YouTube downloaders and other nifty tools are seen as a major piracy threat by the music industry.

To curb this trend, music companies have taken legal action against various stream-ripping services. This includes Yout.com , which is operated by the American developer Johnathan Nader.

Nader is not easily defeated, however. In 2020 he took the RIAA to court in an attempt to have the site declared legal.

Criminal Conviction

The RIAA case is still under appeal, but meanwhile, Nader faced more immediate threats. In 2021, Yout’s owner learned that the Public Prosecutor’s Office of São Paulo, Brazil, had filed a criminal complaint against him.

In 2022, the prosecution offered Yout.com a way out in the form of a deal. In exchange for reaching an agreement on several predetermined terms, the public prosecutor was willing to suspend the criminal prosecution . This would come at a cost, however.

Under the proposed terms, Yout’s operator would have to pay the authorities 1.9 million Brazilian reals, roughly $400,000, which Nader rejected.

Without a deal, the defense tried to get the case dismissed outright. Yout’s attorneys argued, among other things, that the site functions like an Internet DVR; it doesn’t store any infringing material and has sufficient legal uses.

However, the court eventually concluded that the requirements for criminal prosecution had been met, and allowed the prosecution to go ahead .

Yout Operator Found Guilty

In a detailed 21-page ruling issued last Friday, Judge Eva Lobo Chaib Dias Jorge of the 12th Criminal Court of São Paulo, found Yout’s Johnathan Nader guilty of large-scale copyright infringement. The court dismissed the defense’s arguments, concluding that the stream-ripper is a dedicated piracy tool.

The finding was based on technical evidence provided by the court-appointed expert, Ricardo Andrian Capozzi, who concluded that Yout wasn’t merely a “neutral” recording tool. Instead, Yout is specifically created to bypass the security measures implemented by sites like YouTube.

The Judge was not swayed by the defense’s argument that Yout.com can be used in plenty of “fair use” situations too.

“Ultimately, it is evident that the service operated by the defendant directly contravenes the constitutional protection of copyright, misappropriating the works of others and causing both financial and moral harm to the legitimate rights holders. For this reason, holding the defendant accountable is not only legitimate but necessary for the preservation of the legal order and the integrity of the cultural market itself,” the verdict reads (translated).

“Given the evidence contained in the records, it is understood that there is substantial proof of a violation of the Copyright Law (Law No. 9,610/1998), and the service offered by Yout.com constitutes an illegal practice, directly infringing upon copyrights.”

Substituted Prison Sentence

The court determined that, with millions of Brazilian visits to Yout.com, copyright infringement was committed millions of times. As the responsible party, Nader was technically sentenced to a prison term of three years and four months, but for now his immediate future won’t be inside a Brazilian cell.

Because Nader is a first-time offender, the judge substituted the prison term with two “alternative” restrictive penalties under Article 44 of the Penal Code. Instead of serving a prison sentence, Nader is required to pay a total of 200 monthly minimum wages to a Public Security Incentive Fund (FISP).

The verdict doesn’t mention what the applied daily minimum wage rate is. Online searches suggest that the 2025 monthly minimum in Brazil is R$1,518.00 , which would put the total penalty at R$303,600 (~USD$55,000). We want to stress, however, the verdict doesn’t list any amount.

The prison sentence is not completely off the radar either, as a failure to pay the fine or comply with the court’s conditions could eventually bring it back into play.

Brazil’s Jurisdiction over a U.S. Operation

One of the most significant aspects of the ruling is the judge’s rejection of Nader’s jurisdictional defense. Nader argued that, as a Connecticut-based operator of a U.S. company, he should not be subject to Brazilian criminal law.

The judge ruled that, since the site was visited millions of times by Brazilians, the stream-ripper has a real impact within national borders. As a result, the court concluded that Brazilian law applies regardless of where Yout.com’s servers or its developer are located.

“The fact that the defendant’s conduct was not considered punishable in its country of origin in no way undermines its illegality when the results are reflected in our National Territory,” the verdict reads.

The ruling comes as a significant setback for Yout.com’s operator, who is expected to appeal the verdict. Yout.com, meanwhile, remains blocked by Brazilian Internet providers.

—

A copy of the verdict, issued by Judge Eva Lobo Chaib Dias Jorge of the 12th Criminal Court of São Paulo, is available in Portuguese here .

Update: Apparently, Yout remains accessible from some ISPs in Brazil. We could not verify this independently.

