Incorporated in Georgia, YuppTV USA Inc. markets itself as one of the world’s largest internet-based TV and on-demand platforms for South Asian content. Most of the company’s subscribers are described as “non-resident individuals.”

Filed at a federal court in the Middle District of Pennsylvania, YuppTV’s copyright complaint begins by naming Canada-based Harpreet Singh Randhawa as the operator of one or more IPTV services, sold under multiple brand names. Those services allegedly infringed YuppTV’s rights in the United States and beyond.

Specifically, YuppTV claims that content for which it holds (or held) United States and Canadian licenses, has for years been illegally broadcast into homes in both countries by Randhawa’s platforms.

The complaint bundles the services together under the heading ‘Boss IPTV Platforms’ with the wider operation labeled the ‘Boss IPTV Cartel’.

The complaint says the services use common ‘pirate tactics’ including rebranding, renaming, closures and expansion “to evade detection and legal enforcement.” None of the nine domains appear functional at the time of writing.

An Expensive and Lengthy Investigation

YuppTV says that its expensive investigation of Randhawa and his “illicit business activities” pre-dates 2020.

“Throughout the course of this investigation, YuppTV observed Mr. Randhawa wielding his vast enterprise to infringe repeatedly upon YuppTV’s licensed rights,” the plaintiff writes.

In March 2021, YuppTV filed a complaint with police cyber-crime investigators in Faridabad, India. The company informed police that Randhawa used a company called Rhysley Pvt. Ltd to perpetuate infringement of YuppTV’s content, leading to a headline-making police raid.

Six people were arrested including Sumit Sharma, an alleged director of Rhysley Pvt, and Harminder Sandhu, an alleged key employee of Calgary, Canada-based company, Server Center Ltd. Allegedly owned and operated by Randhawa, Server Center is described as an “integral part” and the “ostensible parent company” of “Randhawa’s criminal enterprise.”

What became of the raids four years ago is unclear, but Randhawa’s name wasn’t among those mentioned when the six individuals were arrested back in 2021. YuppTV’s lawsuit positions Randhawa as the lead defendant along with Rhysley Pvt. Ltd, Server Center Ltd, and 2144644 Alberta Ltd, a company linked to Server Center due to Randhawa sitting on the boards of both.

Datacamp (CDN77) Named as Defendant

News reports covering the 2021 raids had already linked Datacamp to Randhawa’s piracy operation. The company was described as a vendor but beyond that, evidence of infringement, if indeed any existed at all, was not made public.

Four years later, Datacamp and several other companies reportedly used by Randhawa’s IPTV services, appear as defendants in YuppTV’s complaint.

Under the heading “Datacamp Knowingly Provides Boss IPTV Platforms with the Means to Continue Pirating” the complaint provides a detailed overview of Datacamp’s services, highlighting the “high efficiency and peak performance” provided by Datacamp’s geographically distributed network of datacenters.

“Boss IPTV Platforms, as unauthorized IPTV streaming services, depend on third-party CDNs to deliver Pirated Content to their subscribers. Boss IPTV Platforms could not operate without these CDNs,” the complaint reads.

The details span several pages, with numerous features available to any Datacamp customer framed as mechanisms through which the Boss Platforms were able to infringe the plaintiff’s rights more efficiently, with optimizations that “materially increase the quality” of the pirate streaming product.

Failure to Terminate Repeat Infringers

Many years of so-called ‘repeat infringer’ lawsuits in US courts means the general parameters are broadly understood. When copyright holders repeatedly send DMCA takedown notices for infringing content, but that content isn’t removed and action isn’t taken against repeat infringers, webhosts and ISPs face potential lawsuits that attempt to hold them liable.

YuppTV’s complaint follows broadly the same framework. After highlighting CDN features that prevent or inhibit the ability to send DMCA notices directly to Boss IPTV’s ‘origin’ servers, YuppTV says that correspondence sent to Datacamp starting in 2020 nevertheless requested the removal of infringing content.

“Although DataCamp undertook some steps to address YuppTV’s complaints regarding the Pirated Content, it has failed to enact measures sufficient to curtail Boss IPTV’s infringement,” the complaint explains.

“As a result of DataCamp’s refusal to take appropriate measures to stop copyright infringement, Boss IPTV Platforms continue unhindered as DataCamp customers. Boss IPTV Platforms continue to purchase increasing amounts of bandwidth from DataCamp.”

DMCA Notices Allegedly Ignored

Copies of the DMCA notices sent to Datacamp appear alongside the complaint, with a suggestion they represent the full set. A representative sample notice is shown here, and the remainder are linked below. Assuming these are indeed the originals, and haven’t been altered for any reason, issues are immediately apparent.

The presence of the letter ‘X’ multiple times in every URL may be a sign that complete URLs weren’t known to YuppTV. That wouldn’t necessarily be a problem if the infringing content could be identified by different means, but whether this alternative format was considered sufficient by the recipients isn’t made clear.

If the infringing content couldn’t be identified, that might raise questions of whether the notices were valid. In the complaint, YuppTV insists that it sent “proper notices” under the DMCA.

The URLs listed in the notices concern channels which presumably delivered a succession of copyrighted works (TV shows) for which YuppTV held or holds appropriate licenses. There’s no strict requirement for notices to identify each and every work allegedly infringed but identifying at least one should be sufficient to meet the base requirement of “identify the work infringed”. The provided DMCA notices mention channels but no specific copyright works.

