In 2019, Internet provider Cox Communications lost its legal battle against a group of dozens of record labels, including Sony and Universal.

Following a two-week trial, a Virginia jury held Cox liable for its pirating subscribers. The ISP failed to disconnect repeat infringers and was ordered to pay $1 billion in damages .

This case is one of many . Other ISPs have been accused of being similarly lax in their stance against alleged piracy. Rightsholders believe that ISPs are motivated by profit, while ISPs typically argue that they shouldn’t be held liable for the alleged wrongdoing of subscribers.

Landmark Piracy Battle

Cox challenged the verdict through several routes and last August filed a petition at the U.S. Supreme Court asking it to hear the case. The Internet provider stressed that the current verdict ‘jeopardizes’ internet access for all Americans.

Around the same time, the music companies filed their own petition , hoping to strengthen the verdict at the Supreme Court. Specifically, the record labels argued that the ISP should also be held liable for vicarious copyright infringement.

Both petitions essentially boil down to questions on liability. Are ISPs liable for copyright infringement if they don’t disconnect subscribers accused of copyright infringement? And can ISPs be held liable for infringing subscribers, even if they don’t directly profit from their activities?

Last November, the Supreme Court suggested that it is indeed interested in the questions. Before deciding, however, the U.S. Solicitor General was invited to share the Government’s view on the matter.

The Solicitor General is a high-ranking official in the U.S. Department of Justice who serves as the federal government’s primary lawyer before the Supreme Court. Needless to say, their input weighs strongly for the Supreme Court’s decision whether to accept these petitions or not.

U.S. Backs Cox’s Petition

Yesterday, the Solicitor General submitted its amicus brief in this matter, clearly siding with the Internet provider.

The Solicitor General argues that the Fourth Circuit’s decision, which held Cox liable for contributory infringement, “departs from this Court’s contributory-infringement precedents” and is in “substantial tension” with the Supreme Court’s recent analysis of secondary liability in Twitter v. Taamneh .

“The Taamneh Court’s reasoning reinforces the conclusion that imposing liability on Cox for copyright infringement committed by its users, based on Cox’s failure to terminate service to IP addresses associated with infringement, is incompatible with traditional common-law limitations on secondary liability,” the brief reads.

The U.S. also cites the Sony and Grokster cases, which make clear that contributory liability for copyright infringement requires more than knowing about pirating activity. Instead, it requires “culpable intent” to cause copyright infringement.

“If Cox had explicitly or implicitly marketed its service as being particularly useful for infringers, or if it had encouraged subscribers to use Cox’s internet service to infringe, liability might be appropriate,” the Solicitor General writes.

According to the view of the U.S. Government, an ISP is not automatically liable for copyright infringement if it fails to terminate subscribers after receiving copyright infringement notices. This is a strong statement that targets the central issue in many similar lawsuits in U.S. courts.

Innocent Subscribers at Risk

The amicus brief goes on to state that the current verdict of the Court of Appeals can have broad implications for ISPs and their subscribers.

Cox previously argued that, based on this precedent, ISPs find themselves ‘forced’ to terminate subscribers who may have done little wrong. The U.S. Solicitor General acknowledges this potential threat.

If copyright infringement notices from third parties can trigger liability, Internet providers may take more drastic action to avoid legal trouble.

“Given the breadth of that liability, the decision below might encourage providers to avoid substantial monetary liability by terminating subscribers after receiving a single notice of alleged infringement,” the Solicitor General writes.

“Losing internet access is a serious consequence, as the internet has become an essential feature of modern life. And because a single internet connection might be used by an entire family—or, in the case of coffee shops, hospitals, universities, and the like, by hundreds of downstream users— the decision below could cause numerous non-infringing users to lose their internet access.”

No Willful Infringement

Aside from the liability question, the brief also criticizes the Fourth Circuit’s finding of “willfulness” against Cox, which led to the enhanced statutory damages.

The Solicitor General argues that the jury instruction was “erroneous” because it allowed a finding of willfulness based on the notion that Cox knew its subscribers’ actions were unlawful, even though Cox believed its own response was lawful.

The Solicitor General notes that “willfulness” generally requires knowledge or reckless disregard that the defendant’s own conduct was unlawful. Simply knowing about third-party infringements should not be sufficient.

This broad interpretation would essentially undermine the Copyright Act’s two-tiered damages scheme, which reserves higher damages for willful copyright infringement than for non-willful infringement.

Music Companies’ Writ Should be Denied

While the U.S. supports Cox’s petition, it has asked the Supreme Court to deny a related writ from the opposing music labels, who argue that Cox should also be held liable for vicarious copyright infringement.

Defendants can be held vicariously liable if they had the right and ability to control the infringing activities and a direct financial interest in those activities. According to the Solicitor General, the lower court correctly concluded that is not the case here.

“There was no evidence that Cox would be forced to collect a lower fee if the users of its internet service ceased to infringe; that subscribers were drawn to Cox’s internet service because of the ability to engage in copyright infringement using that service; or that Cox had used the opportunity for customers to infringe to lend credibility to the service it offered,” the brief notes.

All in all, it’s clear that the U.S. Solicitor General, and thus the U.S. Department of Justice, supports Cox’s attempt to overturn the piracy liability verdict. While the Supreme Court has yet to formally decide whether it will take on the case, the brief suggests the chance is now significantly higher.

While Cox will be pleased to see the supportive brief, there are no guarantees that the Supreme Court will agree with the U.S. Solicitor General, should it ultimately decide to take on the case.

—

A copy of the U.S. Solicitor General’s Amicus Curiae brief for the United States is available here (pdf) .