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

The legal battle between X Corp. and the music industry has just escalated from a straightforward copyright lawsuit into a full-blown antitrust war.

The dispute started in 2023, with various music publishers accusing X of ‘breeding’ mass copyright infringement, and appeared to steer toward a settlement last summer.

X Sues Music Publishers

That settlement never came. Instead, the legal battle motivated X to gather sufficient evidence for a counterstrike, where many key industry companies and music publishers are accused of a conspiracy to weaponize the DMCA.

In a scathing 53-page complaint filed in the Northern District of Texas today, X Corp. is suing the National Music Publishers’ Association ( NMPA ) and a coalition of major music publishers, including Sony, Universal, and Warner Chappell, for alleged violations of the Sherman Antitrust Act.

The lawsuit essentially argues that the NMPA didn’t send thousands of DMCA takedown notices to protect artist rights. Instead, X claims the notices were used as an “extortionate campaign” to motivate X into paying “supracompetitive” licensing fees.

“As part of this conspiracy, Defendants weaponized the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (the “DMCA”) against X, using the DMCA as a pretext for their extortionate campaign,” the complaint reads.

Weaponize the DMCA

The core of X’s argument is that the NMPA and many its members allegedly agreed not to make individual deals with the platform. Instead of negotiating separate licenses, X alleges the industry colluded to get a much better price.

According to the complaint, NMPA President David Israelite emailed X in October 2021 (when it was still Twitter), threatening a “massive program” of DMCA notices on a scale “larger than any previous effort in DMCA history” if X did not agree to a partnership.

When X refused to sign a deal, the floodgates opened. X claims that starting in December 2021, the NMPA began sending weekly notices identifying thousands of posts. In the first year alone, these notices targeted over 200,000 posts. Since the scheme began, the campaign has resulted in the suspension of more than 50,000 users.

X describes this as a “weaponization” of the DMCA, aimed not at curbing piracy, but at hurting X’s business by targeting its “most popular users”.

Allegations of Hypocrisy

Perhaps the most colorful allegations in the new complaint focus on the NMPA’s supposed hypocrisy. X argues that, while the NMPA was demanding the removal of fan-made content, its own executives were posting the exact same material.

The complaint cites an instance where an NMPA Senior Vice President reposted a “remix” video by a user known as “KylePlantEmoji,” which featured copyrighted songs by Nelly and Papa Roach.

“The NMPA lawyer did not report this post as infringing a copyright. Quite the opposite: the lawyer supported the video by reposting it on her own feed,” the complaint notes.

In another example, X points to a takedown notice issued for a video of a high school sports award ceremony. The video was flagged because of brief background music played while a student walked on stage to accept an award.

“Although there is no reasonable basis for censoring this video focused on a high school athlete’s achievement based on the de minimis, non-commercial use of background music in the video, X had to take it down because of Defendants’ scheme,” the complaint notes.

The Majors Joined the “Conspiracy”

X’s lawsuit also explains how the major music publishers, Universal, Sony, and Warner Chappell, allegedly joined the conspiracy later. Initially, these labels were not part of the NMPA’s takedown blitz.

However, X claims that the publishers eventually joined when their desired licensing deals did not come to fruition.

With this antitrust action, X is seeking damages and a permanent injunction to stop the alleged anticompetitive conduct. With claims for civil conspiracy, unfair competition, and attempted monopolization, among others, this is a high-stakes case.

—-

The full complaint filed today by X Corp. at a federal court in the Northern District of Texas is available here (pdf) .

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

Launched in 2024, Italy’s elaborate ‘ Piracy Shield ‘ blocking scheme was billed as the future of anti-piracy efforts.

To effectively tackle live sports piracy, its broad blocking powers aim to block piracy-related domain names and IP addresses within 30 minutes.

While many pirate sources have indeed been blocked, the Piracy Shield is not without controversy. There have been multiple reports of overblocking, where the anti-piracy system blocked access to legitimate sites and services .

Many of these overblocking instances involved the American Internet infrastructure company Cloudflare, which has been particularly critical of Italy’s Piracy Shield. In addition to protesting the measures in public, Cloudflare allegedly refused to filter pirate sites through its public 1.1.1.1 DNS.

1.1.1.1: Too Big to Block?

This refusal prompted an investigation by AGCOM, which now concluded that Cloudflare openly violated its legal requirements in the country. Following an amendment, the Piracy Shield also requires DNS providers and VPNs to block websites.

