Since 2024, the Paris Judicial Court has gradually expanded France’s piracy site blocking orders beyond residential Internet providers.

First, it required Cloudflare, Google, and Cisco to actively block access to pirate sites through their own DNS resolvers, confirming that third-party intermediaries can be required to take responsibility. Not much later, VPN providers were added to the blocking roster, as well as search engines.

These intermediaries were targeted because they could help pirates to bypass other blocking measures. If these alternative routes are cut off as well, the overall effectiveness of the anti-piracy injunction would improve.

This broader blocking push was further strengthened in March when the Paris court issued a series of blocking measures all at once. By ordering ISPs, DNS resolvers, and VPN providers to block pirate sites all at once, it should be even more effective.

These bundled orders appear to be the new standard. On April 17, the Paris court issued a series of 18 orders, with half protecting pirate Formula 1 streams and the other half targeting MotoGP infringers.

The series of 18 separate court orders, which we conveniently list in a table below , were all handed down on the same day. They include a wide variety of intermediaries, including a notable new name: DNS4EU .

DNS4EU Must Block Pirate Sites

DNS4EU is a public DNS resolver service co-funded by the European Commission and operated by a consortium led by Czech cybersecurity company Whalebone . The service, which officially launched last June, is presented as a sovereign European alternative to non-EU resolvers such as Google Public DNS and Cloudflare.

“The goal of DNS4EU is to ensure the digital sovereignty of the EU by providing a private, safe, and independent European DNS resolver,” the project’s website states.

On April 17, the Paris court issued two rulings against DNS4EU/Whalebone, requiring the DNS resolver to block 16 pirate streaming domains linked to pirated MotoGP streams and 21 domains linked to Formula 1 streams.

“Order Whalebone to implement, within the framework of its domain name resolution system called ‘Dns4eu,’ all blocking measures to prevent access from French territory, including all overseas territories of France, by any effective means to the identified internet sites and IPTV services accessible from [these domain names],” the translated order reads.

These orders were requested by French broadcaster Canal+, which holds the rights to these broadcasts, and the orders remain valid until the end of the season.

The list of targeted domains includes pirate IPTV and streaming sites such as antenawest.store, daddylive3.com, rereyano.ru, iptvsupra.com, king365tv.me, sportzonline.live, and smartbox-tv.com, with many of the same domains appearing in both orders.

Default Judgment

The rulings against Whalebone are default judgments. The company did not appear at the February 19 hearing and filed no defense. As a result, the Paris court ruled in Canal+’s favor without any opposing arguments.

DNS4EU is not the only DNS provider to forfeit a defense in the French proceedings. Quad9 , a Swiss-based non-profit foundation that operates a privacy-focused public DNS resolver, also defaulted in a parallel ruling handed down the same day.

Other intermediaries did put up a fight. Google, NordVPN, Surfshark, ProtonVPN, and Cloudflare (referred to in the published ruling under the pseudonym) all contested the blocking requests, without result.

Other intermediaries did put up a fight. Google, NordVPN, Surfshark, ProtonVPN, and Cloudflare all contested the blocking requests, without result. Cloudflare appears in the published rulings under pseudonyms, possibly due to French anonymization rules.

The Paris court rejected claims that VPNs and DNS resolvers fall outside the scope of Article L. 333-10 of the French Sports Code, which permits dynamic site blocking against “any person likely to contribute” to remedying infringement.

The court also rejected the defendants’ technical arguments about cost, encryption, and general monitoring obligations, citing the lack of “quantified and verifiable” evidence.

Google and Cloudflare previously objected to similar rulings, but their opposition was also rejected on appeal . The companies’ request to refer the case to the EU’s highest court has also been rejected.

DNS4EU has not explained why it chose not to defend itself. The organization did not respond to a request for comment, and parent company Whalebone did not return our request for clarification either.

Global Blocking Fallout

While we do not know for sure what DNS4EU’s official position is, TorrentFreak’s tests of the DNS4EU public resolvers from outside France showed that, as of this writing, several targeted domains show SSL errors.

This includes Rightflourish.net, which shows the following error message, also to users outside of France

Visitors who proceed to ignore the SSL warning and continue to the blocked domain will eventually see a blocking notification , confirming that DNS4EU is complying with the French court order. The blocking message was added this week.

The block also appears to extend beyond France, applying to users in other EU member states. Technically, that could be considered overblocking. However, without a response from the EU-funded project, it remains unclear whether this cross-border application is intentional or an oversight.

We will update this article accordingly when DNS4EU responds.