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

When rightsholders, broadcasters, and ISPs have a shared interest in the success of a multi-billion euro broadcasting rights deal, there’s no dispute over the need for a blocking order.

With formalities out of the way, who argues against asking the court for anything less than the full measures the judge is prepared to authorize?

When Telefonica spent billions acquiring broadcasting rights from LaLiga, the companies received full backing from ISPs/TV providers to protect their collective revenues. According to LaLiga’s reading of the piracy blocking order subsequently obtained from the court, it authorizes the applicants to take whatever blocking actions are necessary to prevent access in Spain to around 130 pirate sites.

That many of the sites used Cloudflare IP addresses, each shared among hundreds or thousands of sites with no connection to piracy, came as no surprise to the applicants. Unlike blocking orders obtained outside Spain where similar issues are dealt with differently, LaLiga began instructing ISPs to block Cloudflare IP addresses used by pirate sites listed in the order.

Outlawed By Some Courts, Unprecedented Blocking Ensued

Some estimates claim that over two million innocent sites were affected by blocking but whatever the true number, the decision to block Cloudflare at scale was unprecedented.

LaLiga’s claim, that the injunction authorizes blocking of Cloudflare IP addresses, seems to be confirmed by the text of the order. It’s only when attempting to reconcile LaLiga’s intellectual property rights with the general and indeed fundamental rights of third parties does the situation become unfathomable. So we asked LaLiga about something else instead.

Since everyone seems to be on the same page concerning the blocking of shared IP addresses, we put it to LaLiga that when compared to site-blocking measures that aim to avoid collateral damage (most blocking worldwide), knowingly ‘overblocking’ must introduce new risks. Did LaLiga conduct a risk assessment before it started to block Cloudflare in February?

“At LALIGA we are fully aware that any blocking measure —even when legally justified— requires a cautious and proportional approach,” the league responded.

“That is precisely why we do not act indiscriminately, and why all our blocking actions are backed by judicial resolutions that assess the proportionality and potential impact before being authorized. It’s relevant to highlight that these blockings are requested and implemented once there are clear proofs of piracy signals and content.”

The Importance of Definitions

LaLiga’s position as stated here appears to stand on its definition of proportional , indiscriminate , and its grounds for blocking. It seems safe to assume that the IP addresses it reports are indeed being used by pirate sites offering its content illegally. Grounds for blocking don’t get any better than that.

If we place a tight definition on the word indiscriminate , it’s reasonable to assume that the IP addresses identified by LaLiga are obtained scientifically rather than randomly pulled out of hat. So with indiscriminate set the side for a moment, we have ourselves a question.

When a rights holder with legal standing demonstrates a genuine need to block, has obtained authorization from a court, and has no other immediate options available:

Does a proportional approach to infringement include blocking an IP address when there’s a risk that dozens, hundreds, or thousands of innocent third parties are using it too?

Herein lies an even bigger problem, directly linked to the biggest question of all.

Does TV Subscription Data Reveal Any Positive Effects of Blocking?

Establishing whether blocking has a positive effect on sales often prompts charts showing fewer people visiting blocked sites. Data cited by CEO Javier Tebas indicates that blocking suppressed piracy on a grand scale.

“Weekend piracy has decreased by 40%. That doesn’t mean everyone has already switched to paid channels, but… how do we know this? Barcelona-Inter semifinal in Spain: 1,200,000 viewers and a certain amount of data usage. El Clásico, four days later, had a much larger audience—two million—and resulted in 60% less piracy in consumption. In other words, it made a difference: more viewers were seen, much less illegal consumption as a result of the blocks we’re implementing,” he explains.

If this is an accurate picture, it’s not unreasonable to conclude that such large percentages are likely to have some impact on Spanish football’s bottom line. The immediate problem concerns the type of blocking used to achieve these results and whether similar authority would be granted again.

That leads to another complication.

No Evidence to Show Overblocking

Back in March when Cloudflare and RootedCON separately attended court hoping to end LaLiga’s ability to block, neither was successful , in part due to evidential failures. In short, information presented to the court was deemed insufficient since it failed to show “specific, quantifiable damage to third parties.” It’s a theme that still interests LaLiga.

“LALIGA has implemented a dedicated mailbox for complaints related to the blocking measures. This mechanism allows any third party who believes they’ve been unintentionally affected by a blocking action to contact us directly, provide technical evidence, and request a review,” Laliga says.

“To date, we have not received any formal complaints through this channel nor received any formal complaint through other legal channels, which reinforces our position that the system is working as intended: focused, precise, and without collateral impact on legitimate services.”

At Soccerex Amsterdam last weekend, Javier Tebas said that while LaLiga’s critics describe the court order as “useless” and “make a lot of noise,” it’s an example of what can be done.

[The order is] dynamic and should be implemented country by country. It’s very important that rights holders, UEFA, and national leagues become more united and more convinced that this is the way forward.”

The controversial order is available here (pdf, Spanish)

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

Last September, Apple removed the popular music streaming app Musi from its App Store, affecting millions of users.

Apple’s action wasn’t completely unexpected. Music industry groups had been trying to take Musi down for a long time, branding it a ‘parasitic’ app that skirts the rules.

Musi Sues Apple

Delisting from the App Store put the future of Musi directly at risk. The company initially hoped to resolve the matter with Apple behind closed doors, but since the tech giant was unwilling to reverse its decision, Musi took the matter to court.

Musi claimed that the App Store removal was the result of “backroom conversations” between Apple and key music industry players. The app developer alleged this was an “unfair” and “tainted” removal process designed to put it out of business.