The dispute centers specifically on the refusal to comply with AGCOM Order 49/25/CONS , which was issued in February 2025. The order required Cloudflare to block DNS resolution and traffic to a list of domains and IP addresses linked to copyright infringement.

Cloudflare reportedly refused to enforce these blocking requirements through its public DNS resolver. Among other things, Cloudflare countered that filtering its DNS would be unreasonable and disproportionate.

The company warned that doing so would affect billions of daily queries and have an “extremely negative impact on latency,” slowing down the service for legitimate users worldwide.

AGCOM was unmoved by this “too big to block” argument.

The regulator countered that Cloudflare has all the technological expertise and resources to implement the blocking measures. AGCOM argued the company is known for its complex traffic management and rejected the suggestion that complying with the blocking order would break its service.

€14,247,698 Fine

After weighing all arguments, AGCOM imposed a €14,247,698 (USD $16.7m) fine against Cloudflare, concluding that the company failed to comply with the required anti-piracy measures. The fine represents 1% of the company’s global revenue, where the law allows for a maximum of 2%.

According to AGCOM, this is the first fine of this type, both in scope and size. This is fitting, as the regulator argued that Cloudflare plays a central role.

“The measure, in addition to being one of the first financial penalties imposed in the copyright sector, is particularly significant given the role played by Cloudflare” AGCOM notes, adding that Cloudflare is linked to roughly 70% of the pirate sites targeted under its regime.

In its detailed analysis, the regulator further highlighted that Cloudflare’s cooperation is “essential” for the enforcement of Italian anti-piracy laws, as its services allow pirate sites to evade standard blocking measures.

What’s Next?

Cloudflare has strongly contested the accusations throughout AGCOM’s proceedings and previously criticized the Piracy Shield system for lacking transparency and due process.

While the company did not immediately respond to our request for comment, it will almost certainly appeal the fine. This appeal may also draw the interest of other public DNS resolvers, such as Google and OpenDNS.

AGCOM, meanwhile, says that it remains fully committed to enforcing the local piracy law. The regulator notes that since the Piracy Shield started in February 2024, 65,000 domain names and 14,000 IP addresses were blocked.

—

A copy of AGCOM’s detailed analysis and the associated order (N. 333/25/CONS) available here (pdf) .

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

The frontline of online piracy liability keeps moving, and core internet infrastructure providers are increasingly finding themselves in the crosshairs.

Since 2024, the Paris Judicial Court has ordered Cloudflare, Google and other intermediaries to actively block access to pirate sites through their DNS resolvers , confirming that third-party intermediaries can be required to take responsibility.

These blockades are requested by sports rights holders, covering Formula 1, football, and MotoGP, among others. They argue that public DNS resolvers help users to bypass existing ISP blockades, so these intermediaries should be ordered to block domains too.

Google DNS Blocks Expand

These blocking efforts didn’t stop. After the first blocking requests were granted, the Paris Court issued various additional blocking orders. Most recently, Google was compelled to take action following a complaint from French broadcaster Canal+ and its subsidiaries regarding Champions League piracy..

Like previous blocking cases, the request is grounded in Article L. 333-10 of the French Sports Code, which enables rightsholders to seek court orders against any entity that can help to stop ‘serious and repeated’ sports piracy.

After reviewing the evidence and hearing arguments from both sides, the Paris Court granted the blocking request, ordering Google to block nineteen domain names , including antenashop.site, daddylive3.com, livetv860.me, streamysport.org and vavoo.to.

The latest blocking order covers the entire 2025/2026 Champions League series, which ends on May 30, 2026. It’s a dynamic order too, which means that if these sites switch to new domains, as verified by ARCOM, these have to be blocked as well.

Cloudflare-First Defense Fails

Google objected to the blocking request. Among other things, it argued that several domains were linked to Cloudflare’s CDN. Therefore, suspending the sites on the CDN level would be more effective, as that would render them inaccessible.

Based on the subsidiarity principle , Google argued that blocking measures should only be ordered if attempts to block the pirate sites through more direct means have failed.

The court dismissed these arguments, noting that intermediaries cannot dictate the enforcement strategy or blocking order. Intermediaries cannot require “prior steps” against other technical intermediaries, especially given the “irremediable” character of live sports piracy.