—

An overview of all orders handed down by the Paris Court on April 17, protecting the Formula 1 and MotoGP broadcasts, is available in the table below.

Case Number (RG)	Defendants	Sport Competition	Category	Measure
26/00502	Major French ISPs (Orange, SFR, Free, Bouygues, etc.)	MotoGP	Internet Service Providers	Domain Blocking
26/00503	Google, Microsoft (Bing)	MotoGP	Search Engines	De-indexing
26/00504	Google LLC & Google Ireland (Public DNS)	MotoGP	DNS Resolver	DNS-level Blocking
26/00505	Quad9 Foundation	MotoGP	DNS Resolver	DNS-level Blocking
26/00506	Whalebone	MotoGP	DNS Resolver	DNS-level Blocking
26/00507	[O] INC (Cloudflare)	MotoGP	DNS / CDN / Reverse Proxy	Blocking
26/00508	NordVPN, Surfshark	MotoGP	VPN Providers	Domain Blocking
26/00509	Cyberghost, ExpressVPN	MotoGP	VPN Providers	Domain Blocking
26/00510	Proton AG	MotoGP	VPN Provider	Domain Blocking
26/00511	Major French ISPs (Orange, SFR, Free, Bouygues, etc.)	Formula 1	Internet Service Providers	Domain Blocking
26/00512	Google, Microsoft (Bing)	Formula 1	Search Engines	De-indexing
26/00514	Google LLC & Google Ireland (Public DNS)	Formula 1	DNS Resolver	DNS-level Blocking
26/00515	Quad9 Foundation	Formula 1	DNS Resolver	DNS-level Blocking
26/00516	Whalebone	Formula 1	DNS Resolver	DNS-level Blocking
26/00517	[L] INC	Formula 1	DNS, CDN, & Reverse Proxy	Blocking
26/00519	Cyberghost, ExpressVPN	Formula 1	VPN Providers	Domain Blocking
26/00520	Proton AG	Formula 1	VPN Provider	Domain Blocking
26/00681	NordVPN, Surfshark	Formula 1	VPN Providers	Domain Blocking

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

In 2021 , a group of independent movie companies, including the makers of The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard, London Has Fallen, and Rambo V, sued RCN Telecom Services at a New Jersey federal court.

The filmmakers alleged that RCN failed to disconnect repeat infringers on its network, making the ISP liable for its subscribers’ copyright infringement.

The lawsuit was one of several filed by the same group of filmmakers against U.S. Internet providers, including Grande Communications, Frontier Communications, and Verizon. These all alleged that the ISPs failed to terminate accounts of repeat infringers, which made the providers secondarily liable for these pirating subscribers.

Stipulation of Dismissal

A few days ago, the RCN case came to an end. In a joint stipulation filed on April 21, the movie companies agreed to dismiss the lawsuit. The dismissal is final, which means that the claims cannot be refiled, while each side covers its own costs and expenses.

“[A]ll parties to this matter […] hereby stipulate that this action is dismissed with prejudice pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 41(a)(1)(A)(ii). Each party will bear its own costs, expenses, and attorneys’ fees,” the filing reads.

The legal paperwork does not reference a settlement agreement, nor is a reason mentioned. However, similar to the record label lawsuits against Verizon and Altice that were dropped last week, the Cox Supreme Court decision likely plays a role.

In all these cases, rightsholders argued that the ISPs’ knowledge of the infringing activity, combined with their failure to act, was sufficient to hold them liable for contributory copyright infringement. However, the new Supreme Court ruling narrowed this standard.

In Cox, the Supreme Court stated that contributory liability requires proof that the provider intended its service to be used for infringement. That intent can only be shown in one of two ways. Either the provider actively induced infringement, or the service is one that is tailored to piracy without substantial non-infringing uses.

Reddit Comments and Site Blocking

The RCN case was a substantial one. The filmmakers secured an early win in 2022 when Judge Georgette Castner denied RCN’s motion to dismiss, allowing the contributory and vicarious infringement claims to proceed. The case later expanded through amended complaints and a parallel lawsuit filed by Screen Media Ventures, which was dismissed in 2024.

To gather further evidence, the filmmakers also requested discovery subpoenas against Reddit at the Northern District of California, to unmask users who had posted piracy-related comments. Those efforts largely failed , with Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler ruling that the Redditors’ First Amendment right to anonymous speech outweighed the filmmakers’ interest in the data.