Musi requested a preliminary injunction to reinstate the app, but that attempt failed. In January, a California federal court denied the injunction, ruling that Apple did not act unreasonably or in bad faith when it removed the app following complaints from music industry players and YouTube.

Apple Calls for Sanctions

With the underlying lawsuit yet to be resolved, a few weeks ago Apple fired back with a motion for sanctions. According to Apple, the court should sanction Musi for false or misleading allegations, which include the remarks concerning the alleged “backchannel scheme”.

According to Apple, discovery in this case clearly revealed that there were no backroom deals but Musi nonetheless included these claims in its amended complaint.

“[D]iscovery thoroughly disproved Musi’s baseless conspiracy theory that Apple schemed to eliminate the Musi app from the App Store to benefit ‘friends’ in the music industry,” Apple notes.

Apple further alleged that to get its app reinstated after an earlier removal years ago, Musi allegedly faked an UMG email. These alleged misrepresentations are sanctionable, Apple argues, while reiterating that it had received numerous complaints about Musi from various parties over the years.

Musi Fires Back, Requests Sanctions

Last week, Musi responded in court by opposing Apple’s motion and, in turn, requesting sanctions against Apple. The app creator notes that sanctions motions are often used as a tactic of intimidation and harassment and describes Apple’s motion as “a member of that shameful lineage.”

A motion for sanctions is warranted if there are no facts to support the allegations but Musi contends that its claims are supported by credible evidence obtained during discovery.

“None of Musi’s challenged allegations are factually baseless, and all are based on a reasonable and competent inquiry by Musi’s counsel. Apple’s motion should thus be denied, and Apple should itself be sanctioned and required to pay Musi’s attorneys’ fees for opposing its baseless motion.”

‘Not a Simple App Removal’

Apple previously argued that there was no need for backroom discussions as Apple could simply remove Musi under its own terms, with or without previous complaints from rightsholders. Musi doesn’t deny that, but it notes that evidence indicates this isn’t what happened.

Based on evidence gathered through discovery, Musi suggests that there were ongoing discussions behind the scenes to discuss the potential removal of the app. The timeline below reflects Musi’s perspective and interpretation of these events.

– April 11, 2024: A Sony Music Entertainment executive, Jeff Walker, emails senior Apple legal personnel (Elizabeth Miles and Robert Windom) requesting Apple’s assistance in removing the Musi app from the App Store. Specifically, Sony asked for help to “identify a path forward” to “have the Musi app removed from the Apple app store”.

– May 20, 2024: Apple’s Elizabeth Miles holds a call with Sony’s Jeff Walker about the Musi app, at Sony’s request.

– May 24, 2024: Following internal Apple discussions, Apple’s Chief Counsel of Content and Services, Robert Windom, instructs Apple in-house counsel Sean Cameron to “please try to get that meeting set up”. Musi implies that this was a meeting with YouTube.

– Around May 29, 2024: At Cameron’s direction, Apple’s YouTube liaison, Arun Singh, contacts YouTube’s Kelvin Paulino by phone. Musi argues Singh inquired about a March 2023 YouTube complaint that Apple had previously considered “resolved”; Singh testified Paulino initially seemed unaware of Musi or the complaint.

– July 15, 2024: The Call: Apple and YouTube legal teams meet. According to Musi (citing Apple’s own witnesses), Apple counsel Sean Cameron stated Apple considered YouTube’s 2023 complaint “resolved” and, after mentioning other “music industry” complaints, asked YouTube if it wanted to “continue with the [2023] complaint”. YouTube allegedly confirmed ongoing API violations by Musi and expressed intent to pursue the complaint, requesting Apple send an email to formalize this.

– The “Re-Open” Email: Post-call, Apple’s ‘AppStoreNotices’ emailed YouTube Legal: “Per request from the YouTube Legal team… If you would like to re-open your claim against this app, please specify the rights you believe are being infringed…”.

– August 20, 2024: Apple’s Elizabeth Miles has a call with National Music Publishers Association (NMPA) representatives regarding Musi, at the NMPA’s request.

– September 11, 2024: The NMPA sends Apple a letter supporting YouTube’s complaint against Musi.

Turning the Tables

Musi believes this is sufficient to back up its claim that the app’s removal was the result of “backroom conversations” between Apple and key music industry players. In any case, it argues that a motion for sanctions is not warranted, as this wasn’t a simple removal process.

To strengthen its claim, Musi cites an email from Apple’s Elizabeth Miles who, after Musi was removed, noted that it was a “complex process”.

According to Musi, Apple’s motion for sanctions is baseless and should therefore be denied. Turning the tables, the app devloper asked the court to sanction Apple for improper use of a sanctions motion.

—

A copy of Musi’s opposition to Apple’s motion for sanctions, filed at the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, is available here (pdf)

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 three newcomers on the list. “A Minecraft Movie” is the most shared title.

The most torrented movies for the week ending on May 26 are:

Movie Rank	Rank last week	Movie name	IMDb Rating / Trailer
Most downloaded movies via torrent sites
1	(1)	A Minecraft Movie	5.8 / trailer
2	(8)	Final Destination: Bloodlines	7.1 / trailer
3	(…)	Fountain of Youth	5,8 / trailer
4	(…)	Until Dawn	5.9 / trailer
5	(…)	Sinners	8.1 / trailer
6	(2)	Snow White	1.7 / trailer
7	(3)	Captain America: Brave New World	6.0 / trailer
8	(7)	Mickey 17	7.0 / trailer
9	(6)	Thunderbolts	7.6 / trailer
10	(4)	Warfare	7.5 / trailer

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.

