With the continued growth of pirate IPTV services in recent years, TV broadcasters and distributors have been ramping up their anti-piracy efforts.

The International Broadcaster Coalition Against Piracy ( IBCAP ) has been particularly active. It’s also the main driver behind a new lawsuit filed yesterday by DISH Network at a New York federal court.

Dish Sues Pirate IPTV Operation

The American pay-TV provider accuses Moroccan resident Idriss Elkasmi and various unnamed defendants of running the IPTV operation, using various brands, including DMTN IPTV, