Pirate site blocking is one of the entertainment industry’s favorite enforcement tools. In recent years, it’s become a common practice in many countries around the world.

In the Netherlands, it took over a decade for the first order to be approved. After detours through the Supreme Court and the EU Court of Justice, the final order was issued in 2020, targeting The Pirate Bay .

With all the legal paperwork in order, the doors were open to more blocking requests, especially after rightsholders and local ISPs signed a covenant to streamline the process. If a court orders one company to block pirate sites, by agreement the other ISPs will follow suit.

After the initial Pirate Bay blockade, a follow-up order targeted YTS, EZTV and other torrent sites in 2022. Last year, the court approved a ‘dynamic’ blocking order against Lookmovie and Flixtor, followed by similar action against popular shadow libraries a few months ago.

New TorrentGalaxy Blockade

Yesterday, BREIN announced that it has won another blocking case. In a recent ruling, the Rotterdam District Court ordered Dutch internet provider Odido to block access to popular torrent site TorrentGalaxy and its associated proxy and mirror domains.

The Court found that TorrentGalaxy facilitates copyright infringement by providing unauthorized access to copyrighted works. As an internet service provider, Odido plays a role in facilitating access to TorrentGalaxy, therefore it’s obliged to take action to limit the piracy activity.

The ISP is seen as an intermediary under Dutch copyright law. Without taking action, it can be held liable, the Court explained. This wasn’t contested by Odido, but the ISP opposed BREIN’s blocking request for other reasons.

ISP Opposition Fails

In court, the ISP mentioned the subsidiarity requirement of the blocking covenant, arguing that BREIN had not sufficiently tested other avenues to shut the site down. BREIN could have done more to address the infringements closer to the source, by going after TorrentGalaxy’s hosting provider, for example.

BREIN had reached out to TorrentGalaxy’s former host FlokiNET in the past, but without any result. However, when the torrent site reportedly relocated this summer, it was weeks before BREIN contacted the new hosting company, Virtual Systems, which typically doesn’t respond to its inquiries either.

After reviewing the arguments from both sides, the Court agreed that BREIN had taken all appropriate steps as agreed in the blocking covenant.

“BREIN not only wrote to the site and the hosting provider, but also to the registrant, registrar and registry of each domain. BREIN has therefore done more than was expected of it,” the Rotterdam District Court’s decision notes.

There are additional steps BREIN could have taken. For example, it could have sued the hosting companies. However, that’s not needed to warrant a blocking order.

“The subsidiarity requirement does not extend so far that BREIN is required to first conduct numerous lawsuits abroad against foreign parties before it demands a blockade in the Netherlands,” the Court adds

500+ Domain Blockade

BREIN director Bastiaan van Ramshorst is pleased with the outcome, which requires other Dutch ISPs to follow suit. Overall, these blocking measures have proven to be effective, particularly since dynamic orders allow new domains to be added later on.

“The websites blocking covenant is working satisfactorily. Dynamic blocking is effective and in the Netherlands it leads to a substantial decrease in visits to the evidently illegal websites that are blocked,” he says.

In addition to ISPs, the order also extends to Google, as the search engine previously decided to voluntarily remove domains from local search results based on ISP blocking orders.

“Moreover, all websites that Dutch access providers must block by court order, Google removes from its search results at the request of BREIN. This cuts both ways,” Van Ramshorst adds.

At the time of writing, the full Dutch pirate site blocklist covers 574 domain names, including proxies and mirrors. In addition to newcomer TorrentGalaxy, it includes The Pirate Bay, YTS, KAT, 1337x, EZTV, LimeTorrents, RARBG (offline), Lookmovie, Flixtor, Anna’s Archive, and Library Genesis.

—

Update November 14: A copy of the Dutch verdict is now publicly available .

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

At the start of 2024, few would’ve believed that Nintendo had a plan up its sleeve that would turn the Switch emulator scene upside down in a matter of months.

That Nintendo’s core strategy is effective regardless of the target, and appears flexible enough to put pressure on pro-piracy speech , is a rarity in itself. Even the timing and pace seem to have been measured to perfection.

While no action has been able to conclusively end Switch emulation, or even nudge the scene towards an existential crisis, things are not like they were in 2023. It’s possible there will never be a return, but all things considered, mass uptake of emulation for piracy purposes was never likely to end well.

A less shouty and brazen attitude towards the risky side of emulation, may actually end up being a plus for those determined to continue. When mainstream attraction eventually wears off, Nintendo itself may experience diminishing returns; right now, however, there’s still plenty of work left to do.

Undermining Foundations, Limiting Options

After the dust settled on Yuzu’s demise, any software based on Yuzu had already inherited the same poisonous traits that led to its downfall. With those details in hand, Nintendo has had a much easier time taking down developers’ repos.

Suyu, Nuzu, Uzuy and Torzu all faced disruption in July , along with Sudachi, a Yuzu-based emulator whose DNA can also be found in Pomelo, a Switch emulator for iOS devices.

In a DMCA takedown notice filed at GitHub a few hours ago, Nintendo targets eight Pomelo repos. Highlighting that Pomelo code can be traced back to Yuzu, Nintendo’s notice lists everything that Yuzu did wrong and then links that directly to Pomelo.

“The reported repository provides access to the yuzu emulator or code based on the yuzu emulator (specifically, a program called Pomelo),” the notice reads, before complaining about Yuzu’s actions and leaving GitHub to connect the dots.

“The yuzu emulator is primarily designed to play Nintendo Switch games. Specifically, yuzu illegally circumvents Nintendo’s technological protection measures and runs illegal copies of Nintendo Switch games,” Nintendo continues.

“Nintendo Switch games are encrypted using proprietary cryptographic keys (prod.keys) which protect against unauthorized access to and copying of the copyrighted games. During operation, yuzu necessarily uses unauthorized copies of these cryptographic keys to decrypt unauthorized copies of Nintendo Switch games, or ROMs, at or immediately before runtime without Nintendo’s authorization,” the notice adds.

All Switch Decryption is Illegal

On GitLab, where Pomelo currently continues unhindered, the repo has an unmissable notice on the very front page.

Unfortunately the disclaimer isn’t especially useful. Using the Yuzu case for guidance, dumping encryption keys, regardless of the source of those keys, is illegal. In fact, anywhere where encryption is mentioned, decryption is described as illegal, even when users extract keys from their own, legally purchased devices.

When taken together, these factors lead Pomelo and other Switch emulators down a dead end with nowhere left to go.

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

There are dozens of recognizable brands in the illegal streaming market, all jostling for position in a chaotic market where trademarks are copied even more readily than movies or live TV streams.

In Latin America, one brand stands out more than most, and not just because it has a bright orange logo. Believed to operate out of China, illegal streaming service Magis TV is consumed via a now ubiquitous Android app, made available on hundreds of websites, including those operated by a very large network of resellers.

Rightsholders in the United States consider Magis TV a priority threat yet despite various enforcement measures in multiple countries, the service remains stubbornly online.

Law Enforcement Operation in Colombia

On the back of action in Ecuador , Bolivia, Brazil and Argentina in recent months, police in Colombia targeted people involved in the supply of Magis TV earlier this week.

Information released by the Attorney General’s Office indicates that two brothers, arrested after being tracked by the Specialized Directorate Against Computer Crimes, had been providing access to illegal TV streams under the brands ‘Magis TV’ and ‘Magis Oficial.’

In common with the majority of similar cases, the pair stand accused of violating the intellectual property rights of multinational entertainment companies.

Brothers arrested (image credit: Fiscalía Colombia)

While operations like these aren’t especially rare, the charges faced by the brothers go beyond copyright infringement.

Piracy and Malicious Software Charges

“The brothers Juan Diego and José Daniel Santacruz Benavidez were arrested following investigations carried out by the CTI and the National Police in Pasto (Nariño). These people were brought before a judge and charged with the crimes of violation of copyright and use of malicious software,” the official statement reads.

“Those interested in acquiring these tools, called ‘Magis TV’ and ‘Magis Official’, accessed two websites to download them and thus access the audiovisual offer; however, they also installed malicious software on their devices that enabled the camera, alerted about the user’s geolocation, and facilitated the transmission of personal data, photographs and videos, to external storage.”

As previously reported , cybersecurity firm ESET previously linked Magis TV to malware and botnets. As far as we’re aware, these data exfiltration claims are new but since the Magis TV app comes in many shapes and sizes, there’s no one-size-fits-all analysis that applies across the board.

Malware Claims Gain Credibility in Colombia

Rightsholders have fully embraced malware warnings as part of their deterrent messaging in recent years. Unfortunately, the manner in which those claims are delivered meets a credibility crisis that’s difficult to overcome.

On one hand, malware and similar issues are portrayed as incredibly serious for consumers. Yet when other piracy risks are discussed in parallel – such as being arrested by the police for simply watching pirate IPTV – the emphasis is suddenly back on a comparatively minor crime for which the police continually find the resources.

The end result is a stream of pirates prosecuted for copyright infringement or fraud repeatedly hitting the headlines. Meanwhile, prosecutions for spreading malware, stealing identities, and other serious offenses, are completely non-existent.

Through this action, malware warnings have just become instantly more credible; they may even find support among the public.

Enforcement Action in Ecuador

The war against Magis TV in Ecuador has been underway for some time, with numerous blocking orders attempting to prevent access to dozens, if not hundreds of websites.

Information released by police on Wednesday announced the arrest of a man in the province of Guayas, said to be behind “one of the largest illegal streaming providers.” When contacted by local publication Primicias seeking clarification, police confirmed that this operation also targeted Magis TV.

A short video posted to X by Ecuadorian Police, is a reminder that the IT Crowd’s parody of ‘Piracy, It’s a Crime’ just a few years ago, is now just one restless finger away from becoming reality.

An Extra.ec report published late Wednesday identifies Javier Eduardo López Cassan as the man arrested. He’s described as an “administrator of Magis TV” but what that means here is unclear. Resellers commonly have their own Magis TV-branded websites while others sell via social media; 51-year-old Cassan sold via WhatsApp and other platforms, police confirmed.

In any event, police weren’t taking anything for granted, as the video shows.

“More than 20 agents from different units participated in the operation, including the National Cybercrime Unit, the G3 Tactical Group of Guayaquil, plus Criminalistics and the Law Enforcement Unit (UMO). According to the Judiciary, López Cassan already had a criminal record for concealing stolen objects and had two legal proceedings for failure to comply with alimony obligations,” the publication reported.

Whether copyright charges will feature in this case isn’t made clear but according to the authorities, cybercrime offenses most certainly will. Cassan is facing charges of ‘unauthorized access to a computer, telematic or telecommunications system,’ which carries a potential sentence of between three and five years in prison.

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

After eight years of unprecedented uptime and reliability, the collapse and eventual demise of pirate streaming giant FMovies looked much like the demise of any other.

Cracks first started to emerge in June 2024 when the site stopped updating with new content. A few weeks later in mid-July, FMovies disappeared entirely, without any explanation from its operators or indeed anyone else. An announcement at the end of August confirmed what many had suspected, however.

The Motion Picture Association (MPA) and anti-piracy coalition Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) revealed that they had collaborated with Hanoi Police to shut down the FMovies operation, which included ‘sister’ sites AniWave, Bflixz, Flixtorz, Movies7, and Myflixer.

According to ACE, the FMovies empire was the largest piracy ring in the world , attracting more than 6.7 billion visits between January 2023 and June 2024 alone. Charles Rivkin, MPA CEO and Chairman of ACE, described the dismantling of FMovies as “a stunning victory for casts, crews, writers, directors, studios, and the creative community across the globe.”

Authorities in Vietnam Break Silence

The MPA/ACE announcement late August contained praise for Vietnamese authorities but no official statement from them. Initial reports late August didn’t provide details on any arrests either, but it later transpired that two people connected to FMovies had been detained.

After more than two months of silence, local authorities have now released additional information on the investigation and the two men previously arrested. They also confirm that a decision has been made to prosecute the case and both suspects.

The Investigation and Identification of Suspects

Responding to allegations made by the Hollywood studios, the Economic Police Department, in coordination with departments of the Hanoi City Police, launched an investigation to confirm the suspects’ identities and relevant background information.

FMovies viewed from the other side (Credit: police video)

Police say that documents and other evidence was obtained to clarify the suspects’ operational methods and to confirm their roles in the FMovies operation.

Hanoi City Police now confirm the following:

• Suspect 1: Phan Thanh Cong, 34, is a resident of Mo Lao ward, Ha Dong district, Hanoi.

He is described as the “mastermind, leader, creator, operator, and manager” of the “FMovies website system” which allegedly offered almost 50,000 films to the public, in many cases violating MPA members’ rights.

Alleged FMovies ‘Mastermind’ Phan Thanh Cong (Credit: Hanoi City Police)

Authorities also reveal that the suspect was “administratively disciplined for similar behavior” in the past, but the offending was not described in detail.

• Suspect 2: Nguyen Tuan Anh, also 34 and a resident of Mo Lao ward, Ha Dong district, Hanoi, is described as an accomplice/assistant.

Alleged FMovies ‘Accomplice’ Nguyen Tuan Anh (Credit: police video)

It’s claimed he was responsible for illegally copying around 50,000 films and posting them to FMovies and its ‘sister’ websites. In many cases, this violated MPA members’ rights.

Other Findings of the Investigation

According to local police, the offending began in 2016, with the suspects illegally earning “hundreds of thousands of US dollars” before the operation was shut down in August 2024. The authorities claim that during questioning, both men confessed in full to all alleged crimes.

The Investigation Police Agency at Hanoi City Police says it has issued a decision to prosecute the case. Phan Thanh Cong and Nguyen Tuan Anh will be prosecuted for infringement of copyright and related rights under Clause 2, Section 225, Penal Code 2015. What that means for those arrested is currently unclear; the necessary details are yet to be released and almost everything turns on those details.

Commercial Scale Offending?

Section 225 relates to the unlawful copying and/or distribution of infringing copies of audiovisual works, without obtaining permission from rightsholders, on a ‘commercial scale’. That term is not clearly defined. Instead, indications are given in terms of illegal profits, such as VND 50,000,000 (just under $US2,000) or damage to rightsholders of VND 100,000,000 (just under US$4,000).

Profits of “hundreds of thousands of US dollars” does seem to qualify but any predictions on how things might eventually play out would be pure guesswork at this stage and most likely unhelpful.

The framework of penalties is complicated and varies according to the scale and nature of the offending, which isn’t straightforward either. Fines seeem to vary from VND 50,000,000 (just under US$2,000) to VND 300,000,000 (just under US$12,000) and a non-custodial sentence, up to VND 1,000,000,000 (just under US$395,000) and a custodial sentence of between six months and three years, depending on the presence of any specified aggravating factors.

Yet as Phan Thanh Cong apparently knows from experience, the authorities might prefer to impose administrative measures. We just don’t know and the information being made available right now is simply insufficient. It’s possible that MPA/ACE have a clearer idea, but it’s highly unlikely any public comments will be made during an ongoing prosecution.

Letter of Thanks Sent From U.S. to Vietnam

What happens moving forward in this process is clearly very important to the United States and the studios in particular.

A police video released in connection with the news above skims the following letter. We had to stitch it back together to make it readable, but the sentiment is clear; the United States is very grateful for the assistance and at least thus far, satisfied with the direction of the relationship and the case.

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

For most of 2024, major football leagues in Spain and Italy have regularly used the media to criticize and then publicly threaten Google. Rightsholders have always criticized Google but this feels a bit different.

More recently, flare-ups have coincided with rightsholders demanding that Google implements new, controversial anti-piracy measures, such as remotely deleting apps from users’ phones. Whether any discussions take place in private is unclear. But from the outside, subsequent one-sided criticism of Google’s response to piracy via the media, suggests that differences still exist.

Recent Allegations

Criticism rose again via Italian media during October, with headlines such as ‘ TV rights and piracy, Serie A ready to sue Google ‘ and variations thereof. The common theme in these reports are allegations that Google receives takedown notices from football league Serie A but then ignores them; all part of a reluctance to collaborate on anti-piracy matters in general, the allegations claim.

To a background of Google receiving its 10 billionth URL removal request just over a week ago, and limited complaints along similar lines from elsewhere, ignoring takedown notices seems unlikely. At the very least, it’s lacking context in the bigger picture.

Transparency Helps to Settle Disputes

Details of specific complaints haven’t been made public but multiple reports state that Serie A’s complaints relate to Google’s alleged failures in the current season, which started mid-August. The table below shows takedown notices filed by Serie A or appointed agents between May 26 and September 23, 2024.

Serie A appears to use more than one account when filing takedown notices, including Lega Nazionale Professionisti Serie A and Liga Nacional de Fütbol Profesional , which we’ll return to in a moment.

The complaint at the bottom of the table dated May 26 was sent before the season began but is relevant in the bigger picture. It requested the removal of 84 URLs, of which Google deleted 12% from search results. Since the remaining 88% of URLs in the notice did not actually exist in Google’s search indexes when the notice was sent, removal was impossible.

Google Processes Unnecessarily Confusing Complaints

Here’s where things become unnecessarily complicated. The May 26 takedown notice was sent by an agent; more specifically a company called Sportian, the anti-piracy company previously known as LaLiga Tech, owned by top tier Spanish football league, LaLiga. The full takedown notice, courtesy of the Lumen Database , can be viewed here with a sample of the not-in-index URLs shown below.

At the time of writing, a total of 3,530 individual requests filed with Google under the Liga Nacional de Fútbol Profesional account have requested the removal of 437,524 URLs. Google went on to remove 49.8% of that total, could not remove 23.3% because they did not exist in its indexes and a further 3.3% because the same URLs were duplicates of previously reported links.

The issue here is that Liga Nacional de Fútbol Profesional isn’t a reference to Serie A; it’s actually Sportiva using the full name of Spanish football league LaLiga in its unlikely capacity as a takedown agent for Serie A.

While there doesn’t appear to be anything nefarious going on here, takedown fraud thrives on convoluted situations not dissimilar to this. If given time to do its job, Google often identifies abuses and prevents them from doing damage.

Despite a hall of mirrors, Google still processed the notices and also took down whatever it was able to take down. According to Google data on all of Serie A accounts mentioned earlier, 70.2% of all URLs requested for takedown do not exist in its search indexes so are impossible to delete .

Season Begins With a Change of Tactics

The Serie A notices dated Aug 22 , Aug 27 , and September 3 , were not sent to Google from its usual accounts. Instead, they were filed by SP Tech, the law firm/anti-piracy company behind the Piracy Shield platform.

Those three notices contain just 12 URLs in total, of which Google removed none.

All three takedown notices

After sending takedown notices listing specific URLs and infringing content as required under the DMCA, there’s a very clear switch here to domain-based takedown notices that appear to identify no infringing content at all.

Indeed, while these domains appear to link to sites that may well offer IPTV packages containing Serie A matches, the DMCA states that takedown notices must contain sufficient information for the recipient to identify and remove the infringing content.

Clash of Legal Requirements

Under Law n. 93 of 14 July 2023, which has been in force in Italy since August 8, 2023, service providers and ISPs are required to block or otherwise prevent access to infringing content within 30 minutes of receiving an instruction from Piracy Shield; a system to which Google is not currently connected.

Even if Google deindexed the domains in Serie A’s notices, that wouldn’t prevent access to any IPTV streams. That’s something this law does not consider. These are blocking and deindexing orders made with no judicial oversight, that have shown to be erroneous on several occasions, with Google itself blocked in error a matter of weeks ago.

The exact reasons for Google currently rejecting domain-only takedown/deindexing demands are unknown. In the UK and the Netherlands, Google has been deindexing entire pirate sites since 2021 . The difference is that rightsholders in both countries previously obtained court orders that provide a legal basis for ISP blocking. Google isn’t even mentioned in those orders, but it cooperates because due process requirements have been met.

In Italy, purely on the word of a rightsholder, who may or may not know the difference between Google Drive and a pirate site on any given day, companies like Google are expected to blindly and immediately follow orders. Thirty minutes is a timeframe that encourages no checks whatsoever, the consequences of which have been widely publicized.

Called Out in Public

Resistance, it appears, can lead to blanket accusations of doing almost nothing to assist rightsholders. As highlighted above, Google does process takedown notices; however, depending on the takedown account held up as proof, Google can be shown to be mostly or even totally non-compliant. The Sp Tech account shown below, which was introduced only recently, is one such example.

Describing Google as generally non-compliant, or even “grossly negligent” according to a recent comment, simply isn’t true. Serie A has another account at Google that’s been in use since January 2019. Over more than five years, Serie A filed 56,847 individual takedown notices that together requested the removal of 1,194,826 URLs.

Of that total, 65.5% of the URLs did not exist in Google search , meaning it was impossible to remove them . Google removed 27.9% of the URLs as requested, leaving duplicate URLs already dealt with and 5.4% for which Google took no action.

While that sounds like a minimum compliance rate of 95%, attention will inevitably focus on the remaining 5% and why those weren’t removed as well. There are many reasons behind Google’s refusals to take action, including protecting innocent parties from abusive or simply careless takedown demands.

That Google continues to do that, even while being publicly disparaged for its apparent failings, is commendable. That it prevented Serie A from deindexing its own website on October 27, is ironic, to put it mildly.

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

Like most other countries, South Korea has a persistent piracy problem. Online streaming platforms in particular, have flourished in recent years.

Up until a year ago, ‘Noonoo TV’ was one of the leading players. Despite welcoming millions of monthly visitors, the site shut itself down citing bandwidth costs and other ‘pressure’ .

Noonoo & TVWIKI

The self-imposed shutdown was unexpected but it didn’t take long before other streaming platforms filled the gap. One of these replacements was TVWIKI portal, which showed remarkable similarities with Noonoo.

For example, the Android apps of Noonoo and TVWIKI shared code and had the same application signing key. In addition, the two portals shared the same category structure and some videos streamed on TVWIKI had a Noonoo watermark.

TVWIKI’s rapid rise in popularity quickly made it a prime anti-piracy target, with Hollywood’s Motion Picture Association (MPA) labeling the operation a notorious piracy market.

In a report sent to the U.S. Government, MPA wrote that TVWIKI has millions of monthly visitors, who accounted for nearly 40 million visits in August. At the time, it used the tv51.wiki domain but it regularly switched to new homes to evade Korea’s stringent blocking measures.

“This series of domains utilizes ‘sequential domain aliasing’ to evade detection by enforcement vendors, traffic measurement bots, and evade site-blocking efforts,” MPA wrote at the time, adding that the operators are believed to be based in Korea.

Korea Shuts Down TVWIKI, Arrests ‘Noonoo’ Operator

TVWIKI’s reign ended abruptly this weekend, when its domain was forwarded to a shutdown notice hosted by GitHub. A message informed visitors that Korean authorities seized the domain. The site’s alleged operator, meanwhile, was arrested by a special unit of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism.

The enforcement action appears to confirm the ties between Noonoo and TVWIKI. The takedown notice, hosted on the url ‘copyright241109.github.io/ noonoowarrant ‘, mentions that the alleged operator of TVWIKI is the same person who ran Noonoo and OKTOON, another pirate streaming portal.

“The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism’s Copyright Crime Scientific Investigation Unit arrested the operator of the illegal streaming website Noonoo TV on November 9, 2024, and seized the illegal streaming website TVWIKI and the illegal webtoon posting site OKTOON operated by the same operator,” the translated message reads.

South Korean news outlet MBN refers to the alleged operator as “Mr. A” but no further details have been released at this point.

The authorities link Noonoo and TVWIKI’s operator to OKTOON, a pirate site that specialized in Korean comics. OKTOON was targeted in a DMCA subpoena obtained by the Naver-owned company Webtoon in June this year, alongside 170 other domain names . Whether this action contributed to the eventual takedown of the site is unknown.

Rumors and Replacements

Given the evasive nature of the pirate streaming portal, some people suggested that the seizure was just a predetermined PR stunt to increase its popularity. This was partly triggered by the GitHub-hosted seizure banner.

However, with every passing hour, reality started to sink in. The Korean authorities likely use GitHub to offload traffic to an external service. The same tactic was used after the webtoon pirate site Agitoon was shut down in August of this year.

In a response to an inquiry from the local news outlet MK, an official from the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism confirmed that the authorities are responsible.

“It is correct that the operator was arrested on the 9th, and the notice on the site was also posted by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism,” the spokesperson responded.

With the domain seizures and arrest, one of the largest Korean piracy operations has been rolled up. However, as is often the case, others will be eager to take over the brand, as also happened with Noonoo last year.

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

In late 2022, several of the world’s largest music companies including UMG, Warner and Sony Music prevailed in their lawsuit against Internet provider Grande Communications.

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

The trial lasted more than two weeks and ended in a resounding victory for the labels. A Texas federal jury found Grande guilty of willful contributory copyright infringement, and the ISP was ordered to pay $47 million in damages to the record labels.

$47 Million Appeal

Grande was unhappy with the verdict and appealed. Internet providers shouldn’t be held liable for pirating customers based on third-party allegations, the company noted. This appeal was supported by several telecoms organizations which agreed that terminating accounts of suspected pirates is a drastic and overbroad remedy.

In addition to the liability aspect, Grande also protested the damages calculations. The jury calculated the damages per song, instead of per album, which is the wrong interpretation of U.S. law according to the ISP.

Last month, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals handed down a mixed order . The court confirmed that the ISP is liable for copyright infringement but upheld its concerns over damages. A new trial was issued to establish the lower damages award, on a per-album basis.

The Court agreed that, in this instance, awarding statutory damages on a per-song basis “would make a total mockery” of Congress’ mandate. If rightsholders would like this to change, they should ask Congress to change the law.

Record Labels Want Rehearing

UMG, Warner, Sony and the other labels agree with the finding on liability but object to the damages calculation since this substantially lowers the $47m award.

Last week, they filed a petition for a rehearing en banc . They argue that the Fifth Circuit’s decision on the damages’ calculation is too narrow.

The labels note that each song that was infringed is its own “work” under the Copyright Act, and that they are entitled to damages for each individual song.

Their argument is based on the “independent economic value” test, which asks whether the unit of expression has “independent economic value” to the copyright owner. If it does, then the copyright owner is entitled to statutory damages for the infringement of each copyrightable unit of expression.

In this case, songs can have individual value, whether they are part of an album or not. This notion is supported by the fact that most music is consumed via digital streaming platforms, which provide access to individual songs.

“In the digital era, streaming is the primary source of revenue and necessarily involves the commercialization of individual recordings,” the labels write.

Piracy Changed the Music Biz

The labels point out that there’s a certain irony in the Fifth Circuit’s decision. They note that rampant piracy was a primary reason the industry moved from selling physical albums to making individual downloads and streams available.

This means that statutory damages, which are supposed to compensate copyright owners and deter infringers, are based on the old “album” model, which has been disrupted by online piracy.

“Thus, the panel’s decision calculates statutory damages awards based on the remnants of a business model that digital piracy severely diminished,” the petition reads.

One Work?

In addition to the independent economic value test, the labels disagree with the court’s interpretation of Section 504(c)(1) of the Copyright Act, which states that all parts of a compilation constitute one work.

The Fifth Circuit held that albums are compilations, which should therefore be seen as a single work. However, the labels believe that this narrow interpretation only applies if the alleged copyright infringement is an album.

In this case, the labels alleged infringements of individual songs, not albums. Therefore, it should be appropriate to calculate damages per song, they argue.

“Thus, the panel’s rule serves no purpose other than to punish copyright owners for their decision to include their standalone works on compilations in addition to commercializing them individually,” the labels write.

This present lawsuit is based on alleged BitTorrent downloads. It’s not immediately clear whether these were only torrents for individual songs. However, the labels seem to suggest this is the case.

All in all, the music companies argue that there is sufficient reason for a rehearing. If the current verdict stands it will significantly harm their ability to combat rampant online piracy, they conclude.

—

A copy of the petition for a rehearing en banc, which was submitted at the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals last week, is available here (pdf) .

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

While judicial oversight may be initially unavoidable when site-blocking is first introduced to a country, systems with less friction are strongly preferred.

The law that supports Italy’s Piracy Shield system allows for blocking with no judicial oversight. An amendment passed quietly last year now allows rightsholders to block online resources without any input from telecoms regulator AGCOM. The system has almost no friction at the blocking stage. That comes at the cost of significant blunders, which could been prevented by proper checks and balances.

Details of a complaint alleging more unwarranted blocking reveal an unusual situation where the interpretation of new law and its blocking boundaries appear to be determined by rightsholders alone. There’s no case law to provide guidance and any complaints are handled at a significantly slower pace than initial blocking takes place.

DAZN Files Complaint Against Smart TV Software

DAZN added https://tizen.smartone-iptv.com and https://lg.smartone-iptv.com to the Piracy Shield blocking platform on August 18, rendering both inaccessible in Italy. This action is based on assertions that the domains were violating its Serie A football broadcasting rights.

According to AGCOM, DAZN’s evidence was supported by a declaration that the reported domain names are “unequivocally intended for the violation of copyright or related rights of audiovisual works,” including sporting events broadcast live.

The regulator’s report clearly states that DAZN’s declaration was provided “under its own responsibility.” On face value that seems to indicate that no other entity is responsible when things go wrong.

SmartOne Files Objection

After being placed on the system, Italian ISPs blocked both resources. Two days later, on August 20, SmartOne filed a formal complaint with AGCOM to protest the blocking. An excerpt of that correspondence, translated but otherwise ‘as-is’, reads as follows;

The domains (DNS) belong to a Smart TV application, it’s a player and entertainment application agreed and approved by so many TV manufacturers like Samsung, LG, Hisense, Toshiba, VIDAA OS and so many others.

We don’t sell any contents and IPTV data, our domain includes the IPTV word and might cause confusion for so many parties, but we can provide any info or proof to show that we don’t offer any piracy contents or illegal contents. We hereby request to remove our domains from the block system: tizen.smartone-iptv.com, lg.smartone-iptv.com, and any other domain related to smartone- iptv.com […]

The subdomains in the two fully qualified domain names (FQDNs) supplied by DAZN suggest that each brand is allocated its own subdomain.

We can confirm that the subdomains androidtv, webos, foxxum, vestel and others also exist, indicating a typical setup for an app catering for different technical requirements on a per-manufacturer basis. Those FQDN subdomains are not blocked.

In its report responding to the complaint, AGCOM refers again to DAZN’s evidence, which clearly states content being made available, in violation of DAZN’s rights.

DAZN Insists SmartOne is a Pirate IPTV Service

“From the checks carried out on the domain names reported through the relevant documentation attached by the reporting party, it appeared that the live broadcast of the matches of the Italian Serie A football championship were made available in violation of articles 1, paragraph 1, 12, 13, 16 and 78-bis, 78-ter, of the aforementioned law no 633/41 ,” AGCOM explains.

On September 2, 2024, SmartOne sent counter-arguments to AGCOM for use in the complaint procedure.

“We do not provide any content or transfer any matches or videos that are owned by any other company such as ‘Dazn’ or ‘la Società’ claims, the content operated on the program is under the user’s responsibility,” the communication reads.

“The links https:// tizen.smartone-iptv.com and https:// lg.smartone-iptv.com are links that contain some program operating files and do not contain any link to broadcasts of the Italian League, and we are ready to provide any other clarifications or other information.”

Nevertheless, DAZN had made its position clear and in its counter-arguments, refused to concede even an inch.

“These FQDNs were found to be linked to IP addresses that we reported for suspicious activity. Forensic analysis […] confirmed that the detected IP addresses are unique and directly linked to the illicit IPTV broadcasts,” DAZN said in its response.

“It is important to underline that, although Smartone-IPTV may initially appear as a simple generic player, the evidence collected and uploaded to the Piracy Shield Platform clearly indicates that it plays not only a Player role, but also an active role in the distribution of abusive content.”

Domains Play ‘Active Role’

Our checks on an unofficial Piracy Shield database revealed that both FQDNs were added to the blocklist on August 18, 2024, around 18:40. In both cases the main domain (smartone-iptv.com) operates via Cloudflare IP addresses, but the subdomains do not.

Each subdomain has its own IP address at hosting provider Hetzner Online which link to other domains, each with a reference to LG/Tizen. As DAZN points out, the IP addresses used are indeed unique.

What “active role” they play in the distribution of ‘abusive’ content isn’t immediately clear but neither the IP addresses nor the domains were put on the Piracy Shield blocklist. Why that’s the case given the role they allegedly play only makes things even more unusual.

AGCOM Considers Evidence and Renders its Decision

AGCOM’s summing up of DAZN’s evidence and what that means for the complaint is a bit of a rollercoaster; it begins with good news for SmartOne, then cites information that suggests suspicion of illicit activity, but without sufficient confidence to act accordingly.

The SmartOne IPTV application does not provide pre-configured streaming video content lists, but these must be uploaded by users. In particular, SmartOne IPTV implements the ‘Upload playlist’ functionality via the web with which it is possible to create lists of content and distribute them to specifically accredited SmartOne users.

That said, the activity generally carried out by SmartOne IPTV appears to consist in a service for making available an application that allows access to IPTV channels uploaded by users, as well as making available a web control panel to manage the distribution of playlists and the related users associated with it.

However, in this case, through the reported FQDNs, SmartOne IPTV has made available its own FQDNs tizen.smartone-iptv.com and lg.smartone-iptv.com to allow access to its server and, through the next part of the address (which determines the complete URL), to access other servers with a presumed role of gateway to illegal IPTV, enabling access to the illegal content present on a third-party server.

Despite these allegations, AGCOM says that there’s no evidence to show that SmartOne is directly responsible for the illicit streams DAZN highlighted in its declaration.

“In fact, the IP source of the illegal video streaming traffic, as it appears in the report, is not directly attributable to the smartone-iptv.com domain but corresponds to companies that manage gateway services, as shown by the reverse DNS query,” AGCOM notes.

“Considering that the company SmartOne IPTV, although having, through the reported FQDNs, enabled access to illegal content present on third-party servers, does not originate said content through its own servers.”

With that, AGCOM accepted SmartOne’s complaint of August 20 and revoked the blocking orders against tizen.smartone-iptv.com and lg.smartone-iptv.com.

A Big Win With a Bigger Caveat

After finding no evidence to directly link SmartOne with the illegal streams mentioned in DAZN’s declaration, to the extent that the blocking measures were revoked, AGCOM’s decision has a sting in the tail for SmartOne.

Regardless of whether SmartOne customers load their own playlists, it must now implement proactive measures to ensure that content owned by DAZN isn’t accessed by end users of its platform, ever again.

Given that any of SmartOne’s users can choose to upload an IPTV playlist providing access to DAZN content, it may mean that compliance can only be achieved by preventing all users – not just Italians – from using its service, period.

AGCOM’s decision can be appealed at the Lazio Regional Court but whether SmartOne will do so is currently unknown.

AGCOM’s decision (110/24/CSP) is available here (pdf)

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

The long-awaited Pirate Bay TV series premiered in Sweden on Friday, through official channel and (eventually also) on The Pirate Bay .

There’s no doubt that the notorious torrent site has made history, but getting everything down on paper and converting it into a TV-series is no easy task.

TorrentFreak has seen the first two episodes. While reviews are not our thing, we requested input from two founding figures, both of whom were featured in the show. This made clear that there is plenty to say.

Fiction

Let’s begin by stressing that The Pirate Bay series is a work of fiction, inspired by facts. The story of the remarkably deviant and resilient torrent site is well known. Never before, however, has it been told this way; by the entertainment industry.

Documenting a historical movement on screen blurs the lines between fact and fiction. It can be tricky to distinguish what really happened from the embellishments introduced under creative license. That’s also the case here.

Viewers shouldn’t confuse the series with reality. It is mostly a collection of scenes that never took place; at least not as portrayed. It’s the interpretation of the writers and directors, based on public information and details shared by insiders.

The three lead characters, Pirate Bay founders Fredrik, Gottfrid, and Peter, were not involved in the project. This means that important context and details are missing. You can’t really blame the creators for this, but it’s important to keep in mind.

Never Happened…

Based on the first episodes, the series presents an entertaining version of The Pirate Bay’s origin story. There is plenty of attention for historical details and some props were meticulously recreated, including the legendary Pirate Bay bus .

The broader storyline, ultimately ending with the founders’ prison sentences, is well documented too. The creators don’t deviate much there. That said, many scenes, timelines, and events portrayed on TV never took place.

For example, there’s a key opening scene where the tracker is officially launched by Piratbyrån’s Rasmus Fleischer at a house party. The event was videotaped and sent to the Swedish anti-piracy bureau, Antipiratbyrån. While the scene is entertaining, it never happened.

The same applies to other details. For example, the suggestion that the Pirate Bay’s key figures were hard to find is overblown. There was a publicly posted bank account tied to the donations, for example, and Pirate Bay’s hosting company PRQ was owned by two of the site’s founders.

These details are largely irrelevant to the broader public. Overall, they provide a good overview of the site’s origins and the main story arc, leaving room for viewers to draw their own conclusions.

For those at the heart of the events, the series is a different story altogether. They see ‘copies’ of themselves playing roles they don’t necessarily identify with. After everything they went through, that can feel like a slap in the face; from the entertainment industry.

Peter Sunde: Disappointed

Pirate Bay co-founder Peter Sunde, aka Brokep, doesn’t recognize himself in the series. Peter skipped the official advance screener in Stockholm that was organized for key figures but found an unofficial option to watch it before it aired. He wasn’t impressed.

“To be honest, I’m very disappointed. Sure it’s fictional, but what does that really mean when they use your name, quote you on things you’ve said, and then portray you completely different?” he tells us.

For example, Peter’s character is initially portrayed as somewhat submissive to his boss at Siemens, which he doesn’t recognize at all. In addition, the series doesn’t fully grasp the disorganized nature of Piratbyrån either, he says.

What stings the most is that the ‘entertainment industry’ that’s long been The Pirate Bay’s main arch rival, is now commercializing its history.

“My biggest concern with the series is that it’s made by people from the same industry that hates The Pirate Bay,” Peter says. “It’s paid for by organizations that have sued or threatened to sue TPB.”

Peter doesn’t recognize himself or the other founders in the series, not in attitude or wit. To top it off, ‘his’ Norwegian accent is “awful” too, he says, suggesting that this may have been done on purpose.

Peter declined to cooperate with B-Reel Films, the Swedish production company that created the series. While he stands by that decision, he had hoped that the episodes would place more emphasis on the broader impact of the site, instead of the legal drama.

“Honestly, I feel it’s like they put the TPB Wikipedia articles and TPB AFK into an LLM and asked the AI to make a script,” Peter concludes.

Rasmus Fleischer: Copying History

Rasmus Fleischer, one of the founders of Piratbyrån who was closely involved in the Pirate Bay project in the early days, shares some of Peter’s criticism. However, he is more forgiving towards the creators.

“One thing I do not recognize in the fictionalized ‘Rasmus Fleischer’ is that he seems unable to open his mouth without going into a principled speech about freedom of speech and the like.

“While I do and did prefer freedom to unfreedom, Piratbyrån definitely did not talk much in the language of rights and freedoms,” Rasmus adds.

Rasmus chooses not to go into great detail on everything that he believes misses the mark, but he stresses that it was never the goal to piss off Hollywood and its lawyers. He sees it more as an impromptu trolling machine. To him, it almost seemed fictional at the time.

“At times, everything already had a quite fictional character. Or so it felt, watching how our own made-up fictions made headlines around the world,” he says, mentioning the “buy Sealand” project as an example.

Rasmus has a Ph.D. in history and works at Stockholm University, so he has some experience with how history is told. He recognizes that there’s no uniform history here. To create something understandable, one has to pick a scenario.

“To tell the story of The Pirate Bay, based on true events, necessarily means to discard the vast majority of events. Trying to fit it all in would result in a chaotic, non-linear story, hardly understandable for anyone who wasn’t around.”

In the series, the creators focused on the legal aspects, instead of the broader societal impact. This is “a bit boring” according to Rasmus. However, he’s not upset or offended by the end result.

“I am not offended by the fact that it is ‘the entertainment industry’ telling the story, and I also don’t feel that I have any right to control fictional accounts even if it includes a character bearing my name.

“I still like copying. Just let them copy me, let them show what kind of copies they are able to make – and we will show them once again how we copy,” Rasmus adds.

Piratbyrån vs. The Pirate Bay

If anything, the above shows that, after all these years, The Pirate Bay story still moves people. And indeed, the series is food for thought.

Piratbyrån was simply a disorganized group of friends who discovered that they could have a broad impact by destabilizing institutions and rethinking the status quo. These ideas didn’t start at organized meetings, most communication took place on IRC.

In 2003, their focus on file-sharing caught on, and The Pirate Bay was ‘just another’ display of defiance. However, the Pirate Bay quickly grew into something much larger than Piratbyrån.

Ultimately, Fredrik, Gottfrid and Peter silently accepted the ‘founder’ labels. They came together at the right time, with each assuming their own role, for different reasons. They all excelled in these positions and helped The Pirate Bay thrive.

Where other core Piratbyrån members stayed at the sidelines, the trio assumed roles that define their lives up until this day. For other Piratbyrån members, meanwhile, the site is simply a remnant of a somewhat rebellious period of their lives.

Today, the Pirate Bay has served its original purpose, but the site keeps running. The founders cut their ties over the years, but someone is still pulling the strings.

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