Portugal now has a decade of experience with pirate site blocking measures, which were made possible through a voluntary agreement

In 2015, the country’s blocking scheme was formalized through a deal between several parties, including the Government, rightsholders, and Internet providers.

Under the blocking regime, many thousands of domain names have been blocked over the years. To strengthen the impact, advertisers joined in on the action by preventing ad placements on these sites.

Portugal: A Leading Site Blocking Example

The relative ease of this rollout, which received little pushback overall, was swiftly embraced by Hollywood. In 2016, Portugal served as a leading example of how other countries, including Spain and France, could implement their blocking plans.

A year later, a Hollywood-commissioned study confirmed that traffic to blocked sites had decreased significantly. This shouldn’t really come as a surprise, as these domains are blocked after all, but it was seen as a great accomplishment nonetheless.

While site blocking is effective at blocking specific domains, it typically boosts traffic to unblocked sites. The effect wasn’t considered in the initial study, but the problem was previously documented in related research. And it’s visible today too, as Portugal’s piracy woes are far from over.

Blocking Pioneer and Piracy Hotspot?

Earlier this year, Apritel, the association for Portuguese Internet providers and telcos, flagged pirate streaming and IPTV services as a major problem. The group didn’t mention blocking as a solution, but suggested that the authorities should enable financial penalties for users of these services.

These piracy concerns are shared by many rightsholders and were also a topic at the Colloquium on Digital Piracy of Audiovisual Content , which took place in Lisbon last week. Here, many stakeholders discussed the ongoing piracy challenges.

With more than 3,000 blocked domain names, Portugal has strict anti-piracy measures in place. However, data from piracy tracking firm MUSO , prepared for last week’s meeting, shows that piracy remains popular in Portugal, even by European standards.

“Portugal’s piracy rate per user is 33% higher than the European average, marking it as one of the most active territories for unauthorised content consumption,” MUSO explains .

The higher piracy rates are also reflected in the number of visits to pirate sites by Internet users. These visit numbers are higher than in any other country in the region, despite the existing blocking measures.

“This pattern of high engagement has remained consistent across several years, indicating a need for ongoing and more refined enforcement strategies,” MUSO writes , aligning with the call for stronger enforcement.

Since MUSO only reports data on website visits, the growth in the use of pirate IPTV services is not reflected in these numbers. Instead, it appears that Portugal’s piracy numbers are in large part due to a seemingly overlooked content category.

Manga / Anime Blindspot?

After years of site blocking, many pirate sites are known to temporarily evade measures by switching to new domain names, which are eventually blocked again, resulting in an ongoing cat and mouse game. Tugaflix, for example, has been blocked for a decade, but new domains continue to show up.

MUSO data shows that a ‘Tugaflix’ domain has appeared in the list of ten most visited pirate sites in Portugal over the past 12 months. The domain has since been blocked and has already moved to a new location.

The list also reveals another interesting insight. The list of most visited piracy sites includes many Manga and Anime sites, including the hugely popular Asuracomic.net, as well as Hianime and 3xyaoi. According to our blocklist data, these remain accessible in Portugal.

In fact, we don’t see any Manga or Anime related website in the list of 3,000 blocked domain names we have access to, which was updated a few months ago. Apparently, this is somewhat of an enforcement blindspot.

This means that the relatively high piracy rates are not necessarily the result of lacking anti-piracy measures. Online piracy doesn’t magically disappear merely because anti-piracy tools exist; these tools must be actively and properly utilized by rightsholders.

Whether this was also a topic of discussion at last week’s anti-piracy colloquium is unknown.

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

If it was possible to strip away the roles and behaviors that inevitably lead to head-on clashes, in some cases pirates and piracy fighters might find ways to get along. In some cases they may love the same things.

Yet back in the real world, the insatiable appetite for pirated content owned or protected by the latter, means the war never ends, only the shape changes. Whether South Korean publishing company Kakao Entertainment had always intended to do something different isn’t clear, but when it comes to presentation, no equivalent approach to fighting piracy exists at scale anywhere else.

The Krew

Launched in 2021 to proactively protect Kakao Entertainment’s ‘webtoon’ comic library, the new ‘P.CoK’ anti-piracy unit’s name was inspired by the ‘eyes’ on a peacock’s feathers.

“We’re always on the lookout for illegal use of Kakao Entertainment’s exclusive content worldwide,” the Kakao ‘Krew’ explained in 2023.

P.CoK conceded that it couldn’t yet put a figure on the scale of the piracy it was addressing or the monetary value of any losses attributable to it. Of course, even the wider industry has to settle for best estimates, so a fairly blunt but honest admission was fundamentally credible, yet also quite rare.

At the time, forming a complete database of pirate sites responsible for sharing Kakao content remained a work in progress. On the prevention side, P.CoK reported working with watermarking, image recognition, and usage pattern analysis, which helped the team “keep an eye on things and nip illegal activity in the bud.”

Complete the Quest, Level Up

Like much of the corporate world, anti-piracy work and how it’s presented to the outside world may at times undergo a little cosmetic filtering, to send the right message or benefit from being seen in a particular light.

Due to the nature of the work there may be an element of misdirection, especially when the target audience are those the company and often the police are determined to catch.

In P.CoK’s case, some things that are so neat and perfect, you really, really want them to be true. Maybe they are.

Piracy Culture, Videogame Culture? No Problem

As presented, there are three people in the team, all quite young with great names – Xeno, Hani, and Jeno. These people undoubtedly understand Kakao’s audience, especially those who prefer not to pay.

P.CoK also enjoys webtoons and without getting too personal, one spent a number of years as a webtoon producer. Then the icing on the cake – at least two are gamers. One likens shutting down a site to “clearing a stage” in a game and the other focuses on anti-piracy strategic planning and then “leveling up after completing a quest.”

