BREIN has just published its latest annual report, providing insights into the priorities of the organization and the progress being made.

This was BREIN’s first year under new leadership. After Tim Kuik retired in 2024, Bastiaan van Ramshorst became the new director flanked by Birre Büller, the new head of legal affairs.

BREIN’s 2024 Annual Report

Last week, the group published its 2024 annual report which shows that anti-piracy activities continue undeterred. BREIN completed 339 cases last year, of which 179 were marked as extensive investigations. As a result, 40 settlements were reached, including 7 “knock & talks”.

In addition to these dedicated investigations, BREIN also continued its regular operations. This includes updating the pirate site blocklist used by local ISPs, to which 525 unique domains were added last year. At the end of 2024, 574 domains were blocked, up from 208 at the start of the year.

The new target domain names were also reported to Google, which voluntarily removed these 525 domains from its search results. That comes in addition to the 166,945 individual Google search results BREIN asked the company to remove.

IPTV Action Intensifies

The voluntary cooperation of Google is noteworthy and doesn’t stop at delisting blocked domains. The company also helped to prevent the promotion of pirate IPTV services through its advertising business. This led to the drastic decision where Google updated its policy to no longer allow ads for the search term “IPTV”.

As a result of this policy change, BREIN reported fewer IPTV advertisements last year. According to BREIN, action by Google was in part taken in response to complaints from the Dutch anti-piracy group.

These restrictions are part of a broader theme in which IPTV is increasingly recognized as a major piracy threat. According to BREIN, IPTV is now considered the biggest threat to the audiovisual content industry.

“The Dutch fiscal police (FIOD) officially designated IPTV as a phenomenon in 2024. This means higher priority and more budget for combating illegal IPTV. As a result, there is more room for investigation and ultimately more criminal cases,” BREIN writes

“Illegal IPTV also has the full attention of Europol, Eurojust and the EUIPO. Among other things, this regularly leads to criminal actions in the Netherlands at the request of foreign investigative agencies. Where possible, BREIN and foreign sister organizations of BREIN contribute to this.”

Criminal Action and Boots on the Ground

The added attention to the IPTV problem has resulted in several new criminal referrals by BREIN last year. The group expects that this will lead to new arrests and potential prosecutions in 2025, but as these investigations are ongoing, further details are currently unavailable.

“These cases are expected to result in arrests in 2025. Because of ongoing criminal investigations, BREIN can only make announcements about them after arrests have been made,” BREIN writes.

These IPTV actions are not limited to online operations; they also extend to offline marketplaces. Since the Beverwijk Bazaar is seen as a hotspot for this activity in the Netherlands, BREIN has signed an agreement with the market to tackle the problem.

If stalls are caught selling illegal IPTV services and devices, in the first instance they receive a warning. If the activity continues, they can be fined, and if that does not solve the issue, tenants can lose their lease.

“Two tenants had their lease terminated in 2024 based on the agreements made,” BREIN writes, adding that “repeated checks and purchases at the Beverwijk Bazaar remain necessary to identify and deal with IPTV traders.”

AI, NL and More

In addition to the strong focus on IPTV, artificial intelligence is also flagged as a major threat. The group has identified several Dutch datasets that partly consist of copyright-infringing material and successfully shut these down .

“BREIN conducted extensive investigations into infringing datasets on which Generative AI models are trained and turned into unlawful AI models and was able to successfully complete the first AI investigations,” BREIN writes.

Another series of Dutch-focused achievements came after the registry for .NL domains updated its policy to no longer allow intermediaries to register domain names. The EURid registry (.eu) has a similar policy which enabled BREIN to make 16 .NL and 7 .EU domains inaccessible .

These changes are part of broader efforts to involve more intermediaries in the anti-piracy fight. For example, BREIN says it signed a confidential agreement with several Dutch hosting providers who will enforce a proper know-your-customer policy. That could lead to more enforcement action in the future.