In addition, the case was notable because the filmmakers sought a site-blocking injunction that would have required RCN to block access to The Pirate Bay, 1337x, YTS, RARBG, and other foreign pirate sites. That request was denied as a standalone cause of action, but it remained available as a potential remedy if the filmmakers won the case.

Further Cox Fallout

With this legal battle being dropped, these site-blocking requests will not be considered. However, the Cox ruling has increased the broader call of rightsholder representatives to implement site-blocking legislation in the United States.

There are currently several site-blocking bills in the works, and it is expected that U.S. Congress will seriously consider passing site-blocking legislation before the end of the current term.

Meanwhile, the Cox ruling continues to ripple through U.S. court dockets, with companies including Google and X Corp also arguing the ruling should benefit their pending cases.

—

A copy of the stipulation of dismissal with prejudice, filed at the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey, is available here (pdf) . The dismissal was signed by Judge Edward S. Kiel late last week.

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

In June 2024, major publishers, including Cengage Learning, Macmillan Learning, Elsevier, and McGraw Hill, filed a copyright lawsuit against Google in federal court in New York.

The companies accused the search giant of running Shopping ads for so-called “Pirate Sellers,” merchants who used Google’s platform to promote infringing copies of their textbooks.

The lawsuit has been narrowed significantly since it was first filed. Last June, Judge Jennifer L. Rochon dismissed the publishers’ vicarious copyright infringement claim and their alleged violations of New York General Business Law.

A trademark infringement claim and the core contributory copyright infringement claim survived. However, Google now argues that last month’s Supreme Court ruling in Cox Communications v. Sony Music Entertainment renders the remaining copyright claim legally viable.

Google: Cox Changes Everything

In a motion for partial judgment, filed at the Southern District of New York last week, Google argues that the publishers’ contributory copyright infringement claim rests entirely on a now-defunct theory.

Previously, some lower courts held that “”knowledge of” plus “material contribution” to infringing activities or others could be sufficient to be held liable for contributory copyright infringement. However, the new Supreme Court ruling narrowed this standard.

In Cox, the Supreme Court stated that contributory liability requires proof that the provider intended its service to be used for infringement. That intent can only be shown in one of two ways. Either the provider actively induced infringement, or the service is one that is tailored to piracy without substantial non-infringing uses.

Dismiss Final Copyright Claim

According to Google, the publishers can’t meet this standard. Therefore, their final copyright infringement claim should be dismissed.

“Plaintiffs do not (and cannot) claim that Google provided a service ‘tailored to’ infringement; the Shopping platform plainly has noninfringing uses. And they do not even use the word ‘induce’ or its variants in the complaint. Nor do they assert that Google intended the Shopping platform to be used for infringement,” Google writes.

“Instead the theory Plaintiffs set forth in their complaint is one of material contribution: that Google can be deemed to have the requisite intent to cause infringement because Google continued to run ads from merchants knowing that those merchants were advertising infringing content. This is precisely the theory that Cox rejected.”

Legal Battle Continues

Whether the court agrees with Google’s arguments has yet to be seen, but the request makes clear how far the impact of the Cox Supreme Court ruling can potentially reach.

That said, even if Google’s motion succeeds, the case is not over. The trademark infringement claim under the Lanham Act survived the previous dismissal order and is not addressed in the current motion. The publishers allege that Google Shopping ads displayed unauthorized images of their trademarked textbook covers, and Judge Rochon found that claim was adequately pleaded.

In a separate filing last week, Google also answered the second amended complaint. Among other things, the company cited fair use and innocent infringement as defenses against the trademark claim.

Google also questions whether the publishers have the right to sue at all. The company argues that the textbooks were created as works-made-for-hire, meaning the universities that employed the authors own the copyrights, not the publishers.

Whether that angle will need to be pursued in detail depends on whether the copyright claim will survive the dismissal request, of course.

—

A copy of Google’s motion for partial judgment on the pleadings, filed April 17 at the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, is available here (pdf) . Google’s second amended answer, filed April 14, can be found here (pdf) .

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

In piracy circles, names like Sflix, Watchseries, HDtoday, and Fmovies are essentially “zombie” brands.

While the original iterations of these sites were shut down or “retired” years ago, their names remain immensely popular with users.

The pirate streaming sites continue to draw in millions of monthly visitors without much hassle. However, that changed this week when dozens of domains suddenly became unreachable, all pointing to a Cloudflare 521 error.

The error indicates that the origin web server refuses the connection. This does not mean that Cloudflare intervened. Instead, it suggests that the backend server, which hosts the website, has stopped responding.