The judge found the block proportional because Google remains free to choose the technical method, even if the result is mandated. Internet providers, search engines, CDNs, and DNS resolvers can all be required to block, irrespective of what other measures were taken previously.

Proportional

Google further argued that the blocking measures were disproportionate because they were complex, costly, easily bypassed, and had effects beyond the borders of France.

The Paris court rejected these claims. It argued that Google failed to demonstrate that implementing these blocking measures would result in “important costs” or technical impossibilities.

Additionally, the court recognized that there would still be options for people to bypass these blocking measures. However, the blocks are a necessary step to “completely cease” the infringing activities.

The ruling further solidifies France’s position as a pioneer in aggressive, real-time anti-piracy enforcement. Over the past two years, the court has systematically rejected defenses from Google and other DNS resolvers. While further appeals may be underway, the Paris Judicial Court clearly sees an anti-piracy role for all intermediaries.

—

A copy of the order issued by the Tribunal Judiciaire de Paris (RG nº 25/11816) is available here (pdf) . The order specifically excludes New Caledonia, Wallis and Futuna, and French Polynesia due to specific local legal frameworks.

1. antenashop.site
2. antenawest.store
3. daddylive3.com
4. hesgoal-tv.me
5. livetv860.me
6. streamysport.org
7. vavoo.to
8. witv.soccer
9. veplay.top
10. jxoxkplay.xyz
11. andrenalynrushplay.cfd
12. marbleagree.net
13. emb.apl375.me
14. hornpot.net
15. td3wb1bchdvsahp.ngolpdkyoctjcddxshli469r.org
16. ott-premium.com
17. rex43.premium-ott.xyz
18. smartersiptvpro.fr
19. eta.play-cdn.vip:80

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

First released in February 2003, Multi Theft Auto ( MTA ) is an unofficial multiplayer mod for several popular Grand Theft Auto games, starting with GTA III.

MTA does not rely on copyright-infringing code, the developers stress, as it works by code injection that hooks into an officially purchased copy of GTA.

The GitHub Takedown

With this setup, MTA managed to avoid any serious backlash from the GTA creator Take-Two Interactive . That is, until the game company purportedly sent a DMCA takedown notice to developer platform GitHub, where MTA’s main repository, ‘ mtasa-blue ‘ is hosted.

The DMCA notice alleged that the MTA repository included leaked source code and requested it to be removed in full.

“We are writing to submit a takedown request regarding a leaked source code hosted on GitHub that infringes on our copyrights. The infringer is sharing the leaked source code, on the [mtasa-blue] repository,” the notice read.

GitHub received the DMCA takedown request in early December, and, soon after, the MTA repository was indeed made inaccessible on the platform.

The notice took MTA’s developers by surprise. In their Discord channel, they suggested that it might be fake, especially since the entire repository was targeted, without pointing out any concrete leaked or infringing code. Additionally, the sender also ‘forgot’ to target the repo’s forks, which is unusual.

GTA Files Counternotice

The MTA developers didn’t sit idly by. On December 22, they filed their formal counter-notice requesting GitHub to reinstate their repository, denying any copyright infringement claims. Instead, they explain that their mod hooks into the official GTA game.

“The repository referenced contains only original, independently developed source code and supporting materials created by contributors to the project. It does not include, reproduce, or distribute any copyrighted assets, source code, or proprietary files from the original game or its publisher.”

“The software operates by interacting at runtime with a lawfully installed, user-supplied copy of the original game. No copyrighted game content is extracted, copied, redistributed, or included within this repository,” the counternotice adds.

Filing a formal counternotice is a serious step. Under the DMCA, this requires GitHub to restore the repository within a window of 10 to 14 business days, unless the takedown sender files a formal court action. In other words, it was an invitation for Take-Two to take legal action if they indeed wanted the repository offline.

MTA Repository Restored

Apparently, Take-Two did not feel the need to follow-up on and earlier this week, the repository was fully restored .

The comeback doesn’t mean that GitHub made a legal determination. Without a court order from Take-Two to keep the content offline, GitHub had to respond as its hands were legally tied by the DMCA.

When we reached out to GitHub, they declined to comment on the specific decision, including the authenticity of the original takedown. Instead, GitHub stated that they “reviewed and processed the notices in accordance with our DMCA Takedown Policy.”

In the hopes of getting additional information and commentary, TorrentFreak also reached out to Take-Two Interactive and a MTA developer. Unfortunately, however, neither responded before our deadline.

What’s Next?

While the restoration can be seen as a ‘win’ for MTA, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the result is final. If Take-Two was indeed behind the DMCA notice, it could still choose to take legal action later. This is also what happened to the ‘re3’ and ‘reVC’ repositories previously.

These reverse-engineered GTA mods were restored following a counternotice . However, they eventually were taken down again a few months later, when Take-Two sued the developers in U.S. court.

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

Anna’s Archive is a meta-search engine for shadow libraries that allows users to find pirated books and other related sources.

The site launched in the fall of 2022 , just days after Z-Library was targeted in a U.S. criminal crackdown, to ensure continued availability of ‘free’ books and articles to the broader public.

The site also actively provides assistance to AI researchers who want to use its library for model training. More recently, Anna’s Archive announced it had created a massive 300TB backup of Spotify, which it is slowly releasing to the public at large.

Since its launch, Anna’s Archive has also received pushback from rightsholders. The site has been blocked in various countries, and was sued in the U.S. after it scraped WorldCat.

Despite this legal pressure, the main annas-archive.org domain name remained operational, until it didn’t.

Anna’s .ORG Domain Suspended

A few hours ago, the site’s original domain name suddenly became unreachable globally. The annas-archive.org domain status was changed to “ serverHold ,” which is typically done by the domain registry. This status effectively means that the domain is suspended and under investigation. Similar action has previously been taken against other pirate sites.

It is rare to see a .org domain involved in domain name suspensions. The American non-profit Public Interest Registry ( PIR ), which oversees the .org domains, previously refused to suspend domain names voluntarily, including thepiratebay.org. The registry’s cautionary stance suggests that the actions against annas-archive.org are backed by a court order.

TorrentFreak asked PIR for a comment on their supposed involvement in the domain suspension, hoping to find out more about the legal grounds, but the organization did not immediately reply.

Update: PIR’s marketing director, Kendal Rowe, informs TorrentFreak that “unfortunately, PIR is unable to comment on the situation at this time.”

It is possible that, in response to the ‘DRM-circumventing’ Spotify backup , rightsholders requested an injunction targeting the domain name. However, we have seen no evidence of that. In the WorldCat lawsuit, OCLC requested an injunction to force action from intermediaries , including domain registries, but as far as we know, that hasn’t been granted yet.

Anna’s Archive Remains Resilient

This is not the first time Anna’s Archive has lost a domain name. The site previously moved from its .org domain to a .GS domain , anticipating a domain seizure in the WorldCat case.

Ironically, this move resulted in a swift suspension by the .GS registry , after which Anna’s Archive returned to its .org domain.

On Reddit, Anna’s Archive explains that the recent suspension is a mere hiccup too, pointing users to alternative domains.

“The .org domain apparently has been suspended. Our other domains work fine, and we’ve added some more. We recommend checking our Wikipedia page for the latest domains. This unfortunately happens to shadow libraries on a regular basis. ”

“We don’t believe this has to do with our Spotify backup,” AnnaArchivist adds.

At the time of writing, the site is indeed still operational from the older .li and .se domains, as well as the .in and .pm variants that were just added. However, with legal pressure mounting, there are no guarantees that these domains remain operational.

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

The data for our weekly download chart is estimated by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only.

Downloading content without permission is copyright infringement. These torrent download statistics are only meant to provide further insight into piracy trends. All data are gathered from public resources.

This week we have one newcomer on the list. “Zootopia 2” is the most shared title.

The most torrented movies for the week ending on January 5 are:

Note: We also publish an updating archive of all the list of weekly most torrented movies lists .

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

In the summer of 2015, the then 29-year-old Priyank Pardeshi was arrested by the police in Pune, a large city in western India.

The authorities and rightsholders saw Priyank as a kingpin in the local piracy scene, and these allegations were widely repeated by many news sites at the time.

Priyank was certainly not a typical pirate site operator. He worked at IBM in California. However, during a work-related visit to his home country, he was suddenly arrested, after investigators found pirated movies on his system while they were collecting evidence in an unrelated matter.

TellyTorrents and Camcording

In addition to Priyank, the authorities also accused two others of being involved in the scheme, which also involved the popular torrent tracker TellyTorrents. This site was a high-profile target, as it was one of the prime locations where the Bollywood blockbuster Bahubali had leaked online.