The notices state that YuppTV has the right to “take anti-piracy actions” on behalf of other named companies, presumably the exclusive rightsholders. YuppTV claims to hold a non-exclusive license under Indian copyright law, to transmit, distribute, and publicly perform the content in the United States. Registration with the United States Copyright Office “is not a prerequisite to filing a copyright infringement action” the company adds. There could be implications for not doing so, however.

“DataCamp did nothing to stop the infringement. The Boss IPTV Platforms continue to use the DataCamp CDN to commit copyright infringement as of March 2025 with DataCamp’s affirmative knowledge of the infringement,” the allegations conclude.

Allstream Business Inc. (Canada)

Similar allegations are made against other intermediaries/service providers.

Based in Ontario, Canada, Allstream Business, Inc. reportedly offers dedicated servers “that host most of the domain websites for the Boss IPTV Platforms.” The primary data center for the Boss IPTV Platforms reportedly use Allstream’s dedicated servers for channel encoding and video-on-demand (VOD) creation.

Further claims include Allstream servers hosting Boss IPTV’s customer management platform and a chat system used for customer service. A team in India reportedly use Allstream servers for tasks including backups. DMCA notices were reportedly sent in 2018-2019 but Allstream “failed to remove or block the Protected Channels.”

As a result, YuppTV concludes that just like Datacamp, Allstream cannot rely on safe harbor protection.

Infomir and Infomir LLC (Ukraine, United States)

The basis for YuppTV’s claim against Infomir is far from clear. Even with an especially broad view of what type of conduct may amount to contributory infringement, nothing really stands out based on the information provided.

The complaint alleges that the Boss IPTV platforms purchased Infomir’s ‘MAG’set-top boxes and sold them to subscribers of the pirate services. The Ministra Pro middleware is mentioned several times in the complaint in a manner that suggests importance, but little of substance beyond that.

The following statement suggests that the basis for the claim against Infomir is the supply of regular set-top boxes and a failure to terminate that business.

“Infomir and Infomir LLC had the capability of cancelling its contractual relationship with the Boss IPTV Platforms and the Boss IPTV Cartel, and thus refusing to manufacture the ‘MAG set-top boxes’ with the preinstalled ‘Ministra Pro’ middleware.”

Nothing in the complaint indicates that Infomir received any notifications from YuppTV, much less that its actions were “willful, malicious, intentional, purposeful, and in disregard of and with indifference to the rights of YuppTV.”

Claims Against Each Defendant

Count I: Direct Copyright Infringement 17 U.S.C. SS 106 (1),(4)
Count II: Violation of the Digital Millennium Protection* Act (DMCA), 17 U.S.C. S 1201

Harpreet Singh Randhawa, the Boss IPTV platforms, 2144644 Alberta Ltd., Server Center Ltd, Rhysley Pvt. Ltd, Vois Inc.

Count III: Contributory Copyright Infringement, 17 U.S.C. § 501

DataCamp, Allstream, Allstream USA, Infomir.eu and Infomir, LLC

Count IV: Vicarious Copyright Infringement, 17 U.S.C. § 501

DataCamp, Allstream, Allstream USA, Infomir.eu and Infomir, LLC

* Count II contains a naming error present in the original complaint

YuppTV requests a permanent injunction against all defendants, maximum statutory damages or defendants’ profits attributable to the alleged infringement, attorney’s fees, and a statement signed under oath “detailing the manner in which they have complied with the judgment of the court.”

The complaint and copies of the DMCA notices are available here ( 1 , 2 , pdf)

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 and at least initially, they were relatively basic. To get a site blocked by local ISPs, rightsholders had to request an injunction for specific domain names, providing detailed evidence for each.

From Regular to Dynamic Injunctions

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

To deal with this problem, the dynamic injunction was invented. These orders were issued to more effectively deny access to content made available on pirate sites. ISPs were not only required to block original domains, but also any clones and mirror sites that surfaced after the order was signed.

This was a major victory for rightsholders, who soon sought additional measures to further streamline the blocking process through dynamic+ injunctions.

Dynamic+ Injunctions

Dynamic+ injunctions not only apply to domain names that don’t yet exist, they can also be used for content that has yet to be created. This helps copyright holders to apply blocking orders to copyrighted works that are still in the pipeline.

Another major breakthrough means that injunctions don’t just compel ISPs to block domain names, they also require domain registrars to comply. American companies such as Namecheap have taken domains offline globally as a result.

For example, Namecheap previously suspended the then popular pirate streaming portals Zorox.to, Upmovies and Flixwave.to following a dynamic+ order issued by the New Delhi High Court. Other domain registrars including Porkbun appeared to comply with this and similar dynamic+ injunctions.

New: The Superlative Injunction

In recent years these injunctions have transformed into a powerful legal tool, allowing rightsholders to protect existing and future works with relative ease. However, rightsholders still requested additional relief.

In February, Star India obtained an injunction targeting various streaming sites and services including starshare.live, xtv.ooo and smart4k.cc. The injunction also required third-parties to disclose personal info related to the mobile apps operating through iptvsmarters.com, iptvsmarterpro.app, and others.

These measures were taken to protect content from Hotstar and Disney+, but Star India recently returned to court to request additional measures. To protect its rights, the media company sought to expand the blocking injunction to apps, as well as the ability to add additional targets without having to file new applications.

Two weeks ago, the New Delhi High Court addressed these concerns by issuing a new injunction: The Superlative Injunction. As the name suggests, this order goes a step further than its predecessors.

Added: Mobile Apps

The Superlative Injunction adds ‘rogue’ mobile applications as blocking targets, going beyond the traditional pirate websites that were typically subject to Dynamic+ orders.