None of the affected sites have offered an explanation, nor has any anti-piracy organization claimed credit for a takedown. However, it is clear that these sites were seen as a major threat.

The Motion Picture Association (MPA), for example, identified the Myflixerz and Sflix networks as a priority threat in its notorious markets submission to the U.S. Trade Representative last fall . This piracy ring alone was good for 622 million visits in August 2025, MPA reported.

Those domains, including sflix.to, sflix2.to, moviesjoytv.to, myflixerz.to, and hdtodayz.to, are now among those returning 521 errors.

A Shared Backend

Why would so many sites go down simultaneously? They are not necessarily all operated by the same people. However, there is likely a common denominator, which was also cited by the MPA’s report.

Many of the affected sites rely on a shared backend infrastructure, which anti-piracy groups have dubbed “Piracy-as-a-Service” (PaaS). Instead of hosting video files themselves, the front-end piracy sites use services such as MegaCloud and VidCloud that actually serve the streams. And more recently, these PaaS services have also offered website hosting.

The MPA described exactly this setup in its notorious markets recommendation, specifically referring to the Sflix and Myflixerz network:

“These sites rely on their own PaaS infrastructure (formerly known as 2embed[.]to, which ACE took down in June 2023) and despite enforcement, they continue to thrive through alternative domains and backend hosting on platforms such as MegaCloud, VidCloud, and RapidCloud. Unlike the previous CMS model, which explicitly enabled pirate sites to embed movies and monetize streams, this new model functions as a backend hosting network powering popular pirate domains such as those mentioned above. These services act as a media source server, serving video files directly allowing a myriad of sites to provide streams to users.”

If many sites indeed rely on the same backend hosting network, similar Cloudflare errors would appear across all dependent sites if the backend service goes offline. This would explain what we’re seeing today.

If the backend PaaS infrastructure has indeed been targeted, it would represent one of the most significant blows to the streaming piracy landscape since the original 2embed takedown in 2023.

For now, the cause of this massive outage remains unconfirmed. Whether the affected domain names will make their way back online or if the 521 error is the final curtain call has yet to be seen. However, the “zombie” brands will likely reappear in some shape or form.

—

Below is an example of some of the affected domain names, but there are many more.

– myflixerz.to
– sflix.to
– moviesjoytv.to
– flixhq.to
– hdtoday.cc
– hdtoday.tv
– watchseries.pe
– watch32.sx
– myflixtor.tv
– theflixertv.to
– zoechip.cc
– fmovie.ws
– 9animetv.to
– hdtodayz.to
– fboxtv.com
– freehdmovies.to
– freemoviesfull.com
– actvid.rs
– dopebox.to

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

Tu Manga Online (TMO) has long been the go-to destination for many Spanish-speaking manga fans.

Through multiple domains, it offered access to manga and manhwa comics free of charge, attracting many millions of visitors.

In 2024, a detailed report from Deepsee flagged Zonatmo.com as a particularly popular domain. Together with the other TMO properties, it was estimated to generate a billion views in November that year.

The same research linked the TMO operation to the Spanish company Nakamas Web SL, which was reportedly responsible for the sites.

This level of openness is unusual for a pirate site. DeepSee.io CEO Rocky Moss projected that the site would be stopped before the end of 2025. That projection was off by a few months, as TMO went offline in early 2026.

TMO’s website started having problems around March 18. This was widely noticed on social media, including a post by Animetrends that has been viewed close to 2.5 million times.

Without an official explanation from the site’s operators, many fans kept hope that it would make a comeback. A notice on the site suggesting it was “under maintenance” added to that impression.

However, after a few days that hope faded, as the main ZonaTMO domain was put on clienthold. This suspension status is typically set by a domain registrar in response to a legal complaint, and effectively renders the domain inaccessible.

The WHOIS data for zonatmo.com also clearly lists Nakamas Web as the company behind the site.

While TMO’s future was looking more and more troubled, the operators remained silent. Information received by TorrentFreak suggested that Korean webtoon platforms were involved, helped by serious anti-piracy forces. That information was officially confirmed today.

Spanish Takedown Following Cross-Border Investigation

The Copyright Overseas Promotion Association ( COA ), which represents many Korean publishers , including Kakao and Webtoon, announced that it conducted a multi-month investigation into the piracy operation.

COA worked with the commercial anti-piracy outfit IP-House and Spanish law firm Santiago Mediano Abogados, who eventually shared their gathered evidence with the local authorities for follow-up action.