The case seemed fairly straightforward too. According to the police, the alleged piracy kingpin confessed to running TellyTorrents, earning huge sums in revenue, and storing 1,243 pirated movies. Not just that, he allegedly also revealed that they were involved in camcording films in local theaters for subsequent pirate releases.

These revelations were also shared publicly in the media, to give the case additional weight.

“Priyank revealed that Rahul Mehta of Delhi and Toni of Ghaziabad used to shoot films from cinemas and multiplexes and would prepare their pirated movies. They used to supply it to Jabalpur and many cities across the country and even in Australia and France.”

The Case Collapses (After 10 years…)

Priyank spent 311 days in custody before he was released on bail. While the prosecution seemed convinced that they had a case, it completely fell apart in court a few weeks ago, when a judicial magistrate in Jabalpur fully acquitted the lead defendant and two co-accused due to a lack of evidence.

In a detailed judgment, Magistrate Kishan Dev Singh Patel dismantled the prosecution’s case, revealing that the police investigation was almost entirely devoid of technical evidence.

Despite the serious charges under the Copyright Act and IT Act, the court noted that:

– No Forensics: The police seized computers, laptops, and hard drives but failed to send any items to a forensic lab for analysis. There was no independent verification that the files on the devices were actually pirated movies.

– No Money Trail: Despite claims that “huge profits” were made, the prosecution did not produce a single bank statement or transaction record linking Priyank to the website’s revenue.

– No Domain Link: The police failed to provide any documents to prove that Priyank purchased or owned the TellyTorrents domain name or that he paid for the servers in question.

“There are no documents on record to show that the illegal website TellyTorrents was created/operated by Priyank Pardeshi,” the judgment reads, leaving no other option than to dismiss the claims.

The prosecution relied heavily on testimony from representatives of the Telugu Film Chamber of Commerce in Hyderabad, who acted as expert witnesses. In court, however, these witnesses admitted that there is no hard evidence that Priyank pirated movies or that he operated TellyTorrents.

A Systemic Failure

According to Kartik Sharma, an analyst at the renowned law blog SpicyIP, this acquittal is not an outlier but part of a pattern where Indian law enforcement fails to meet the basic standards of digital evidence.

“The crux of why the acquittal happened is quite evident,” Sharma informs TorrentFreak. “The witnesses from the Telugu Film Chamber acknowledged that they had not seen the accused uploading the pirated movies to the website.”

“Also, there was no testing done by an authorized official agency or lab to establish that the alleged content was pirated.”

Sharma notes that similar lapses have led to acquittals in other high-profile piracy cases, such as State v. Bhushan Kumar in Delhi, where police failed to compare seized VCDs with original copyrighted material.

The weak evidence in these cases, including a lack of digital forensics, is ultimately what leads to a full acquittal of the defendants. However, by then, most of the personal damage is already done.

The Human Cost

While the “kingpin” narrative has been dismantled by the recent court verdict, the decade-long process has taken its toll. Speaking with TorrentFreak, Priyank highlights the human cost.

“I was unable to work for the last 10 years because after I came out of jail, people looked at me like a big criminal,” he says.

“No company would hire me because, during background verification, they could see that a criminal case was pending against me. Other people stopped seeing me as a good person. Even getting married was difficult.”

The other defendants will have similar stories that they will carry with them for the rest of their lives. In this light, it is particularly confronting that one of the co-accused, Dilip Gulwani, passed away while the trial was still ongoing.

A Living Hell

Looking back, the now 40-year-old Priyank feels as if he has been framed, and he’s considering fighting back legally to recoup some of the damages.

Priyank was no stranger to TellyTorrents but notes that his involvement with pirate sites was limited to installing a forum and setting up a website. The earlier-mentioned ‘confession’ was coerced, he alleges.

All in all, the whole experience was traumatizing. While Priyank had no sympathy for the anti-piracy forces that ruined his life, he would caution pirates to reconsider their options. If caught, Bollywood can turn lives into a living hell.

Priyank hopes to continue his life now. He started a family and earns enough to pay the bills. However, he believes that his career would have been much more successful if the criminal piracy prosecution was never started.

iBomma: The New Piracy Kingpin

Interestingly, as the TellyTorrents case concluded, a new alleged Indian piracy ‘kingpin’ was caught. On November 15, the Hyderabad Cyber Crime Police arrested Immadi Ravi as the suspected mastermind behind the popular pirate streaming platform iBomma.