According to the Court, it doesn’t matter how sites or services operate; any copyright infringing service is eligible for real-time blocking to stop works from being pirated.

“At the end of the day, this Court is dealing with the intellectual property rights of the copyright owner, the plaintiff herein, and the mode of use/ dissemination/ activity is/ can hardly be of any concern,” the Court writes.

Paused Oversight During Summer Break

The recently-ordered Superlative Injunction effectively expands the list of blocking targets. However, this specific order comes with another novelty, as it allows Star India to add additional blocking targets without court oversight for a limited period.

The High Court goes on a summer break this month, but sports broadcasts don’t stop during this period. Star India was particularly concerned about the ongoing England Tour of India cricket games, which are widely pirated.

Since the Court is on a break, it issued a temporary ‘pre-emptive’ blocking authority. Specifically, Star was granted the option (until July 3) to add new targets without going to court first.

“In the aforesaid circumstances, it is felt appropriate by this Court to […] grant real-time relief qua rogue websites and rogue mobile applications which may be discovered during the course of the present proceedings.”

These blocking requests can be made to ISPs as well as domain name registrars, which will be required to take action in response.

Who Watches the Watchmen?

The Court’s solution is pragmatic, but it’s not without concerns. Blocking websites and suspending domain names with reduced judicial oversight means that potential errors might not be corrected for weeks.

Previously, Vimeo , GitHub and the Internet Archive were blocked in India as the result of ‘errors’ so this isn’t merely a hypothetical concern.

As noted by Arnav Kaman on the Indian copyright blog SpicyIP , the order effectively turns Star India into the protector of its own content, giving it free rein to block anything while the court is on vacation. That can be a problem.

“The court cannot remain willfully ignorant of the blocking that may occur over the vacation; thus, they have a responsibility to maintain a full record of all the websites, domains and apps that the rightsholder seek to block,” Kaman writes.

“Furthermore, in the instance, there is an overbroad application of these injunction to bona fide websites and apps being caught in the crossfire, they will have no remedies in the lack of any official record by the court.”

All in all, it is understandable that the current blocking powers have been expanded to mobile apps and other pirate tools. However, it’s up for debate whether giving rightsholders carte blanche to pick their targets is the right thing to do.

Then again, dealing with real-time blocking is a complicated problem that is difficult to solve as long as manual labor is involved. Eventually, this will only increase calls for automated blocking solutions, ideally ones with proper oversight and fail-safes.

—

A copy of the Superlative Injunction issued by the New Delhi High Court is available here (pdf)

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

In 2023, sports rightsholders and their broadcasting partners had their collective patience tested to the limit.

Coordinated industry-wide action late 2022 placed rising IPTV piracy rates under the spotlight, aiming to put the European Commission under pressure to take immediate action.

Rightsholders wanted new legislation, to compel intermediaries to cooperate with faster takedowns, or even cooperate at all. What they received mid-2023 was a detailed recommendation penned by the European Commission, which urged voluntary collaboration, without the need for new law.

Rightsholders Still Disappointed

On April 30, 2025, the Commission issued a call for evidence to assess the effects of the recommendation after its introduction two years earlier. Rightsholders’ assessments filed over the last couple of weeks vary in tone, but the conclusions are broadly the same. Without a legal ‘incentive’ that leaves intermediaries with no other option, there’s almost no motivation to cooperate voluntarily.

Interestingly, however, LaLiga’s experience bucked the trend. Part of a coalition that felt a potential two-year wait for action was far too long , LaLiga’s submission dated June 4, reports a “positive impact” from enforcement measures it says were “implemented in line with the Commissioner’s Recommendations.”

No names are mentioned in the submission but platforms including Twitch, Vercel, Scaleway, and CDN77, were previously reported as voluntarily cooperating after their IP addresses kept getting blocked as LaLiga aggressively pursued action against pirate sites. As a result of this voluntary cooperation, disruption to their businesses due to site blocking measures seemed to reduce quite quickly.

Unfortunately, those intermediaries processed just 1.33% of LaLiga takedown notices, a fraction of the 138,000 notices sent by LaLiga overall.

’10 Minutes or Less’ Takedown Protocols

LaLiga’s submission cites a report from March 2025 which found that of 10.8 million takedown notices targeting piracy of live events sent in 2024, just 2.7% were actioned inside 30 mins, at least according to the industry-supplied data used as a source.

With the league bemoaning a lack of cooperation from a “significant portion” of intermediaries, many were criticized by LaLiga for the absence of “established protocols for addressing illegal live streaming” or for “[failing] to respond to takedown requests in less than 10 minutes.”

The 30-minute takedown deadline of Italy’s Piracy Shield is a source of real pride for regulator AGCOM, yet the standard cited by LaLiga demands takedowns actioned two-thirds quicker.

No Obvious Sign of Urgency

A submission from Telefonica, which as an ISP partnered with LaLiga to obtain the dynamic injunction that authorized their recent piracy blocking activities, provides interesting context for ’10 mins or less’ takedown demands.

Indeed, the three injunctions signed off by the same Barcelona court appear to envision a much less demanding regime, at least for those making the blocking requests.

While there may be a general perception of extreme urgency verging on panic, batches of IP addresses, sent by way of a list on a particular day of the week, are far from unusual in court-authorized orders. Furiously blocking IP addresses in a live blocking environment may appeal to those who thrive on urgency, but since IP addresses are likely to turn up time and again, more considered approaches are available too.

Need Instant Action Today? Ask Yesterday

While ‘pirate’ IP addresses observed during match time are prime candidates for blocking, preparatory work in the days or weeks before the referee blows his whistle, plays an important role too. Such work can inform intelligent, more effective blocking, while minimizing overblocking by eliminating avoidable blunders.