Update: An earlier version of this article described a team member as a ‘webtoon artist’. P.CoK informs us they actually worked for several years as a webtoon producer. “He was notably involved in producing globally recognized titles such as Itaewon Class and Burning Effect,” P.CoK clarifies.

Documenting Progress

The publication of an anti-piracy white paper every six months (Sixth Edition here ) provides an overview of progress and challenges in Kakao’s fight against piracy.

As reported in February’s edition, a total of 240 million illegal content removals worldwide in the second half of 2024 contributed to a grand total of 740 million removals overall . This was made possible by Kakao’s Trusted Copyright Removal Program (TCRP) status at Google, and the small matter of filing 30,000 takedown requests every day .

Some rightsholders use their takedown notice volumes as a proxy for progress in the fight against piracy; at least in the beginning, the removal of a million links to pirated content tends to speak for itself. Yet when Kakao mentions a 10.9% decrease in takedown notices in its sixth White Paper, compared to the number cited in the fifth, the reduction represents progress instead.

The decline was largely attributed to P.CoK’s long-term monitoring and the subsequent shutdown of a “major domestic” pirate site. Kakao identifies the platform as site “A”, almost certainly a reference to Agitoon and the linked Agitoon Novel sites shut down in a law enforcement operation last August.

“The case underscores the critical role of site shutdowns in reducing overall piracy activity,” Kakao noted in February. “Kakao Entertainment has consistently emphasized that shutting down a site by identifying its operator is at the core of its response to illegal distribution.”

Rare outlier examples aside, when a site operator’s anonymity is compromised, that can forever change the game. Anti-piracy outfits tend to keep unmasking details secret for operational reasons. P.CoK likes to tell those stories on social media.

Raising Awareness, Recruiting Informants

The theory that raising awareness of piracy discourages illegal consumption, is being tested in several ongoing campaigns. Spreading the message that piracy hurts everyone involved in creating webtoons, is one of P.CoK’s responsibilities.

The day-to-day platform of choice for raising awareness is Twitter. At what point spreading the gospel of Kindness to Creators began its transformation isn’t clear, but today the P.CoK account on X is much more than that.

Acting as a notice board for P.CoK’s anti-piracy activities and the availability of legal content, the channel also encourages webtoon fans to report links to illegal content, wherever they exist online.

For fans and supporters prepared to go further, P.CoK’s channel on X acts as a recruitment office for informants. After obtaining useful information from piracy circles, they head back to base where the information is relayed to P.CoK for enforcement purposes.

Having gathered a number of willing informants over the last couple of years, P.CoK claims to have built an underground network that actively supports its One Point Response System .

Shutting Sites Down Using Any Legal Means

Traditional wisdom suggests that revealing details of an anti-piracy enforcement plan up front may introduce unnecessary risk. Yet having shared the details of its One Point Response System with TorrentFreak recently, at face value P.CoK probably thinks otherwise.

P.CoK’s response to infringement begins with TTT: T argeting, T racing, and T akedown. It’s at this early stage that the technical aspects, operations, revenue streams, and
community details of pirate sites are gathered together, and cross-referenced with P.CoK’s databases of illegal site operators and the networks they operate in.

After combining and analyzing all available information, a shortlist of suspected site operators is compared with a list of actual operators. After final verification, the next stage can begin.

P.CoK says that it reaches out to the operators of pirate sites and services via “legally effective communications” such as email or physical documents. From the information available to us, the strategy seems to rely on operators believing there’s a credible threat of escalation, but they hold none of the cards.

Anonymity Gone – Choose a Poison

With the clear emphasis being placed on removing all anonymity, proving that to be the case will likely support efforts to convince operators that anything other than total capitulation is already a lost cause. Those who push back could face civil or criminal action.

Those who decide to comply and throw in the towel are expected to post a public announcement, shut down their site, and pledge never to infringe again. These final ‘goodbye’ statements are also posted on X, where the consequences of non-compliance are on display, presumably for the benefit of others in a similar position. It’s the modern-day equivalent of a severed head on a pike, with a comfortable chair and maybe a beer as a tempting potential off-ramp.

Of course, there are no restrictions on who can read these types of notices, which range from members of the public curious about content being made available for free, to lower tier pirate site staff and uploaders nervous about maintaining anonymity.

Even those daydreaming about launching a site of their own one day might stumble upon one of the statements below and take a different course.

Anti-piracy outfits aren’t typically known for seeking this type of attention. That being said, we assume P.CoK only has to take Kakao’s interests into account and having agreed the parameters, it simply gets on with the job. We’re informed that the total number of sites shut down has risen to 28 following the sudden closure of Reaper Scans announced this week .

A ‘goodbye’ message posted by the operators of Reaper Scans revealed that the demise of the 10 million visits per month site was triggered by a cease-and-desist notice received via email. It transpires that P.CoK had identified three Reaper Scans operators in as many countries (United States, India and Croatia) and for good measure, addressed them personally using their real names.

Why Reveal the Plan and Who Benefits?

While the plan is quite detailed, specific, and at times, fairly elaborate, it contains no information useful to pirate site operators. Equally, there’s no sign of anything that undermines P.CoK or Kakao or the strategy itself. That naturally leads to the obvious question: who benefits from the details being made public?

Assuming that this is a true representation of P.CoK’s plan, it’s fundamentally solid; identify the suspects, leave no space for maneuver, provide an exit strategy, and work hard in advance to ensure that despite the presence of choice, site operators have only one viable option.

Indeed, by being unambiguous about how things are likely to play out, at all times there’s a tacit understanding over where this will inevitably end up for the freshly deanonymized. The joker in the pack concerns the informants; how many actually exist, or do any exist at all? Are they effective? Who are they?

To the extent that answers to any of those questions are in any way helpful, pirate site communities have been known to self corrode from excessive suspicion alone.

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

LaLiga’s 2024/2025 season is officially over. FC Barcelona were actually crowned champions on Thursday after it became mathematically impossible for Real Madrid to conjure up seven points or more from the six points available.

The final matches of the season were played on Sunday but with the championship settled, would LaLiga show restraint and taper down its blocking activity? Or perhaps it would continue under the authority of judge, despite the widespread collateral damage inflicted on innocent internet users since February, a scandal now known as #laligagate.

In For a Penny?

The early signs did little to inspire confidence. Protest website LaLigaGate.com was hit by a total blockade but whether the site was targeted deliberately or succumbed to collateral damage is unknown.

As the latest data suggests that mass blocking of Cloudflare in pursuit of 150 piracy platforms has negatively affected millions of innocent websites, use of the term ‘collateral damage’ may be running out of scope.

Unintentional overblocking became inevitable overblocking some time ago, a point certainly not lost on Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince.

Posting to X last week, Prince asked if anyone wanted any general feedback, declaring that he felt “in an especially truthful mood.” The first response contained direct questions about the LaLiga controversy, the blame for which LaLiga places squarely on the shoulders of Cloudflare.

For the first time since Cloudflare legal action failed to end LaLiga’s blocking campaign , Prince weighed in with his assessment of the current situation and where he believes it’s inevitably heading.

“Bonkers” Blocking Strategy

“A huge percentage of the Internet sits behind us, including small businesses and emergency resources in Spain,” Prince explained.

“The strategy of blocking broadly through ISPs based on IPs is bonkers because so much content, including emergency services content, can be behind any IP. The collateral damage is vast and is hurting Spanish citizens from accessing critical resources,” he added.

Earlier this year, various comments and statements by LaLiga suggested that its relationship with Cloudflare had reached rock bottom. It transpired that LaLiga had obtained an injunction which allowed it to tackle Cloudflare and Encrypted Client Hello (ECH) , but had done so without Cloudflare’s knowledge, effectively denying the company a right to respond.

Alongside other attacks delivered via the media, LaLiga slammed Cloudflare for refusing to cooperate. What action LaLiga had demanded still isn’t clear, but the league said that if there was any overblocking as a result, Cloudflare would have to shoulder the blame.

The Potential for Deadly Consequences

The scale of overblocking reported in Spain is unprecedented but since LaLiga has a court order that effectively gives Cloudflare blocking a green light, it has been doing so in bulk, every single week since February.

Depending on who addresses the overblocking issue, with whom and when, the league claims that collateral damage a) doesn’t exist or is minimal and/or b) is Cloudflare’s responsibility. Prince appears to have grave concerns over the scale and type of blocking taking place, warning that a worst-case scenario is inevitable.

Football Piracy Blocks Will Claim Lives

Despite LaLiga’s unshakable claims to the contrary, Prince believes that it’s not a case of ‘if’ disaster strikes, it’s ‘when’.

“It’s only a matter of time before a Spanish citizen can’t access a life-saving emergency resource because the rights holder in a football match refuses to send a limited request to block one resource versus a broad request to block a whole swath of the Internet,” Prince warned.

“When that unfortunately and inevitably happens and harms lives, I’m confident policy makers and courts in Spain and elsewhere will make the right policy decision. Until then, it’ll be up to users to make politicians clear on the risk. I pray no one dies.”

The suggestion that LaLiga’s demands were too broad, doesn’t mean that Cloudflare is refusing to help, Prince suggested. On the contrary, there’s a process available, LaLiga just needs to use it.

“We’ve always been happy and willing to work with rights holders in conjunction with judicial bodies to protect their content. We have a clear process that works around the world to do that, Prince explained.

LaLiga Targeted Cloudflare and Others During the Weekend

Live blocking data provided by hayahora.futbol has proven invaluable to those documenting #laligagate in recent months and this past weekend was no different.

As the small sample of Cloudflare IP addresses blocked on Sunday seems to show, concerns that every IP address blocked would inevitably result in collateral damage, seem to have been trumped by the authority of the now-famous court order.

The importance of strict adherence to the law was underlined by LaLiga’s Global Content Protection Manager in a recent interview.

José Ignacio Carrillo de Albornoz told El Confidencial that without the collaboration of intermediaries, piracy will be impossible to beat. Carrillo de Albornoz concluded with a “statement of responsibility” which notes that real progress will require all parties to work together and go beyond compliance with the law.

“It is necessary that all links in the digital chain act legally and ethically,” he said.

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

Praised by major rightsholders as progress in the fight against piracy, Italy’s Piracy Shield system made headlines for all the wrong reasons.

Authorized under new legislation and promoted as a killer blow to piracy of live sports, Piracy Shield’s launch soon descended into a series of overblocking blunders and international news headlines. Realization that Piracy Shield was incapable of living up to the hype, led to legal amendments that contained direct threats against the tech sector.

CCIA Intervenes On Behalf of the Tech Sector

The Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA) represents global tech giants including Amazon, Apple, Cloudflare, Google, and Meta, among others. In a January 2025 letter to the EU Commission, CCIA acknowledged that Piracy Shield exists to protect rightsholders but warned that the blocking mechanism is a “ blunt instrument ” that threatens businesses and the public alike.