All in all, it’s been a productive year for BREIN. The full annual report with more detail on specific actions and an overview of the key numbers, as summarized by BREIN, is available below.

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• 339 files closed
• 179 investigations completed
• 155 illegal sites/services/platforms stopped
• 11 platforms, 9 IP addresses and 525 unique domains dynamically blocked at DNS level
• 525 illegal websites completely removed from search results by Google iv
• 160 proxies/mirrors stopped
• 46 illegal traders IPTV/VOD subscriptions stopped
• 14 IPTV ads removed by Google
• 47 streaming sites taken offline
• 3 major uploaders, administrators and/or scripters investigated and stopped
• 166,945 Google search results removed
• 3,677 interventions involving removal of online ads for illegal copies
• 40 settlements, including 7 ‘knock & talks’
• 3 judicial ex parte orders obtained
• 10 online cases involving physical media were handled
• 14 checks conducted at record fairs
• 16 .nl and 7 .eu domain names taken offline

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

If Hollywood studios, major record labels, broadcasters, and sports organizations stopped publishing their own piracy research, the scale of the phenomenon and potential solutions would likely be less clearly defined than they are today.

What we have instead is a largely unified response across multiple industries, featuring broadly similar claims on the scale of the problem, what needs to be done, and by whom. Everyone pushing in the same direction, no wasted energy.

The messaging is notable, not for just its clarity, but for the almost complete absence of conflicting opinions on who is to blame and how various goals can be achieved. It’s as if the dozens of major companies involved, many of them rivals operating in the same market, conducted their own independent research, arrived at the same conclusions, then brainstormed identical solutions totally independently.

New Report, No Additional Friction

A new report from Enders Analysis published on Friday was quickly covered by news outlets all over the world. Tackling the illegal streaming of live sports and premium TV, the report found that “industrial scale theft of video services” costs broadcasters and sports companies “billions” while posing a “direct threat” to the “UK creative industries.”

Company founder Claire Enders, CBE, told the Financial Times that “piracy is costing content originators, pay-TV and streaming companies, many billions globally,” a conclusion drawn from various data, including that provided by various European TV companies, such as Sky in the UK.

Impactful phrases of the type mentioned above are an immediately recognizable component of the anti-piracy vocabulary. After appearing in dozens of studies and countless press releases, over the years they may have lost some of their shock value.

At a time when the unstoppable proliferation of pirate services seems to be causing genuine problems, that’s certainly unfortunate. Nevertheless, contributors to these adverse conditions are called out in the report; they may even sound familiar.

Video Piracy: Big Tech is Clearly Unwilling to Address the Problem

The sub-heading above is the title of the Ender’s report , which signals its direction right from the start. Amazon, Google, and Microsoft are variously described as not doing enough to prevent piracy, or in the case of the former, actively fueling it as an “enabler”.

“Big tech is both friend and foe in solving the piracy problem. Conflicting incentives harm consumer safety by providing easy discovery of illegal pirated services, and reduced friction through low-cost hardware such as the Amazon Firestick,” the report notes.

The soaring popularity of Amazon’s devices was obvious almost 10 years ago and thanks to a recent campaign , unprecedented media coverage raised awareness of the Amazon brand, at zero cost to the company.

Enders’ view of the ‘Firestick’ issue was in part based on data provided by Sky, which found that 59% of pirates active in the previous 12 months using a physical device, said they had consumed pirated content via an Amazon Fire device. It’s an interesting statistic, some might even consider it an opportunity to be exploited.

Yet, if Amazon chooses not to respond in the manner the industry expects, there’s no legal Plan B available. Amazon doesn’t promote its products for infringing uses. It’s also a major rightsholder, not to mention member of both the MPA and Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment. Calling the company out in court as a piracy enabler isn’t just unrealistic, it’s much worse than that.

When a legal device is framed as a threat, not just by the video industry but also here in the Enders report, all that does is divert attention away from the core issues. Specifically, one of the main reasons that premium content from the UK is so readily available from pirate sources. According to the Enders report, Big Tech must take some responsibility for that too.