This operation eventually led to an enforcement effort in Almeria, Spain, which resulted in the takedown of a network of interconnected websites, including Visortmo and TuMangaOnline.

Update April 22: The Spanish authorities officially confirmed the action .

While it is now confirmed that Korean rightsholders are behind the Spanish shutdown, not many details are shared. There is no mention of any arrests, for example, and no suspects have been identified either.

The involvement of the company Nakamas Web remains unconfirmed as well, although it’s worth noting that this company is based in Almeria, which was the center of the police operation. A request for comment to the company, whose website is still online , remains unanswered.

Pending Law Enforcement Investigation

Speaking with TorrentFreak, COA confirms that its members had their eyes set on TMO for a long time. While the group confirms the takedown, it can’t share further information at this point as the law enforcement investigation is ongoing.

“Zonatmo (TuMangaOnline, TMO) has long been recognized as a major illegal platform known for distributing unauthorized translations of Korean content in Spanish. Korean rightsholders had been monitoring the platform since its earlier stages, and in response, have pursued concrete legal enforcement actions overseas through COA.”

“At present, several matters remain at the stage of investigation in cooperation with local law enforcement authorities. As such, we are not in a position to disclose specific additional targets at this time,” a COA spokesperson adds.

For details, COA referred us to IP-House, which we asked about the suspects that were identified, whether any arrests were made, or whether a deal was reached with the operator of TMO. However, IP House declined to answer, citing an active investigation.

IP-House CEO Jan van Voorn commented on the action in broad terms in a press statement.

“This outcome reflects the strength of cross-border collaboration in addressing complex digital piracy to protect creators, consumers, and the integrity of the global content ecosystem,” Van Voorn said.

“We are proud to have supported COA in advancing this investigation and commend the Spanish National Police for their leadership and effectiveness in executing this enforcement action,” he added.

Part of a Wider Wave

The TMO takedown coincided with one of the most active periods of manga and anime piracy enforcement in history. In March 2026, HiAnime also went offline . The reason for HiAnime’s closure has not been officially confirmed, though it followed sustained pressure from the anti-piracy alliance ACE and a recent callout by the USTR.

Earlier, in January 2026, the manga aggregator Bato.to was shut down following action by Japanese anti-piracy body CODA and pressure from the Korean company Kakao Entertainment, with its operator identified and subject to criminal investigation in China.

According to COA, the TMO takedown is not the last enforcement action that’s planned on their end.

“This action forms part of a broader enforcement initiative led by COA, representing the K-content alliance” COA told TorrentFreak, adding that it “is actively investigating operators of such platforms and preparing coordinated legal actions across multiple jurisdictions.”

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

A little over a week ago, an unreleased version of the movie Avatar: Aang, The Last Airbender leaked online.

The Paramount Pictures production was not scheduled to come out before October, but that changed when copies of the film began spreading online.

The trouble started on April 12 when X user @ImStillDissin posted two clips from the film, misleadingly claiming that someone at Nickelodeon had “accidentally emailed me the entire Avatar Aang movie.” Both clips were taken down via DMCA notices shortly after.

The initial leaker later told the Hollywood Reporter that he actually received the film through a contact from his “hacker days.” He didn’t realize what it was until he looked it up, and decided to post the snippets online.

The clips carried a #PeggleCrew watermark, a nod to the hacking group that is allegedly behind the breach, although this remains unconfirmed.

Not long after the clips were removed, a second X user posted the full film, racking up over a million views before that too was removed. Paramount, meanwhile, remained quiet and did not issue a public statement on the leak.

Behind the scenes, however, the movie studio and its anti-piracy partners have been quite busy. Initially, they mostly dealt with copies of the film being reposted on X by different users, but their challenge was spreading elsewhere too.

DMCA Notice Whack-a-Mole

After the leak was public, the film started to spread through other platforms too. Records in the Lumen Database show that Paramount and its enforcement teams at MarkScan Digital, Marketly LLC, and Vobile Inc. all sprung into action, flagging various leaked copies.

This includes DMCA takedown requests directly targeting leaks on third-party services such as Google Drive and the video service Vimeo , both of which were swiftly taken down.

However, some takedown requests include more indirect links too. For example, a DMCA notice sent on behalf of Paramount by MarkScan on April 13, targets a 4chan discussion thread, which typically only remains online briefly. This notice also listed a file that was posted on Rootz.

While Paramount clearly tried hard to contain the leak, it appeared that the problem only became harder to enforce.

The Piracy Ecosystem Takes Over

Unlike most movie leaks, the Avatar: Aang leak did not originate from a scene or P2P group. However, it found its way into the traditional piracy ecosystem within hours, where it continues to thrive today.