When telecoms regulator AGCOM launched a public consultation on proposed amendments to copyright regulations and Piracy Shield’s operations, CCIA took the opportunity to restate its concerns. Highlighting the risk of overblocking, CCIA turned to the blocking requests made by rightsholders and a requirement under Italian law to execute them within 30 minutes.

“[W]e believe that the Piracy Shield poses significant risks to the principles of freedom of enterprise expression, as established by European and Italian law,” CCIA wrote .

CCIA Urges European Commission to Intervene

After months of engagement, including its letter to the European Commission back in January, CCIA’s latest submission calls on the Commission to seize the opportunity to publish a detailed opinion to address Piracy Shield’s apparent incompatibility with EU law.

CCIA’s submission to AGCOM begins by highlighting the proposed amendments.

“The Piracy Shield allows copyright holders to request site-blocking orders to be executed within 30 minutes, with limited transparency or recourse for affected parties.

“These amendments, most notably changes to Article 10 and Article 8 (3-bis) of the Regulation, further consolidate the Shield’s role, including extraterritorial content-removal capabilities without clear coordination with EU law, particularly the Digital Services Act (DSA),” CCIA’s submission reads.

“Given the serious implications of these proposals for the EU internal market, the freedom to provide cross-border services, and fundamental rights such as freedom of expression and due process, CCIA Europe urges the Commission to issue a detailed opinion under the TRIS procedure.”

TRIS – Prevention of Technical Barriers to Trade

One of the basic principles of the European Union is an internal market that embraces the free movement of people, goods, services, and capital. Mechanisms that restrict or have the effect of restricting such movement, may create prohibited ‘internal frontiers’.

The aim of the TRIS procedure ( Directive 2015/1535 ) is to identify and prevent the appearance of internal barriers before they can have a negative effect on the market. Under TRIS, notifications sent to the European Commission may lead to a legal analysis in light of EU law.

CCIA’s submission draws attention to key issues that it believes should be assessed by the Commission, summarized as follows:

Lack of procedural safeguards and transparency in the Piracy Shield platform

• Blocking requests processed automatically, does not seem AGCOM checks for accuracy.
• No meaningful opportunity to contest blocking orders before enforcement.
• No independent review or appeal mechanism that operates in a timely manner.
• Piracy Shield technical specs and operational protocols have never been made public.
• Development and governance lacked stakeholder inclusivity.
• Platform incompatible with principles of proportionality and due process

Risk of overblocking and collateral damage covers known incidents of overblocking, including the event that caused a widespread outage of Google Drive and the blocking of shared IP addresses at Cloudflare.

In general, blocking of shared IP addresses “poses a high risk of unjustified interference with lawful online content and services” while domain name blocking “heightens the potential for overreach and content censorship, particularly when a single domain may host a mix [of] infringing and non-infringing content.”

Questionable legal basis for cross-border removal

AGCOM’s new proposal introduces a provision empowering itself to issue orders for the removal of content hosted in other EU Member States, vaguely referring to the Digital Services Act (DSA) as a legal basis. This raises several concerns:

• The DSA provides for structured cross-border cooperation mechanisms and does not grant national authorities carte blanche to take direct enforcement action against hosting services in other Member States.

• The proposal lacks clarity on which provisions of the DSA are being invoked and how these powers align with Articles 8 and 9 of the DSA, which govern the issuance and enforcement of orders to act against illegal content.

• This extraterritorial enforcement risks undermining the DSA’s country-of-origin principle and creates legal uncertainty for service providers operating across the EU.

The final section in the submission titled Ineffectiveness of network-level blocking notes that blocking is easily circumvented and does not remove any infringing content from the internet. Blocking can also “serve to obscure” rather than address the root causes of piracy. Overall, better options exist.

That leads CCIA to its conclusions and a brief summary of its key points and concerns.

No timeline is mentioned in respect of a decision for or against an assessment, or how long a subsequent opinion could take to arrive.

The full CCIA submission is available here (pdf)

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

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

Governments around the world have recognized this challenge and, where possible, lend a helping hand to identify and address the threats.

The European Commission, for example, compiles a biennial ‘Counterfeit and Piracy Watch List’, following the example set by the United States. Like its U.S. equivalent, the EU watchlist relies on input from copyright holders , which nominate problematic sites and services for inclusion.

New Threats

This week the Commission released its latest version of the Counterfeit and Piracy Watch List. The report provides a detailed overview of the piracy landscape including statistics from many studies that were previously published. In addition, it highlights what are seen as the most serious threats today.

Compared to the previous edition, there appears to be a stronger focus on game piracy. Several new additions are gaming-related, including the elusive repacker FitGirl and several NSW2U domain names. Both have been blocked by ISPs in several EU countries.

Other newcomers are the streaming repository Doodstream , sports streaming site Pirlo TV , hosting provider Virtual Systems , IPTV service GenIPTV and the pirate video library Vidsrc .

Njalla: Off-the-Shelf Piracy Service?

Another new target is Njalla , the privacy-focused domain registration intermediary founded by Pirate Bay co-founder Peter Sunde. The service is operated by Saint Kitts and Nevis-based 1337 Services.

According to the EU report, Njalla appears to do more than simply registering domains for its customers. Allegedly, it allows people to launch a complete pirate site using the service.

“This off-the-shelf piracy facilitation service makes it easy for would-be pirates to create and monetise a fully functioning pirate service,” the EU report reads.

This description does not fit Njalla as we know it. However, it can be explained. Apparently, the the EU Commission appears to apply the general description of “Piracy as a Service” (PaaS) providers to Njalla. While MPA previously reported Njalla as a PaaS service (to the USTR), applying the full description seems out of place here.

