vulnerability were exposed and MLB was embarrassed.”

United States District Judge Andrew L. Carter sentenced to Streit to three years in prison and three years of supervised release. In addition to $500,000 in forfeiture, Streit was ordered to pay $2,995,272.64, an amount previously determined by his plea agreement.

TorrentFreak understands the sentence will be appealed.

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

In recent years, site blocking has emerged as a preferred anti-piracy solution in dozens of countries.

These blocking measures are not bulletproof but pose a hurdle for casual pirates, which can bring down overall piracy rates.

In many countries blocking is a relatively new measure, but Denmark has years of experience. The first Danish blocks date back to 2006 , when music industry group IFPI filed a complaint targeting the unlicensed Russian MP3 site AllofMP3.

Not much later, Denmark became the first European country to force an ISP to block access to The Pirate Bay . Since then, many other pirate sites have received the same treatment.

Denmark Expands Piracy Blocklist

This week, a new batch of sites was added to this ever-growing blocklist. The Court in Næstved issued an order targeting nine music piracy sites that reportedly had hundreds of thousands of monthly visitors from Denmark.

The Court’s verdict isn’t yet publicly available, but the complaint was filed by local anti-piracy group Rights Alliance , which acted on behalf of several prominent music industry organizations including IFPI, Sony Music, Universal Music, and Danish music group KODA.

Rights Alliance informs TorrentFreak that the order includes stream ripper domains ytmp3.cc, y2mate.com, yt1s.com, savefrom.net, loader.to, onlinevideoconverter.pro, yt5s.com, and ytmp3.plus. All of these sites can convert YouTube videos into downloadable MP3 files.

Outlier

The ninth site, Onebas.com, is a clear outlier as it’s a music streaming site, instead of a stream ripper. This service appears to mimic services such as Spotify, by playing embedded YouTube videos.

Playing embedded YouTube videos is fine as long as the rightsholder permits it. However, Onebas.com also offers full album downloads for registered users, charging $1 a piece. That’s something artists and labels certainly won’t be happy with.

The Court in Næstved agreed that all nine music sites should be blocked. On paper, the blocking requirement is limited to Internet provider Fibula. However, based on a ‘ code of conduct ‘ agreed between rightsholders and ISPs, other providers will follow suit.

239 Sites and 1146 Mirrors Blocked

The ‘code of conduct’ is illustrative of a blocking process that’s constantly being improved. The parties involved try to make the experience more effective, flexible and less cumbersome , except for the pirates. This also includes dynamic orders that allow rightsholders to add mirror domains of previously blocked sites.

Thus far, court orders have resulted in the blocking of 239 pirate sites. In addition, another 1146 mirror site domains have been added. This list continues to expand with new mirrors on a regular basis.

Rights Alliance is pleased with the latest blocking order. According to the anti-piracy group, it will help to reduce traffic to these sites.

“It is the Rights Alliance’s experience that blocking the illegal services contributes to the fact that the traffic to the services falls by 75 percent on average. This significantly reduces the scope of copyright infringements,” the group notes .

No Silver Bullet

In 2018, Denmark became the first country to target YouTube rippers with a blocking order. With the latest court ruling, rightsholders hope to make it harder for the public to download from streaming sites. However, history also shows that blocking is no silver bullet.

While some people may kick the piracy habit when they run into blockades, many others will simply switch to sites that remain available. This comes as no surprise to Rights Alliance and underlines why new blocking orders are still needed.

“Here, 5 years later, the technology is still widely used to illegally download music from YouTube,” Rights Alliance notes, referring to the stream ripper situation.

Even in the ideal situation where all pirate sites and mirrors are effectively blocked, piracy will remain a concern. According to a recent survey , 38% of all Danish pirates use VPNs to access blocked sites, while 36% switch to alternate DNS servers to do the same.

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

As part of its relentless campaign to shut down as many pirate sites as possible, on Wednesday the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment reported yet another big win.

The anti-piracy coalition’s latest victim is Streamzz, a stream hosting platform that reportedly supplied over 75,000 movies and 15,000 TV episodes, which helped to fuel more than 60 pirate streaming sites.

ACE says that a third of the site’s seven million monthly visits can be attributed to users in Germany, where Streamzz itself was based. Germany is also the home of ACE member Constantin Film, a film production and distribution company that worked with the coalition to take Streamzz down.

ACE Celebrates Win, Streamzz Infuriates Users

In an announcement Wednesday, ACE chief Jan van Voorn said that the closure of Streamzz shows that the coalition is capable of targeting pirates no matter where they exist in the chain of supply.

“The shutdown of Streamzz is fresh proof that no one in the content piracy ecosystem – whether they’re a streaming service, video streaming host or anything in between – is above the law. We will target piracy services of various kinds in order to protect the global creative economy,” he said.

Some users of Streamzz, meanwhile, have concerns about their own economies.

How it Started….

Streamzz (or simply Streamz) has been around since 2019, operating from several different domains. In a 2020 interview with Tarnkappe, one of the site’s operators declined to comment on future successes leading to the sipping of cocktails on a tropical beach. “We just let ourselves be surprised,” he said.

On March 14, three of the site’s domains – streamz.vg, streamz.cc and streamz.tw – had their records updated to reveal their new owner: Motion Picture Association, Inc. Domains still to be taken over currently deliver a message: “We currently have server problems. Please understand.”

Today’s situation is a far cry from the optimism and business drive of Streamz back in 2020. In order to build a popular service, Streamz needed two things; people to upload movies and TV shows to Streamz, and people to watch them on third-party streaming sites where they would be embedded.

Building Up, Building Trust

The image below shows that people were incentivized to upload popular content and generate traffic for the platform. For a considerable time, everything seemed to go broadly as planned.

With uploaders getting paid to upload movies and TV shows to Streamz, and streaming sites placing links to that content in their own indexes, everyone in the mini-ecosystem had the ability to generate traffic and make money.

To show that Streamz was indeed paying out earnings as promised, bonuses were paid to uploaders who posted screenshots of their payouts on a public forum. There appeared to be no shortage of people prepared to further compromise their security for a few extra dollars.

Still, these public records of payouts tend to suggest that up until the first or second week of February, Streamzz may have been operating normally.

Mass Deletions Begin

When reports began to surface that Streamzz had begun mass deleting movies and TV shows, that was a sure sign of major underlying problems. A message on BS.to, a large Germany-focused streaming platform, reported that Streamzz was “having a massive deletion wave” but the reasons for that were currently unknown.

The manner in which those deletions became apparent to the site’s uploaders and partners caused widespread confusion before spilling over into anger. It appears that when Streamzz deleted user-uploaded videos, they replaced them with random wildlife videos instead.

Some uploaders got a little bit upset. Others operating in more specialist niches catering to more specific tastes, were absolutely furious.

While zebra videos might have pleased David Attenborough, Naomi Foxx fans probably prefer videos that at least stay on topic. According to Streamzz, hardware issues were to blame.

“We are currently having a problem with the delivery of the videos as we are still waiting for a new raid controller. We will fix the problem as soon as possible and of course compensate for the downtime of the last days,” a spokesperson explained. Some weren’t convinced.

“I find instead of my links I get videos about nature or clickbait videos for Telegram or Instagram. Almost all my links are gone with this shit, no support, no response,” one user complained.

“I think it is appropriate not to utilize anymore, my site is not a Savannah Zoo, fuck.”

Animal Problems Disappear

As one observer wondered if the wildlife videos had appeared because Streamzz had servers “far from civilization,” suddenly there were no more animal videos. Or anything else for that matter.

Sometime late February, Streamzz ceased to exist beyond a handful of domains. As reported earlier, three of those domains are now controlled by the MPA and currently link to the ACE anti-piracy portal.

It’s possible that others will join them in the days to come.

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