Multiple copies were uploaded to torrent sites and are widely shared, making it the second most pirated movie of the past week . This includes a copy that was uploaded to The Pirate Bay by “TheRedPill,” who referenced the ongoing whack-a-mole at other platforms in the upload description.

“Found this copy on twitter of all places via a wetranfer link. Supposedly this is a webrip that was sent to someone who then leaked it online. it has been passed around all day with links going up and down,” the uploader wrote .

This wasn’t the only copy of the leak that surfaced on torrent sites, as many others appeared around the same time. Meanwhile, pirate streaming sites began indexing the leak as well, further expanding its audience by millions of people.

As shown above, torrent site 1337x currently hosts a wide variety of leaked copies. These all originate from the same source but are reported in different qualities.

Little Recourse Beyond Google

Dozens of notices posted in the Lumen database show that Paramount and its enforcement partners are also targeting these pirate sites. However, since most of these sites don’t respond to takedown notices, these sites present a persistent problem.

For these pirate sites, Paramount typically asks Google to delist the URLs from search results, which reduces discoverability but does not take the infringing content offline.

The notice below, for example, was sent to Google yesterday and targets various torrent and streaming sites. However, that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Also, it’s worth stressing that the notices in the Lumen Database reported here are only the fraction of Paramount’s takedown efforts that’s public. Most of their efforts, including any notices sent directly to X or other platforms that do not report to Lumen, remain unknown.

In addition to taking down content, Paramount will also be interested in finding the source of the leak. According to Variety , unnamed sources said that the matter is under investigation, but the leak reportedly did not originate from within the studio.

For now, Avatar: Aang, The Last Airbender remains on course for its October 9 premiere on Paramount+. By then, most of its target audience has already had the opportunity to watch an early, perhaps unfinished, version of the film for free.

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

Pirate sites and services can be a real challenge for rightsholders to deal with. In India, however, recent court orders have proven to be quite effective.

Indian courts have issued pirate site blocking orders for over a decade. Initially, these orders were relatively basic, requiring local Internet providers to block specific domain names.

These regular injunctions were only partially effective. After the High Court granted a blocking injunction, pirate sites would often switch to new domains, requiring rightsholders to return to court to get these blocked as well.

Expanding Site Blocking Injunctions

To deal with this problem, the dynamic injunction was invented. These orders were issued to block pirate sites more effectively. ISPs were not only required to block original domains but also any clones and mirror sites that surfaced after the case was finalized.

When dynamic injunctions were no longer sufficient to slay the piracy hydra , rightsholders suggested upgrading the Indian blocking regime with Dynamic++ injunctions. These orders also protect copyrighted content that has yet to be registered.

In addition, Dynamic++ orders and their ‘ superlative ‘ variant also include domain name registrars as defendants . This includes blocking orders targeted at U.S. domain registrars, much to the delight of U.S. rightsholders .

Delhi High Court Slams the Brakes

The expanding scope of these orders has not gone unquestioned. In a recent ruling in a trademark case, the Delhi High Court has put a hard limit on the addition of new domain names, creating a strong divergence with earlier dynamic site blocking orders that were previously issued by the same High Court.

The case itself started as a routine trademark dispute. Mahindra and Mahindra, one of India’s largest conglomerates, sued a string of packers and movers businesses operating under domain names that incorporated the “MAHINDRA” mark.

The court ordered GoDaddy and other registrars to block five infringing domains, directed India’s telecoms regulator to instruct ISPs to do the same, and required Google to delist the relevant results. All parties complied with this order.

When the case reached its conclusion earlier this year, Mahindra requested to make the order future-proof. The company asked the court to allow a court official to add newly discovered mirror and redirect domains to the blocking order on an ongoing basis, without the need to return to a judge each time.

To back up this request, Mahindra pointed to two Delhi High Court rulings that implemented the same procedure: a 2019 decision against 1337x, The Pirate Bay, and others , and a 2023 ruling targeting cyberlocker sites including Mixdrop .

The same procedure had been used routinely in piracy cases ever since, so the company did not expect much pushback. However, after reviewing the matter, Justice Tushar Rao Gedela said no .

Case Closed

The reason for the denial comes down to a straightforward point about how courts work. Once a judge signs a final ruling and closes a case, the court’s authority over that matter ends. It can still fix typos and calculation errors, but it cannot reopen proceedings to add new defendants or extend the reach of its orders.