In its submission, MPA argued that PaaS services, taken together, make it easy for aspiring pirates to launch their own services. However, Njalla itself does not allow “pirates to create and monetise a fully functioning pirate service” as the EU Commission suggests. That’s a concerning error, to say the least.

The PaaS term was originally coined years ago. We first noticed it in a MPA report in 2021 , where the same “off the shelf” terminology was used.

IPFS

The final newcomer to stand out is the InterPlanetary File System, more broadly known as IPFS . This is a decentralized network where users make files available to each other. The system makes websites censorship resistant and not vulnerable to regular hosting outages.

These advantages allow archivists, content creators, researchers, and many others to reliably distribute large volumes of data over the Internet. Wikipedia has used it’s for example, and Lockheed Martin helped to launch an IPFS node into space.

However, the same censorship-resistant features also appeal to pirate sites , which is why the EU has now included it on its watch list. The same applies to the Interplanetary Distributed Literature Catalog (IPDL), which maintains links to torrent and IPFS archives.

“Super Pirate and the major pirate networks, including Library Genesis (LibGen), Z-Library, Anna’s Archive are reported to use public gateways to host and distribute copyrighted materials on IPFS,” the report reads.

Usual Suspects

In addition to roughly a dozen fresh entries, the EU watchlist includes many familiar websites. Torrent sites such as The Pirate Bay, 1337x, and Rutracker make an appearance, similar to previous years.

Fmovies is still mentioned too, despite its shutdown last year. Instead of the original site, the EU Watch list now includes two copycat Fmovies sites; fmoviesto.site and f-moviesz.to.

The music category, meanwhile, is dominated by stream-ripping services, while publishing companies highlighted Sci-Hub and LibGen as persistent threats. The full list is completed by various hosting companies, IPTV services, and pirate apps and tools.

While all currently listed sites and services would likely prefer to remain unmentioned, there are no immediate consequences, at least as far as the EU is concerned.

The EU Commission notes that the Piracy Watch List mainly serves to encourage operators and owners, as well as local governments and enforcement authorities, to take appropriate action to reduce online piracy.

—

Update: After publication, ISTQ management informed us that it was surprised to be included in the report, while clarifying its position.

“ISTQ does not support, promote, or knowingly host any illegal services, including unlicensed IPTV. On the contrary, we have permanently suspended many client accounts in the past after receiving verified abuse reports related to such activities.

As a hosting provider, we receive new clients daily, and while we are unable to pre-screen the nature of their businesses, we take immediate action when any activity in violation of our terms or applicable laws is identified.

We operate under clear abuse handling procedures and cooperate fully with copyright holders and legal authorities. Our logs and actions are well documented and available for review upon request.

We are open to constructive dialogue and welcome any feedback on how we can strengthen our policies even further. We believe it’s important that infrastructure providers who act in good faith are treated fairly.”

—-

A copy of the European Commission’s fourth Counterfeit and Piracy Watch List is available here (pdf) . A list of all the online piracy targets and intermediaries can be found below.

Cyberlockers

– Mega.nz/.io
– Uptobox.com / Uptostream.com
– Rapidgator.net
– Uploaded.net (ul.to, uploaded.to)
– Dbree.org
– Doodstream (new)
– Z-Library (new)

Stream-Rippers

– YTMP3.CC, Ytmp3.nu (new)
– X2mate.com (new)
– Y2mate.com and related sites
– Savefrom.net /ssyoutube.com/sfrom.ne
– Flvto.biz and 2conv.com
– Snappea.com

Linking or referring websites

– Fmovies (clones, fmoviesto.site, f-moviesz.to)
– Seasonvar.ru
– Rlsbb.ru
– Rezka.ag
– Dytt8[.]net, Dytt89.com, Dy2018.net, Dy2018[.]com, Dydytt[.]net, and Ygdy8[.]com (new)
– Hianime (formerly Aniwatch[.]to and zoro[.]to) (new)
– Cuevana[.]biz and Cuevana3[.]eu, Cuevana3[.]ch, Cuevana.is (new)
– nsw2u.xyz/nsw2u.com/nsw2u.net (new)
– fitgirl-repacks.site (new)
– Pirlo TV (new)

Peer-to-peer and BitTorrent indexing websites

– ThePirateBay.org (and related domains)
– Rarbg.to
– Rutracker.org
– 1337x.to
– Interplanetary Distributed Literature Catalog (IPDL) (new)
– InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) (new)

Unlicensed download sites

– Music-Bazaar.com and Music-Bazaar.mobi
– Sci-hub.io (Sci-hub.tw; sci-hub.cc; sci-hub.ac; sci-hub.bz and others)
– Libgen.onl and mirror sites

Piracy Apps

– IPTV Smarters
– Ievpad.com
– MagisTV
– Shabakaty

Hosting providers

– DDoS-Guard.net
– Private Layer
– Virtual Systems, V-Sys (new)
– Squitter, ABC Consultancy, Peenq, ESTOXY, BestDC, SERDECHS (new)
– “Amarutu”, also known as Koddos
– AS-Istqservers / Istqserverses (“Istq”)
– HostPalace Web Solution PVT LTD (“Host Palace”)

Unlicensed IPTV services

– BIPTV.best and BestBuyIPTV.store
– King365tv.com / Theking365tv.pro, Theking365tv.site
– VolkaIPTV.com /.ru
– GenIPTV (new)
– Dark IPTV (new)

Piracy Supporting Services

– 2embed.ru; 2embed, or 2embed[.]cc / 2embed[.]skin
– Fembed.com
– Vidsrc[.]to (new)
– Njal[.]la – 1337 Services (new)
– GDrivePlayer (new)

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