Since matches are relatively short, anti-piracy specialists monitor pirate IPTV services and related infrastructure when matches aren’t underway, to build actionable intelligence for when it really matters.

Outside the all-important live match/game windows, broadcasts observed during a ‘pre-monitoring’ period are not protected live matches. Yet, courts seem satisfied that, when those broadcasts show sufficient links to the main content that blocking orders aim to protect, there’s a decent chance those same IP addresses, services, and infrastructure, will also appear during the ‘match window’. Once that happens, IP addresses tend to find themselves blocked, accurately.

The scenario above was presented and then tested independently to satisfy a court that blocking could be conducted safely. At no point was there a safety demonstration involving 10 minute blocking or removal of streams. When blocking is based on weekly lists compiled in advance, but blocking is required immediately, why wait until the very last minute to request it?

Perhaps there are concerns that some intermediaries could share that information in the wrong direction. Since not much can be done in less than 10 minutes, a last minute heads-up might be the logical conclusion, since it also paves the way for removing people from the equation altogether.

‘Immediate’ Blocking Universally Requested

Demands for 10 minute blocking appear in numerous submissions, most centered around a call to define “expeditiously” as “immediately” in respect of takedown notices.

A submission from DAZN agrees with the definition but insists that “immediately” shouldn’t mean 10 minutes, it should mean less than five minutes. beIN agrees with the definition, but makes no suggestion on timing.

The Premier League notes that “expeditiously” is so vague timing wise, that sport rightsholders have found it “almost impossible” to enforce their rights.

That raises the not insignificant challenge of complying with takedown notices in less than 5 minutes up to no more than 10. It’s a completely unrealistic timeframe that rules out even the most cursory investigation by design. It may end up carrying more weight than any other issue companies may be facing at the same time.

Of course, should notices begin to disrupt business operations, an automated solution would probably be offered at some point, to lighten the load. How many companies would look forward to rightsholders making complex business decisions on their behalf is unknown, but given the voluntary cooperation now enjoyed by LaLiga, the impossible can never be ruled out, especially given the right “incentive”.

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

After a Virginia jury ordered internet provider Cox to pay $1 billion in damages for failing to take appropriate actions against pirating subscribers, shockwaves rippled through the ISP industry.

The verdict, in favor of major record labels including Sony and Universal, was a catalyst for many other ‘repeat infringer’ lawsuits. This resulted in yet more multi-million dollar claims and awards, with more still in the pipeline today.

Meanwhile, Cox did all it could to fight the verdict. This resulted in some small wins, including a recent ruling that the billion-dollar damages calculation needs a re-evaluation. However, the liability ruling stands.

In a final attempt to find the law on its side, Cox petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court last year. In essence, it argued that an ISP shouldn’t be held liable simply because it knew that subscribers were pirating, while challenging the assertion that merely knowing about subscriber piracy constitutes ‘willful’ copyright infringement.

U.S. Government Backs Cox

The Supreme Court signaled interest but before a decision to take the case on, the Court asked for the Government’s position on the matter. The request was honored two weeks ago.

The Solicitor General’s amicus curiae brief sides with Cox and urges the Supreme Court to grant the ISP’s position. This isn’t just in the interest of Cox, but also other ISPs and the public at large.

According to the U.S. Government’s view, an ISP is not automatically liable for copyright infringement if it fails to terminate subscribers after receiving copyright infringement notices. The brief states that the verdict of the Court of Appeals could have broad negative implications for ISPs and their subscribers.

The U.S. further argues that Cox’s actions were not willful, as “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.

Aside from fully backing Cox, the Solicitor General also urged the Supreme court to deny the record labels’ petition. The labels argued that Cox should be held liable for vicarious copyright infringement because it profited from piracy that it could have prevented.

Record Labels are “Bewildered”, Fire Back at U.S.

The U.S. position gave Cox and other ISPs reason to feel more positive about an eventual turnaround. Grande Communications, for example, wasted no time citing the Government’s position in its final remarks for its own, separate, Supreme Court petition.

In a supplemental filing at the Supreme Court, the record labels characterize the Solicitor General’s recommendation as ‘bewildering’, given the evidence on record. In a direct, point-by-point rebuttal to the U.S. brief, the labels attempt to set the record straight.

The brief argues that Cox’s contributory liability for copyright infringement is ‘straightforward’ and does not warrant Supreme Court review because Cox would face liability ‘In Any Jurisdiction’.

“Cox was held liable not because it failed to do enough to police infringement, but because it took no meaningful steps to stop infringement and continued serving specific, identifiable subscribers even after receiving explicit notice of their repeat (and often rampant) infringement,” they write.

The record labels focus more on the broader context that, in their view, shows that Cox ‘willfully’ decided to let repeat infringements slide because subscribers earn them revenue.

The ISP did not meaningfully implement a policy ‘for the termination in appropriate circumstances of repeat infringers’ and lost its safe harbor as a result.

“F the dmca!!!”

“This rebuttal is amplified by evidence of Cox’s alleged culpability and disdain for the law, including an expletive quote from an internal communication,” the rebuttal reads.

“Cox kept supplying the means of infringement because it said ‘F the dmca!!!’ and adopted an express policy of prioritizing profits from subscription fees over compliance with the Copyright Act or the DMCA.”

The labels note that lower courts have been clear on liability cases like this, and argue that the recent Supreme Court Twitter v. Taamneh ruling , which the U.S. cited, is not relevant in this context.