That principle applies directly here. Once the case was closed, the blocking order against the original five domains became part of the final judgment.

Additionally, Justice Gedela said that it is “beyond comprehension” that a court officer could add new parties and extend dynamic injunctions, even when the judge no longer has the power to do so.

According to Tejaswini Kaushal, analyst at the Indian intellectual property publication SpicyIP , rightsholders can still request injunctions under the new ruling. However, they will have to file a new proceeding to block additional domains after a case is closed.

“This means that practitioners will now have to rely on execution proceedings or initiate fresh litigation to address new instances of infringement,” Kaushal writes .

The ruling effectively creates a divergence between judges of the same court. A rights holder appearing before a different Delhi HC judge could receive the opposite answer today. The question will remain unsettled until a higher bench resolves it.

Legislature, Step In

Justice Gedela did not leave the matter there. The judgment calls on India’s Parliament to update is civil procedure rules and regulations governing online intermediaries, to create a proper legal basis for post-judgment blocking orders.

“There is an urgent and alarming need for the Central Government and the Legislature to act in haste to bring about radical changes,” the judgment states, noting that rightsholders should not be powerless against new infringers who simply weren’t part of the original proceedings.

The ruling effectively means that infringing domains names that appear after a case closes will now require fresh legal action, at least until a higher court settles the question.

This significantly changes the game for film studios, Netflix, and sports rightsholders who repeatedly relied on post-judgment expansions. They can still get these additional blockades by going back to court, but that means more time, and more money, to achieve the same result.

For now, the ball is in Parliament’s court.

—-

A copy of the judgment in Mahindra and Mahindra Limited & Anr. v. Diksha Sharma Proprietor of Mahindra Packers Movers & Ors. (CS(COMM) 209/2023) is available here .

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

Pirate streaming apps and unauthorized IPTV services have continued to gain popularity worldwide.

This is also the case in Chile, where there’s no shortage of options. This includes brands such as MagisTV, FlujoTV, and, XuperTV, which are popular throughout many countries in the region.

These services are a thorn in the side of rightsholders, including the American Hollywood giant Warner Bros. Entertainment, which filed a formal complaint. This effort paid off in February , when Chile’s Department of Telecommunications issued a dynamic blocking order, requiring ISPs to block domains linked to these pirate brands.

Warner Bros. Raises the Stakes

While the blocking action sorted some effect, the IPTV problem remained. This prompted Warner Bros. to raise the stakes by filing a criminal complaint against a company named Streaming Chile SpA that allegedly sells copyright-infringing IPTV subscriptions.

Chilean newspaper La Tercera reports that Warner Bros. accuses the company and its representatives, the 56-year-old Marta Leyton and her son Joaquín Ávila (25) of copyright infringement and computer fraud.

The complaint mentions that IPTV services are widely adopted. While some of these streaming services operate legally, many operate without permission of rightsholders.

“Alongside the growth of a legal IPTV service industry, an illegal industry of unauthorized IPTV service providers has grown alarmingly. These providers offer their clients pay television services via the internet, providing them with access to various content (channels),” the complaint alleges.

Warner Bros. is represented by attorney Daniel Steinmetz, who noted that illegal IPTV services often rebroadcast legal streams without permission from rightsholder, bypassing copyright protections.

Several Linked IPTV Services

TorrentFreak has not seen a copy of the complaint, and the available reporting does not identify any associated URLs. However, the website streaming-chile.net notes in the its footer that it is owned by Streaming Chile SpA, which fits the picture.

The website in question mentions that the operation serves more than 35,000 customers worldwide. The same company, which also offers reseller services, is linked to other streaming platforms such as mejoriptv.net, maxtv.cl, and plandetv.cl.

As seen above, these IPTV services are also mentioned in the “our customers say” section on the main website. The Trustpilot page has less favorable reviews .

Part of a Broader Crackdown

Warner Bros. referral is part of a broader regional push against IPTV piracy. In February, for example, an Argentine court expanded the crackdown on pirate IPTV services by blocking more than 70 domains while ordering Google to disable sideloaded Android apps.

In Chile, the criminal referral against Streaming Chile SpA stands out because it targets a company and its representative by name, under criminal law rather than a civil procedure.

The Warner Bros. complaint is also the first known Chilean case to invoke the Ley de Delitos Económicos (Economic Crimes Law). Enacted in 2023, the law allows courts to order confiscation of all profits derived from criminal conduct. In addition, it imposes fines that scale with the defendant’s income, well beyond the penalties available under standard copyright law alone.