Google and Microsoft Refuse to Engage on DRM

Widevine and PlayReady, owned by Google and Microsoft respectively, are anti-piracy solutions that allow authorized users to view video streams while preventing downloading and unauthorized copies. Widely used to secure premium content, Widevine is used by major streaming services including Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Sky. But, after its weaknesses were exploited several years ago, protection from determined pirates isn’t what it used to be.

“Over twenty years since launch, the DRM solutions provided by Google and Microsoft are in steep decline,” the Engers report notes.

“A complete overhaul of the technology architecture, licensing, and support model is needed. Lack of engagement with content owners indicates this a low priority.”

Put more directly, it appears that Google and Microsoft have no interest in supporting or updating 26 and 18-year-old software/systems and, as a result, content pours rather than leaks out, fueling an entire pirate ecosystem. As quite literally the ‘source’ of a significant part of the UK’s piracy problem, the Enders report quite rightly gives it a mention, although with framing clearly suggesting yet another Big Tech failure.

“The research by Enders Analysis accuses Amazon, Google, Meta and Microsoft of ‘ambivalence and inertia’ over a problem it says costs broadcasters revenue and puts users at an increased risk of cyber-crime,” coverage by the BBC reads.

That the Enders analysis views the piracy problem from the same long-standing positions of entertainment companies shouldn’t come as a surprise.

A History of Championing Intellectual Property Rights

Enders Analysis is known for its reports and generally speaking, receives praise for its work, in particular its focus on technology, telecoms and media. In 2009, founder Claire Enders told the Guardian that a prediction in 2001 that the music industry would have piracy under control by 2005, was a “Titanic” mistake. Yet, control was indeed being regained a few years later, leading to the record figures we see today and an industry in rude health.

How much of the credit for that can be attributed to Enders is hard to quantify, but her company’s position is clear, and as a staunch supporter of the UK’s Digital Economy Act, her personal position on piracy is extremely clear .

“It has been a decade since I first started to work for an industry-led anti-piracy regime, whose delay is detrimental to the creative economy,” Enders said at the time.

That the report once again highlights the scale of piracy in the market isn’t a surprise, and importantly, isn’t inaccurate either. That Big Tech comes under fire for reasons identical to those of the affected industries, is no surprise either. Yet, it may be that when voices are so unified as one, there’s no opportunity for fresh ideas that might provide a solution, in the absence of Big Tech suddenly waving its magic wand.

Surprisingly, especially given its target audience and subscription model, an article in the Financial Times covering the report has a mountain of comments from subscribers that may be quite useful.

The overwhelming majority see the piracy situation quite differently, but whether opposing views are welcome is another matter.

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

In recent years, music and movie companies have filed several lawsuits against U.S. Internet providers, for failing to take action against pirating subscribers.

One of the main allegations is that the ISPs failed to terminate the accounts of repeat infringers in ‘appropriate circumstances’, as the DMCA requires.

These lawsuits resulted in multi-million-dollar judgments against Cox and Grande. Meanwhile, other companies remained at risk, including Frontier Communications which emerged from bankruptcy three years ago.

Frontier Settles Twice

Frontier was fighting not one, but two legal battles. The troubled company faced a pair of similar piracy liability lawsuits filed by movie and music companies . Both cases were scheduled to go to trial this spring, but that didn’t happen.

Last month, we reported that the movie companies’ lawsuit had been settled on undisclosed terms. As a result, demands for pirate site blocking were also off the table.

This week, the music companies, including UMG, Sony Music and Warner Music, also reached a settlement with Frontier. In a notice submitted to the New York federal court, they informed the court that all claims are settled and can therefore be dismissed.

The case was settled “with prejudice” so the dismissed claims cannot be refiled in the future. It’s a final resolution of the dispute, preventing all parties from bringing the same claims against each other again.

The settlement terms are not mentioned, so it’s unknown whether there was any financial compensation; however, when it comes to the court proceedings, all parties agreed to bear their own costs.