There is overwhelming evidence for Cox’s willfulness, they say, adding that Cox didn’t contest this finding during its appeal. Therefore, the petition should be denied, contrary to the U.S. Solicitor General’s recommendation.

Grant Our Petition (or both…)

The record labels also disagree with the U.S. when it comes to their own Supreme Court petition, which argues that Cox should also be held liable for vicarious copyright infringement. The brief reiterates that there is a real split in the lower courts on this matter.

Cox can be held vicariously liable if it has 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 this is not the case here.

The labels, however, argue that Cox did profit directly from pirating subscribers, by declining to terminate repeat infringers, which kept the subscription fees coming in.

The labels’ brief ends by asking the Court to deny Cox’s petition while granting theirs, the direct opposite of the U.S. recommendation. However, the labels offer a fallback. If the Court is inclined to accept the Cox case, it should also accept theirs.

“The Court should grant Sony’s petition and deny Cox’s. If the Court disagrees, it should grant both,” the record labels conclude.

—

A copy of the supplemental brief, submitted to the Supreme Court this week by Sony et al. is available here (pdf)

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

Traditional site-blocking measures that require local ISPs to block subscriber access to popular pirate sites, have been utilized by rightsholders in France for years. The aim is to deter piracy by making sites more difficult to find, but these measures are only partially effective.

More recently, site blocking requests have targeted other intermediaries. DNS providers including Google and Cloudflare, plus several of the largest VPN providers, were all ordered to make pirate websites unavailable through their services.

While several of these orders are still under appeal, rightsholders and lawmakers are pressing ahead. They believe that more can and should be done to tackle online piracy; sports streaming piracy in particular.

New Bill Enables Automated Real-Time Blocking

A new bill amending Article L. 333-10 of the French Sports Code passed the Senate this week. The ‘Lafon’ bill allows rightsholders to use a fully automated system to block piracy targets, without having to go through the French telecoms regulator Arcom for updates to the blacklisted sites.

Targeted intermediaries are required to implement these blockades ‘without delay’. That speeds up the blocking process, which is particularly important when dealing with constantly updating livestreams of pirated sports. Similar blocking regimes are already active in Italy, Spain, and the UK.

The proposed bill doesn’t specify any concrete blocking methods, but by allowing judges to target server IP addresses it logically paves the way for IP-address blocking.

Blocking IP-addresses

Speaking with the French news publication L’Informé , Xavier Spender of the Association for the Protection of Sports Programs (APPS), which represents beIN Sports, Canal+, Eurosport and others, says the aim is to reinforce existing blocking measures.

“We want to bring ourselves up to the level of the English, Spanish, and Italians, by implementing IP blocking adapted to the French context. Our goal is to block servers at the head of the network, that is, at the highest possible level of the pirate architecture.”

Other stakeholders also view automated and real-time IP address blocking as a must to tackle the country’s pirate streaming epidemic. An estimated 37% of Ligue 1 viewers currently watch football matches illegally.

“The adoption of this new system is vital to effectively protect our competitions and our economic model, especially as the LFP is about to launch its own channel,” the Professional Football League (LFP) commented.

Brice Daumin, general manager of Ligue 1 broadcaster DAZN notes that “Arcom doesn’t work weekends,” so something had to be done to more effectively tackle the problem. “In England, we can block 10,000 links in two days; in Italy, it’s 18,000. And with Arcom, it’s 5,000 per year.”

A ‘Secret’ Blocking Agreement

While the bill has yet to pass into law, stakeholders are already preparing a complementary agreement. According to a report from L’Informé’s Marc Rees , sports rightsholder group APPS has reached a private agreement in principle with Internet providers Orange, SFR, Bouygues Télécom, and Free.

Reportedly in the works since 2023, the agreement covers the finer details of a new blocking system, including the technical implementation and who will pay for the costs.

Thus far, specific details of the blocking system, including any plans for independent oversight, remain unclear. However, a source said that overblocking risks are being taken into account, adding that rightsholders remain responsible for their mistakes.

Overblocking and the Mafia

Calls for extended blocking powers arrive at a sensitive time, as recent expansions in Spain and Italy have resulted in several overblocking incidents .

However, according to APPS general delegate Xavier Spender, there is little to worry about as “everything will be put in place to ensure that there is no risk of over-blocking.”

Time will tell whether France will be able to prevent collateral damage, but it’s clear that APPS and its rightsholders are eager to implement broader blocking powers to deal with the piracy ‘mafia’.

“Today, we are facing mafia groups at the head of a piracy economy, with a model that resembles drug trafficking. To deal in particular with illicit IPTV offers, sold on every street corner, we need to adapt to enable real-time blocking,” Spender says.

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

The extraordinary online popularity of Japanese manga comics shows no sign of retreat, with pirate site-based consumption at unprecedented levels fueled by billions of visits .

Japanese publishers are pursuing pirate site operators all around the world but no matter where they’re physically located, the majority have some kind of infrastructure directly behind a reverse proxy at Cloudflare. All rightsholders have to do is obtain a DMCA subpoena, serve Cloudflare, and sift through the resulting mountain of logs for clues and, in an ideal world, signs of an operator security blunder.

Shueisha Targets ~25 Domains

Shueisha’s appearance at a U.S. court this week adds to a growing list of actions in the United States by Japanese publishers including Shogakukan, Kadokawa and Kodansha.

Shueisha’s subpoena target is Cloudflare and having already served DMCA takedown notices as required, Shueisha should receive data for around two dozen pirate domains.

All listed domains are accused of infringing Shueisha’s rights in ONE PIECE, a manga series featuring a search for mythical treasure and a chance to become the next King of the Pirates.