This high-profile takedown occurred shortly after the theatrical release of Baahubali: The Epic (a remastered combination of the film franchise). The original Baahubali film, meanwhile, was at the center of the TellyTorrents case exactly ten years prior.

Notably, the film’s director, S.S. Rajamouli, has also gotten actively involved in the iBomma case and openly thanks the police for their hard work.

As with TellyTorrents at the time, the piracy allegations against Ravi are widely echoed in the press, ranging from a lavish lifestyle financed by millions of dollars in piracy proceeds to forged identity papers . While these could all be true, the TellyTorrents case shows that caution is warranted.

That brings us to the final point of interest, or a lack thereof. While most Indian media is widely reporting on all new allegations in the iBomma case, the acquittal of the criminal defendants in the TellyTorrents case does not get a single mention.

—

A copy of the original TellyTorrents court order, issued by Magistrate Kishan Dev Singh Patel and acquitting all defendants, is available here (pdf) .

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

In Belgium, the Department for Combating Online Infringement is responsible for overseeing the local pirate site blocking efforts.

The department reviews injunctions from the Business Court in Brussels and translates these into concrete blockade implementation orders.

The first blockade of this kind was announced in April 2025 and predominantly targeted sports streaming websites. Notably, however, these blocking requirements were not limited to ISPs; they also compelled DNS resolvers to comply.

These DNS resolvers, including Google and Cloudflare, were not pleased, and Cisco’s OpenDNS even went as far as stopping its service in Belgium to avoid having to meddle with DNS. This backlash apparently struck a nerve, as OpenDNS has since resumed its activities in Belgium as the case is under appeal.

U.S. Movie Giants Behind New Blocking Push

Meanwhile, other rightsholders joined in, with various book publishers securing a blocking order against shadow libraries last August. In late November, this was followed by a new blocking order targeting various movie piracy sites , such as 1337x and Soap2day.

Interestingly, this order is rather limited in its scope. Instead of casting a wide net, it strictly targets Belgium’s five major Internet Service Providers: Proximus, Telenet, Orange Belgium, DIGI Communications Belgium, and Mobile Vikings.

While the targeted ISPs and the blocked sites were listed in the implementation order, the requesting rightsholders were not mentioned.

However, after the Belgian government responded to our transparency request just before Christmas, we can now reveal that familiar names are behind the latest site-blocking campaign.

The underlying order from the French-speaking Business Court in Brussels lists a coalition of major studios: Disney, Netflix, Sony, Paramount, Universal, and Warner Bros. These companies, all members of the Motion Picture Association (MPA), are joined by another video entertainment giant: Apple.

The MPA has been a driving force behind site-blocking efforts around the world, so it is no surprise to see this activity in Belgium too. However, that doesn’t make the order any less interesting.

Ten Pirate Brands

While we now have access to the underlying order, the formal list of URLs (Annex 1) will remain confidential. The same is true for Annex 2.b., the official list of the ten pirate names or brands.

“In addition to the list of ‘target sites’ provided in Annex 1 of their application, the applicants also submit an Annex 2.a., classified as confidential, in which the applicants explain the phenomenon of pirate brands, before providing, in Annex 2.b, a list of 10 names,” the translated order reads.

These brands are important because the court order mandates that any future sites using this name or branding are also eligible for a spot on the blocklist.

While this list remains confidential, Belgium’s piracy blocklist is transparently published online. This includes the recently blocked URLs, from which it is not difficult to compile the likely list of blocked pirate brands. These include 1337x , Fmovies , Soap2day , Sflix , FlixHQ , Papadustream , French-Strea m, Coflix and Wiflix .

American DNS Questions

The underlying court order further confirms that these heavyweight movie studios did not include any third-party DNS providers (like Google or Cloudflare) in their list of intermediaries. Whether this is motivated by the ongoing appeal in other Belgian blocking cases or a strategic shift remains unknown.

It appears that, for now, the movie companies currently prefer a more targeted approach, focusing exclusively on major Internet Service Providers.

Depending on the motivation, this choice can have implications beyond Belgium. In the United States, rightsholders, including these same movie studios, continue to push for site-blocking legislation , which they hope to see implemented this year. Thus far, we have seen proposed site-blocking bills with and without DNS resolvers, so it can go either way.

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A copy of the order (RR/25/00092) from the French-speaking Business Court of Brussels is available with minor redactions of personal information here (pdf) .

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