Change Afoot?

The settlement arrives in the same week the U.S. Government took a position in a legal battle between Internet provider Cox and several record labels. The U.S. recommended the Supreme Court to hear Cox’s case, which seeks to overturn a liability ruling in favor of the music companies.

There is no reason to believe that the U.S. position impacted the Frontier lawsuit in any way. However, if the Supreme Court does indeed take on the matter, the eventual outcome will affect other piracy liability lawsuits against Internet providers.

Another recent development could also impact these cases. In the U.S., several lawmakers are working on site blocking legislation under which ISPs would be tasked with blocking access to pirate sites. According to recent information, some ISPs are open to this idea, provided they’re granted “ retrospective immunity “.

The details of these background discussions are sparse, but ISPs may not see the benefit in voluntarily working towards a blocking plan if they’re dealing with piracy liability lawsuits at the same time.

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A copy of the notice of settlement, submitted to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York on Wednesday, is available here (pdf).

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

A complex case that had dragged on for years, in part due to the global pandemic, concluded last summer with the conviction of five men behind pirate streaming service Jetflicks.

The court heard that Kristopher Dallmann, Douglas Courson, Felipe Garcia, Jared Jaurequi and Peter Huber, generated millions of dollars in revenue through what was described as one of the largest pirate sites in the United States.

The Case That Refuses to End

Last summer, a jury found all five men guilty of conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement. Dallmann was further convicted on two counts of money laundering by concealment, plus three counts of misdemeanor criminal copyright infringement. No sentencing date was announced at the time, but the reported maximum sentences suggested that the defendants were in for a tough ride.

Four of the men were told they could receive up to 60 months in prison, but the Department of Justice highlighted that group leader Kristopher Dallmann could face a much higher sentence

The justification for this extraordinary estimate isn’t easily explained. The current docket has close to 700 filings and indictments that date back to 2019, for conduct that concluded in 2017. It’s a case in which two additional defendants pleaded guilty six years ago , one regarding conduct at Jetflicks, the other in connection with Jetflicks and rival streaming service, iStreamitAll.

Argument Over Sentencing Continues

Over the years, sealed filings regularly interrupted the flow of information, a trend that continues today, some 10 months after the defendants’ convictions. None of the five men are currently incarcerated, and after fighting for every inch of ground for the last six years, Kristopher Dallmann isn’t ready to back down now.

In a supplemental sentencing memorandum dated last week, counsel for Dallmann contest the sentence proposed in the Presentence Investigations Report. Since access to the document is restricted, only limited details are available. However, language used by Dallmann’s counsel conveys a strong reaction to the government’s proposals, with an alternative sentencing proposition from the defense helping to establish a best-case scenario.

“Mr. Dallman respectfully asks that the Court to impose a sentence of one-year on the misdemeanor counts, 3 and 4, and a total sentence of thirty-six-months on the felony counts; each count running concurrent to each other,” the memorandum reads.

“This sentence is reasonable and ‘adequately reflects the seriousness of the offense, affords adequate deterrence, promotes respect for the law, provides just punishment for the offense, and protects the public.”

And then the teardown begins.

Government’s Loss Calculations: “Facially Absurd”

Counsel for Dallmann note that their primary focus is to dispute the PSR and the government’s infringement loss calculations, “which are, and this author does not say this lightly, facially absurd,” the submission notes.

“Nor is the Office of Probation any help in conducting these calculations as that agency has relied solely on the government’s facially problematic, and unduly enigmatic, calculations.”

Describing the sentencing guideline calculations as “unresponsive to the actual facts of the case,” the defense says the draconian end result should give the court significant pause.

“The fundamental error of the infringement loss calculations is that, in addition to being almost comically speculative, it ignores the business model at issue. This case does not involve the retail purchase of individual television shows. At issue is a streaming service that the government alleges failed to acquire the proper reproduction licenses from the actual copyright holders.”

Users of Jetflicks Were Not Victims

The memorandum states that Jetflicks users can’t be classed as victims; they paid for a service and received one. The victims, “to the extent there are any,” are the copyright holders.

“The loss at issue is the licensing fee those holders would have received had Jetflicks acquired the right to stream from those entities. What this amount would have been, if the copyright holders would have even consented, is unknown and undeterminable. What is known is that the government’s loss calculations bear almost no resemblance to actual copyright holder losses.

“The problem with the calculations, lies in the government’s pedantic reliance on the concept of retail value when that concept applies to physical counterfeited items,” the defense argues. Again, no exact figures are provided but the defense says that the “government’s proffered infringement amount dwarfs, by a literal order of magnitude, the total gross receipts of Jetflicks over its entire lifespan.”

An attempt by the government to explain its calculations lacked reliance on case law, data, or expert analysis; “Indecipherable,” according to the defense.

“To the extent one can tell what the government is attempting to argue, it appears to be counting the same streaming content over and over again.”

MPA Request for Attorney Fees

Counsel for Dallmann highlight several points to explain why the MPA’s suggestion of attorney fees is “inappropriate.” Since the MPA is not a litigant in the case, it can’t be considered a prevailing party. There’s no itemized attorney bill to show costs directly related to the case, and there’s nothing to show which fees are permissible costs.

“If the MPA is the victim in this case, as it claims to represent all impacted copyright holders, that entity has made no effort to determine its losses. Instead, it relies on the government’s facially invalid loss theory,” the memorandum continues.

As far as any costs incurred while assisting the government’s prosecution, “those are not allowable losses as the costs of prosecuting a case are not recoverable as restitution.”

The Trial Tax Problem

In December 2019, Darryl Julius Polo (aka djppimp) pleaded guilty to charges of copyright infringement and money laundering for helping to program Jetflicks and for founding and operating rival platform iStreamitAll. Polo was sentenced to 57 months in prison, with a $1 million forfeiture order covering the proceeds of his offending.

According to Dallmann, the appearance of unproven allegations from Polo’s indictment in the PSR is problematic. Polo is described as a co-conspirator, whereas Dallmann maintains that Polo was a competitor operating a similar but entirely separate business. In practical terms the difference is important; as a co-conspirator, Dallmann can be held vicariously liable for Polo’s infringing business, in addition to conduct directly attributable to his own.

The U.S. government’s headline-grabbing description of Polo’s platform iStreamitAll contained a claim that it had a bigger library than Netflix, Hulu, Vudu, and Amazon Prime. That wasn’t necessarily a statement of fact, it was a claim copied from iStreamitAll’s sales pitch.

Nevertheless, it’s consistent with iStreamItAll offering a huge library of movies and TV shows, in contrast to Jetflicks which offered TV shows only. According to the defense, a comparison of the services and contrasting government-calculated infringement amounts, show that Dallmann is being punished more severely because he exercised his right to stand trial.

“The government represented in Polo’s signed plea agreement that the infringement amount under § 2B3.5 should be between $250,000 to $500,000. This calculation was based on the value of Mr. Polo’s inventory of infringement materials as found during the execution of search warrants,” the memorandum notes.

“Yet for Mr. Dallmann, because he failed to plead guilty, the government devised an entirely new way of calculating infringement value that increased the figure by literally more than a factor of sixty.”

The government-calculated figure in Dallmann’s case, presented in the still-restricted PSR, is $37,478,436.

“This is not a question of normal plea-bargaining concessions such as whether acceptance of responsibility reductions apply or whether the government would bring additional charges,” the memorandum continues. “This is a wholesale reformulation of a previously embraced sentencing theory. This raises the appearance, if not the specter, of undue retribution and punishment for the exercise of a constitutional right.”

Argument over calculations and various points of law continues for several pages but the easily missed bottom line, is the government’s position that Dallmann’s offending warrants the most severe sentence ever handed down in an online piracy case.

The government’s conceptual corruption has resulted in a computed Sentencing Guideline range that is stunningly severe. It is reasonable to assert that a white-collar offender should not face a Sentencing Guideline range of twenty-five to thirty years for what is essentially a victimless crime; as the government has failed to show any actual victim losses.

The government’s theory dramatically increases the sentencing exposure of Mr. Dallmann. This conclusion is reinforced by looking to the calculations utilized for the co-defendants, such as Daryl Polo, where the infringement loss is approximately 1.5% of that advanced against Mr. Dallmann despite the fact the government describes Jetflicks and iStreamitAll as being similarly situated.

“Given Mr. Dallmann’s history and characteristics, which a host of mitigating factors as previously briefed under seal, a probationary sentence is warranted in this matter. If incarceration is deemed necessary by this Court, Mr. Dallmann respectfully asks this Court to consider a three-year sentence,” counsel for Dallmann conclude.

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

Over the past few years, stream-ripping service Yout.com has fought legal battles on several continents.

The most prominent lawsuit was filed by the site’s operator, American developer Johnathan Nader, who took the RIAA to court in an attempt to have the site declared legal.

Criminal Prosecution

The RIAA case is still under appeal and Yout.com remains available in most countries. Not in Brazil, however, as the site was effectively blocked several years ago after the Public Prosecutor’s Office of São Paulo, Brazil, filed a criminal complaint .

As part of the criminal proceeding, Yout.com was preemptively blocked by Brazilian ISPs. Unsurprisingly, this made the site’s traffic in the country tank. Perhaps even more concerning is a looming criminal sentence for the site’s American operator.

Nader doesn’t believe that his site is illegal, but if a Brazilian criminal court decides otherwise, criminal copyright infringement can result in a prison sentence of up to four years. Despite this pressure, Nader continues to stand behind the site.

Deal Rejected

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

Under the proposed terms, Yout’s operator would have to pay the authorities 1.9 million Brazilian real, roughly $400,000, to be allocated to a special fund earmarked for social programs.

The deal also required Yout.com to actively block Brazilian visitors and delete their accounts, while ensuring all local payments were blocked. In addition, the site would have to log access attempts from Brazil and share the details with the authorities twice per month.

Nader and his legal team gave the proposal some serious thought, but eventually decided to decline the offer. Instead, they tried to turn the case in their favor through the court.

Court Rejects Yout’s Motion to Dismiss

In the 12th Criminal Court of the Central Criminal Court Barra Funda in São Paulo, the defense tried to have the complaint dismissed, citing a lack of just cause and insufficient evidence. The request was rejected earlier this month.

After reviewing arguments from both sides, the Court ruled that the prosecution’s criminal complaint is sufficient for the case to continue.

The prosecution alleges that Yout’s operator violated article 184, paragraph 3, of the Penal Code by offering an Internet-based tool to allow users to select and download a copyrighted work without obtaining permission from the rightsholder. This was allegedly motivated by profit.

Complaint Sufficient

The Court found that the complaint meets the requirements of article 41 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.

“The indictment is based on minimal evidence, consisting of documents and expert reports, which, at this stage, are sufficient to support a judgment of admissibility. Although the defense presented strong arguments, it was unsuccessful in deconstructing the elements presented by the Public Prosecutor’s Office, and further evidence was required in the criminal investigation,” the order reads.

Yout typically describes itself as an Internet DVR. It does not store any copyright infringing material and does not know what files its users select to ‘format shift’.

However, the Court reiterated that the conditions for accepting a complaint concern evidence of authorship and materiality, not the full proof that will be developed during the investigation. Arguments about lack of evidence are not enough to reject the complaint at this initial phase.

“According to the consolidated understanding of the Supreme Courts, receiving a complaint only requires evidence of authorship and materiality, and does not require full proof, which will be produced during the investigation,” the order adds.

Prosecution Goes Ahead

Ultimately, the court concluded that the requirements for criminal prosecution are present and there are no defects that would warrant a dismissal under article 395 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. Therefore, the judge upheld the prior decision to accept the complaint.

The case will now move forward at a hearing set for August 9, 2025, for instruction, debates and judgment.

Since Nader lives in the United States, the hearing will be held virtually and won’t be required to appear in person. The prosecution is expected to present several witnesses, including a representative of the music industry.

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A copy of the (translated) order of the 12th Criminal Court of the Central Criminal Court in São Paulo is available here (pdf) .

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

Three years ago, pirated Blu-ray copies of “Spider-Man: No Way Home” began circulating on pirate sites, weeks before its official release.

Such high-profile leaks are rare, and the source of the breach remained unknown until earlier this year.

In February, the U.S. Department of Justice indicted 37-year-old Steven Hale from Tennessee, a former employee of a disc manufacturing and distribution company in Memphis. While working at the unnamed company between 2021 and 2022, Hale allegedly stole numerous “pre-release” DVD and Blu-ray discs from his employer.

These stolen discs contained many high-profile movie titles including “Spider-Man: No Way Home”.

Hale Pleads Guilty

Hale initially pleaded not guilty to two criminal copyright infringement charges and an additional charge of interstate transportation of stolen goods. This week Hale changed his plea, admitting guilt to one of the charges, and signing a plea agreement with the prosecution.

Hale entered his guilty plea to Count Two of the indictment. The charge relates to his distribution of ten or more copies of copyrighted works, including pre-release movies, for commercial advantage and private financial gain. This includes the pre-release ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’ disc, which is likely the source of the leak.

The other films covered by this count are ‘Jungle Cruise,’ ‘Venom: Let There Be Carnage,’ ‘Encanto,’ ‘Eternals,’ ‘The King’s Man,’ ‘Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings,’ ‘Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City,’ ‘Marry Me,’ ‘Sing 2,’ and ‘The Matrix Resurrections.’

Lower Sentence, Limited Damages

As part of the agreement, the prosecution agreed to drop two other counts and the Justice Department will recommend that the court awards the maximum available sentence reduction because Hale accepted responsibility. It will also recommend that the defendant is sentenced at the low end of the guideline range.

For the remaining count, Hale faces a potential maximum penalty of five years imprisonment, a $250,000 fine, and three years of supervised release. In addition, he has also agreed to pay restitution to all identifiable victims who suffered losses due to his criminal conduct.

Interestingly, for sentencing guideline purposes, the plea agreement puts the “infringement amount” between $15,000 and $40,000. That’s lower than the tens of millions of dollars in estimated losses mentioned in the indictment related to ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home. The final damages amount has yet to be determined by the court.

1,160 Blu-rays and DVDs

The plea agreement doesn’t add much detail to what is already publicly known. Importantly, however, it does reveal that law enforcement seized approximately 1,160 Blu-rays and DVDs from the defendant on or around March 14, 2022.

This means that the authorities had tracked down Hale as a potential suspect just days after the ‘Spider-Man’ movie leaked online. After that, it took nearly three years before the defendant was indicted.

Why the indictment took so long is unknown, but the case may have been part of a broader ongoing investigation.

Speculation and Sentencing

While one can only speculate beyond this point, it is worth pointing out that the early online leaks of “Spider-Man: No Way Home” were shared publicly by the infamous release group EVO. This group was known for distributing pre-release content.

A few months after the authorities tracked down Hale, EVO was dismantled by the Portuguese authorities . There is no evidence to suggest that these two cases are connected, but it’s not impossible either.

What we do know for sure is that Hale will be sentenced by the District Court of Tennessee later this year. This sentencing hearing is scheduled to take place at the end of August.

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A copy of the Plea Agreement, signed by all parties and submitted to the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Tennessee is available here (pdf) .

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

Describing Sweden as a country with a serious pirate IPTV problem is technically accurate, but lacking in all-important context.

As a member of the European Union, Sweden is among 27 member states experiencing broadly similar difficulties. The main drivers usually boil down to lots of content being accessible from one supplier, at a price people can afford or are willing to pay.

There are variables across the bloc, from consumer demand for specific types of often expensive regional content, to rightsholders’ ability to take action, and/or convince local governments to commit scarce resources towards solving the problem.

In broad terms, the problem today is worse than it was pre-2020. No combination of industry measures, legal amendments, or government investment, has delivered anything close to a solution, anywhere in the EU. Even when positive news does arrive, it’s often met with cautious suspicion.

60,000 Swedish Households Say “No” to IPTV

Stockholm-based consulting firm Mediavision conducts regular surveys to assess consumption trends in the Nordic countries. Its report for Sweden covering several months in 2024 could hardly have been worse.

In the period bridging spring and the fall of last year, pirate IPTV subscription rates increased by a record 25% , with an estimated 700,000 households (one subscription = one household) regularly consuming from illicit sources. On face value, however, the numbers in Mediavision’s latest report seem to indicate progress.

“The use of illegal IPTV is still high and it is now estimated that 640,000 Swedish households pay for illegal IPTV services,” says anti-piracy group Rights Alliance ( Rattighetsalliansen ).

When a 60,000-household reduction warrants such a frosty reception (Rights Alliance says it’s too early to celebrate), the rest of the figures may not be encouraging either.

2.3 Million Swedes Use Illegal Source Every Month

The new Mediavision survey estimates that 2.3 million Swedes aged 15 to 74-years-old, consume movies, TV shows, or live sports, from illegal sources, at least every month. Sweden is a relatively small country where 2.3 million people represent 30% of the population.

Studies regularly show that infringement rates are higher among younger people; Sweden continues the long-standing trend here.

Among citizens aged 15 to 34, over half say they regularly use content from illegal sources. As expected, piracy rates are highest among younger men and when every other person is already a subscriber or regular viewer, word tends to spread especially fast.

Organized Crime

The Rights Alliance graphic below shows that another large number is also causing concern.

In 2019, the European Union Intellectual Property Office estimated that pirate IPTV services were generating close to a billion euros in annual revenue, in the EU alone ( pdf ) . At the time, the Netherlands and Sweden had the highest percentage of IPTV users in the bloc, with 8.9% and 8.5% respectively.

To put Sweden’s pirate IPTV growth into perspective, today’s 640,000 households can be placed alongside 616,700 individuals in the six-year-old EU report. In 2018, revenue generated by pirate providers from Swedish sales was an estimated 490,000 euros.

The 1.4 billion figure above is in Swedish Krona; at today’s exchange rate that’s €137.6 million (US$154.8 million)

“1.4 billion SEK directly from Swedish households into the criminal economy is unacceptable. Organized crime is fueled, and the damages to rights holders are much bigger than this,” Rights Alliance says.

An investigation launched in Sweden a year ago is still ongoing. Alongside an assessment of financial damage to the film and TV industries, advice on whether action against IPTV subscribers is required (including a ‘ban’ on IPTV itself) is expected in the final report. Rights Alliance believes that more can be done immediately.

“There is a need for increased resources and enhanced expertise among police and prosecutors,” says Rights Alliance lawyer and former police IP crime investigator, Alma Shawwaf.

“Several actors can also do more to make it harder for criminals, not least payment providers and search engines such as Google.”

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

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

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

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

Landmark Piracy Battle

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

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

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

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

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

U.S. Backs Cox’s Petition

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

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

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

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

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

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

Innocent Subscribers at Risk

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

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

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

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

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

No Willful Infringement

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

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

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

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

Music Companies’ Writ Should be Denied

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

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

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

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

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

—

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

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

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

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

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

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

Outlawed By Some Courts, Unprecedented Blocking Ensued

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

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

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

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

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

The Importance of Definitions

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

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

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

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

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

Does TV Subscription Data Reveal Any Positive Effects of Blocking?

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

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

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

That leads to another complication.

No Evidence to Show Overblocking

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

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

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

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

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

The controversial order is available here (pdf, Spanish)

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