The domains of interest to Shueisha look broadly familiar; most feature the word ‘manga’ and the term ‘raw’ (a reference to unmodified comics in their original language) is quite common too. Beyond that, the list represents a typical example of domains that probably won’t be in use for very long. At some point they’re likely to be replaced by others that in many cases will look confusingly similar to their predecessors.

It’s Manga Time

For those outside the manga piracy community, keeping track of these changes can become a real chore. A site with a new domain, assisted by various means, may appear out of what seems like thin air, before becoming one of the world’s most popular pirate sites in a matter of weeks. Others may disappear into obscurity in what seems like an instant.

The screenshot above shows the site at the top of Shueisha’s list. Mangajikan, or ‘cartoon time’ in English, was registered in May 2024 and for the first couple of months of 2025, attracted very little interest from rightsholders.

In early March, everything changed.

DMCA takedown notices for Google search initially tripled, and then around two weeks later, doubled in volume. Traffic of ‘just’ a few million in January kept increasing; in March, Mangajikan received over 104 million visits, then in April a surprise reduction to ‘just’ 90 million.

Then, in May, Mangajikan more than doubled its existing traffic; in just four weeks, 90 million visits became 185 million.

This surge made Mangajikan the most popular site in SimilarWeb’s ‘Animation and Comics’ category for the whole of Japan, and the 17th most popular site in the country overall.

In such a short period of time, that type of growth could be mistaken for magic. Sleight of hand probably shouldn’t be ruled out, or indeed, a few extra domains up a sleeve donating unwanted traffic.

Whatever the technique, Mangajikan was more popular than Facebook, and more visited than ChatGPT. Lagging behind in 24th position, Pornhub didn’t even make the chart.

Bye. Website Closed

After taking the internet by storm in the blink of an eye, Mangajikan.com’s apparent retreat into the ether was even more swift. The site’s goodbye note is functional, even bilingual, but fairly brief by most standards. The same message appears on mangajikan.to

So did the site really shut down or did it just change shape?

Organized Instability

If we refer back to Shueisha’s list, traffic to most of the domains has either fallen dramatically in the last three months, or increased in much the same way.

One of the Mangaraw-branded domains in the list had 27.5 million visits in March but just 7 million in May. Another with the same branding saw visitor numbers fall from 28.4 million to 19.4 million in the same period. A third Mangaraw domain had 20.4 million visits in March, 8.4 million in April, and 3.8 million in May. Visits seem unlikely to have simply dried up.

Overall, Vietnam-focused domains may be the biggest movers in the DMCA subpoena application, two in particular. Both had zero traffic in March but during May, one had 27.5m visits which made it the 24th most popular site in the whole of Vietnam.

SimilarWeb data shows that the second grew even more quickly – zero visits in March to 77.2 million in May, allowing the domain to take the #9 slot in Vietnam’s most-visited website list with relative ease.

A Disappointing Ending For Some

There are clear signs that visits to Mangajikan found their way to other domains, one with identical branding and another with a more generic name. According to Semrush data, the latter had a significant visitor boost in May after receiving close to 40% of Mangajikan’s outbound traffic.

While that domain also makes an appearance in the DMCA subpoena application, Semrush data reveals that around 20% of outbound traffic went directly to a more suspicious looking domain. For obvious reasons we’re not naming it here.

URLQuery reports that Quad9 flagged the domain as ‘malicious’ and then sinkholed it, protecting users of its DNS from what appears to be a Chaturbate-linked or Chaturbate-branded popunder affair, followed by whatever surprises came next.

We have no information about the outcome but on the balance of probabilities, it’s unlikely to have involved free Japanese comics. And if there’s no new manga involved, in practical terms that translates to zero interest shown by those eager to consume it.

That’s a problem for all current major anti-piracy campaigns globally, regardless of the content they aim to protect.

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

Earlier this month, dozens of rightsholders and copyright groups urged the European Commission to pave the way for more robust measures to tackle live-streaming piracy.

Two main themes in many of these submissions were broad pirate site blocking powers and effective Know-Your-Business-Customer (KYBC) requirements for online service providers.

Ideally, this would enable rightsholders to swiftly block pirate sites while allowing them to track down the identities of those responsible. According to the MPA , IFPI, beIN, Eurocinema, FEVIP, Premier League and others, blocking and/or KYBC are essential to combat piracy.

ISPs are Deeply Concerned

These calls for broader enforcement are neither new nor unexpected. At the same time, they are not without opposition either. Among the many rightsholder requests, EuroISPA , the world’s largest association of Internet Service Providers, urges caution.

“We are deeply concerned by the approach taken by some European rightsholders and certain Member States, who have implemented disproportionate network blocking measures,” the association writes.

EuroISPA represents over 3,300 ISPs, including several of the largest European providers. The group is particularly concerned about regimes where over-blocking and collateral damage have damaged many innocent parties.

Despite previous overblocking incidents, the rollout of increasingly broader blocking regimes continues. Where the initial orders were targeted at local ISPs, more recent blocking requests have included DNS resolvers, which operate globally. This introduces fallout well beyond EU borders.

“Despite numerous over-blocking incidents, certain Member States continue to escalate their efforts and have therefore taken increasingly aggressive measures to expand blocking orders beyond local ISPs,” EuroISPA writes.

Problematic Blocking Efforts

The ISP association lists several concrete examples of collateral damage caused by overblocking. This includes an intervention in Italy, where a Cloudflare IP-address was blocked , rendering tens of thousands of websites inaccessible for Italian users.

Italy’s blocking regime, known as “ Piracy Shield “, also added the drive.usercontent.google.com domain, which made Google Drive unavailable in the country for more than half a day. This error was the result of reports from “trusted flaggers”, EuroISPA notes.

In Spain, there were similar overblocking issues related to third party service providers, including Cloudflare. One blocking order targeting CDN infrastructure, requested by the football league LaLiga, was approved in court while the owners of the servers were not informed, leading to collateral damage.

This led to many outages for legitimate websites without any advance warning for those affected, EuroISPA says.

“LaLiga secured the blocking order without notifying cloud providers, while knowingly concealing from the court the predictable harm to the general public. This blunt approach not only demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of how the Internet works, it also violates the principle of net neutrality.”

The ISPs worry that ‘expeditious’ blocking requirements, including an often mentioned 30-minute timeframe to take action, will lead to more errors. There are concerns that smaller service providers are simply not equipped to properly analyze the accuracy of blocking requests in such a short timeframe.

When done properly, EuroISPA believes that blocking remains an option. In this light, EuroISPA mentions an order in Belgium under the Copyright Directive framework, that offered “clear guidance” and “legal certainty” for ISPs, enabling them to take prompt and appropriate action.

Guidelines and Cooperation

EuroISPA isn’t ruling out all blocking efforts, it’s concerned that the current blocking push is disproportionate and a threat to the open Internet. Instead, of expanding the European Digital Services Act, which has yet to be implemented in many member states, the EU should foster cooperation.

“EuroISPA believes that collaborative approaches between rightsholders and intermediaries are more effective than relying on court orders and invites rightsholders to engage directly with ISPs rather than pursue legal action against them.

“The ultimate goal should be to bring together stakeholders – despite their potentially conflicting business interests – to collaborate on finding practical and sustainable solutions to piracy online.”

The call for voluntary cooperation is not new and, in some countries, this is a reality today. However, this also requires both sides to reach common ground, which can be easier said than done.

KYBC, DNS and VPN Expansions

While EuroISPA opens the door to future agreements, it’s also clear that the European Commission should not burden internet service providers with further anti-piracy obligations.

The association notes that expanding the current KYBC provision will introduce extra risks for the ISPs, which could potentially undermine the Internet as a whole.

The same is true for the suggested addition of DNS and VPN providers as site blocking partners. While EuroISPA doesn’t rule that out, it notes that the legal and technical aspects of these measures should be carefully analyzed before any action is taken.

All in all, the ISPs urge the European Commission to tread with caution and keep the interests of all stakeholders in mind when deciding what steps to take next.

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A copy of EuroISPA’s submission in response to the European Commission’s assessment of the May 2023 Commission Recommendation to combating online piracy of sports and other live events is available here (pdf) .

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

In countries where protection is granted automatically, it’s possible for ordinary people to become copyright owners in a matter of minutes.

For the lucky few with a sudden viral video on their hands, a general understanding of the ‘rules’ governing what can, can’t, or should be done next, could be of benefit.

What those ‘rules’ cannot do is prevent 500, 1000, or 5,000 unauthorized copies appearing in a matter of minutes. The best on offer in that respect is a potential means to remove them.

Mass Takedowns Every Day

Japan-based anti-piracy group CODA represents the world’s leading manga publishers.

The company’s comprehensive knowledge of ‘the rules’ extends from Japan, to China and the United States, through South America and across Europe. But, preventing content from appearing on all pirate sites is effectively impossible.

And once there, pirated copies are consumed in enormous quantities.

Along with its animated cousin anime, manga content is pirated to the tune of billions of times every year. When not working on prevention, CODA’s job includes taking pirated content down. In its annual business report published this week, CODA provides relatively rare insight into how three dozen platforms responded after receiving a takedown notice.

Covering known pirate sites hosting platforms operating in less clearly defined waters, and household names like Facebook, YouTube, and TikTok, CODA’s report contains some interesting surprises.

The Big Picture

The data relates to the period April 2024 and March 2025. Takedown requests are reported by the number of URLs requested for removal (URL notifications) and how many were removed in response, for notices mostly based on human-based monitoring.

For the 37 platforms mentioned in the report, CODA filed a total of 677,269 requests of which 652,071 were human-generated. Of the 677,269 in total, the targeted platforms responded with 545,870 deletions, for an overall compliance rate of 80.6%.

The platforms that received the highest number of URL notifications during the year were:

#1 Facebook (social media) 176,610 notifications
#2 MP4upload (video hosting) 116,563 notifications
#3 Streamtape (video hosting) 75,789 notifications
#4 Okru (social media) 38,173 notifications (also known as Ok.ru)
#5 Bilibili (manga/anime community) 35,849 notifications.
Data source: CODA

The platforms that received the lowest number were Internet Archive (111), Iqiyi (54), followed by Instagram, Himado, and Weibo, all with less than 47 notifications each.

Takedown Compliance

A number of notice recipients achieved a perfect 100% compliance rate. Internet Archive and the others at the bottom of the list responded by taking everything down, albeit after receiving relatively few notices.

Perfect scores were also achieved on bigger numbers.

Mixdrop, a hosting platform regularly branded a pirate service and blocked by ISPs in some regions, received 6,944 URL notifications and took every piece of related content down. File hosting platform Mega acted similarly, removing 11,066 URLs in response to a request to remove an identical number.

When moving on to the bigger numbers, we see the highest compliance rates:

#1 MP4upload: 116,563 notifications, 100.00% compliance
#2 Streamtape: 75,789 notifications, 100.00% compliance
#3 Bilibilitv: 28,485 notifications, 99.99% compliance
Data source: CODA

Like its counterpart Mixdrop, Streamtape is also considered a ‘pirate’ site by several rightsholders and blocked by ISPs in some jurisdictions.

For comparison, Facebook’s compliance rate was 93.97% (from 176,610 URLs), YouTube achieved 97.84% (20,453), while TikTok fell just short of a perfect score with 99.87% (14,328).

Why compliance rates are so high at sites with a reputation for piracy is unclear. The likelihood of getting blocked in another region may be a factor, or perhaps by taking content down, there’s a belief that might make them less of a target for enforcement action.

The unwelcome prospect of takedown notices being sent to hosting companies can’t be ruled out, since in theory they would have no choice but to take some kind of action, or else face action themselves.

For some hosts, however, these rules don’t amount to much; the same applies to some pirate sites.

Total Non-Compliance

When looking at platforms with low compliance rates there are several that also received a considerable number of notifications. Based on the data, three entities scored 0% compliance, despite receiving a minimum of 11,000 notices.

#1 Dramacool: 35,214 notifications, zero deleted (0% compliance)
#2 Videokvid: 12,583 notifications zero deleted (0% compliance)
#3 9anime: 11,625 notifications zero deleted (0% compliance)

Other non-responding platforms include gogoanime, voiranime, anitubebiz, and gogoanime_tv, all with zero deletions and 0% compliance.

Compliance Weighed Against Perceived Intent

While some of these pirate sites have huge numbers of visitors, they’re no competition for the likes of Facebook, YouTube, and TikTok. So while some achieved the perfect 100%, their overall traffic is lower and the amount of infringing content on their platforms outweighs the volume of licensed/legal content.

That’s the all-important ratio that will keep them in the anti-piracy spotlight for many years to come, regardless of compliance, which admittedly may buy some time. How much is impossible to say.

CODA’s full 2024 Business Report is available here ( PDF , Japanese) with the data featured above starting at page 11 and spanning the next few pages.

The single table below shows the same data, with text translated from Japanese.

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

Despite the widespread availability of legal options, online piracy remains rampant. Every day, pirate sites are visited hundreds of millions of times.

Website visits are only part of the full piracy picture, as IPTV streaming is popular too. Nonetheless, traffic trends can provide valuable insight, especially when there are clear divergences across content categories.

216 Billion & America First

Fresh data released by piracy tracking outfit MUSO shows that pirate sites remain popular. In a report released today, MUSO reveals that there were 216 billion pirate site visits globally in 2024, a slight decrease compared to the 229 billion visits recorded a year earlier.

TV piracy remains by far the most popular category, representing over 44.6% of all website visits. This is followed by the publishing category with 30.7%, with film, software and music all at a respectable distance.

Pirate site visitors originate from all over the world, but one country stands tall above all the rest: America. The United States remains the top driver of pirate site traffic accounting for more than 12% of all traffic globally, good for 26.7 billion visits in 2024.

India has been steadily climbing the ranks for years and currently sits in second place with 17.6 billion annual visits, with Russia, Indonesia, and Vietnam completing the top five.

As a country with one of the largest populations worldwide, it’s not a complete surprise that the U.S. tops the list. If we counted visits per internet user, Canada and Ukraine would top the list.

Manga Piracy Booms

While pirate site visits dipped by more than 5% in 2024, one category saw substantial growth. Visits to publishing-related pirate sites increased 4.3% from 63.6 to 66.4 billion.

The increase is largely driven by the popularity of manga, which accounts for more than 70% of all publishing piracy. Traditional book piracy, meanwhile, is stuck at 5%.

The publishing piracy boom is relatively new. Over the past five years, the category grew by more than 100% while the overall number of global pirate site visits remained relatively flat.

Looking at the global demand, we see that the U.S. also leads the charge here, followed by Indonesia and Russia. Notably, Japan, the home of manga, ranks fifth in the publishing category. This stands out because Japan is not listed in the global top 15 in terms of total pirate site visits.

Music & Film Piracy Tank

In the other content categories, MUSO’s data shows a dip in pirate site visits. The changes are relatively modest for TV (-6.8%) and software (-2.1%) but the same isn’t true for the music and film categories.

In 2024, there were 18% fewer visits for pirated movies compared to a year earlier. MUSO notes that this is due to a “lighter blockbuster calendar” which reduced piracy peaks. “The drop in demand is as much about what wasn’t released as it is about access,” the report explains.

The music category saw a 19% decline in piracy visits year over year, with a more uplifting explanation for rightsholders. According to MUSO, the drop can be partly attributed to “secure app ecosystems” and the “wide adoption of licensed platforms like Spotify and Apple Music.”

Piracy Leads The Way

MUSO’s business model is to market these piracy data to rightsholders so they can use piracy as a market signal. Piracy is not necessarily triggered by unavailability; legal channels, pricing, and fragmentation are also key drivers.

“Piracy continues to reveal unmet demand: where audiences want content, but legal channels are too slow, too fragmented, or too expensive,” the company explains in a blog post .

There’s also a more practical application for the piracy data. Since MUSO tracks which pirate sites are most popular, rightsholders can use the data for their site blocking efforts.

“With monthly updated insights at the country and category level, alongside access to site-level intelligence, our data empowers rightsholders, regulators, and ISPs to prioritize action where it has the most impact,” MUSO writes.

Whether blocking access will stop people from trying to find piracy alternatives is up for debate. Perhaps pirate site blocking plans in the U.S. will provide more insight, if they come to fruition.

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A copy of MUSO’s 2024 Piracy Trends and Insights report can be requested through the official website .

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