For now, the criminal complaint is at an early investigative stage. No arrests have been reported, and, as far as we can see, the IPTV services that we could link to the company remain online.

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

Anna’s Archive is generally known as a meta-search engine for shadow libraries, helping users find pirated books and other related resources.

However, last December, the site announced that it had also backed up Spotify , which came as a shock to the music industry.

Anna’s Archive initially released only Spotify metadata, and no actual music, but that put the music industry on high alert. Together with the likes of Universal, Warner, and Sony, Spotify filed a lawsuit days later, hoping to shut the site down.

Through a preliminary injunction targeting domain registrars and registries, the shadow library lost several domain names. However, not all were taken down, and the site registered various new domain names as backups .

The legal pressure also appeared to pay off in other ways. Not long after the lawsuit was filed, the shadow library removed the Spotify listing for their torrents page. The same applies to the first batch of music files that was accidentally released in February.

The site’s operator, Anna’s Archivist, hoped that these removals would motivate the music industry to back down , but that wasn’t the case. Instead, they returned to court requesting a $322 million default judgment after the defendant failed to show up in court.

$322 Million, Granted in Full

Yesterday, Judge Jed Rakoff of the Southern District of New York entered a default judgment against the site’s unknown operators, awarding Spotify and the major labels the requested $322 million damages award in full.

The music labels get the statutory maximum of $150,000 in damages for around 50 works. Spotify adds a DMCA circumvention claim of $2,500 for 120,000 music files, bringing the total to more than $322 million.

The plaintiff previously described their damages request as “extremely conservative.” The DMCA claim is based only on the 120,000 files, not the full 2.8 million that were released. Had they applied the $2,500 rate to all released files, the damages figure would exceed $7 billion.

Plaintiff(s)	Damages Sought	Amount
Total		$322,200,000.00
Warner	Statutory damages for willful copyright infringement (17 U.S.C. § 504(c)) at $150,000 for 48 sound recordings	$7,200,000.00
Sony	Statutory damages for willful copyright infringement (17 U.S.C. § 504(c)) at $150,000 for 50 sound recordings	$7,500,000.00
UMG	Statutory damages for willful copyright infringement (17 U.S.C. § 504(c)) at $150,000 for 50 sound recordings	$7,500,000.00
Spotify	Statutory damages for circumvention of a technological measure (17 U.S.C. § 1203(c)(3)(A)) at $2,500 for 120,000 music files	$300,000,000.00

Anna’s Archive did not show up in court, and the operators of the site remain unidentified. The judgment attempts to address this directly, by ordering Anna’s Archive to file a compliance report within ten business days, under penalty of perjury, that includes valid contact information for the site and its managing agents.

Whether the site will comply with this order is highly uncertain.

For now, the monetary judgment is mostly a victory on paper, as recouping money from an unknown entity is impossible. For this reason, the music companies also requested a permanent injunction.

Permanent Injunction Targets Domains

In addition to the damages award, Rakoff entered a permanent worldwide injunction covering ten Anna’s Archive domains: annas-archive.org, .li, .se, .in, .pm, .gl, .ch, .pk, .gd, and .vg.

Domain registries and registrars of record, along with hosting and internet service providers, are ordered to permanently disable access to those domains, disable authoritative nameservers, cease hosting services, and preserve evidence that could identify the site’s operators.

The judgment names specific third parties bound by those obligations, including Public Interest Registry, Cloudflare, Switch Foundation, The Swedish Internet Foundation, Njalla SRL, IQWeb FZ-LLC, Immaterialism Ltd., Hosting Concepts B.V., Tucows Domains Inc., and OwnRegistrar, Inc.

Anna’s Archive is also ordered to destroy all copies of works scraped from Spotify and to file a compliance report within ten business days, under penalty of perjury, including valid contact information for the site and its managing agents. That last requirement could prove significant, given that the identity of the site’s operators remains unknown.

A Way Out, at a Price

In theory, Anna’s Archive has the option to prevent the domain suspension. The permanent injunction allows the site to seek relief from this measure, after showing that it has paid the full $322 million damages award and complied with all injunctive obligations.

That’s an unlikely option, to say the least. At the same time, however, it is not guaranteed that the site’s domain names will be suspended.

As reported previously, several domain names, including the Greenland-based .gl version , are linked to registries and registrars outside the jurisdiction of the U.S. court. As such, they previously did not comply to the preliminary injunction, and it is unknown whether the latest order changes that.

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A copy of the default judgment entered by Judge Rakoff is available here (pdf) .

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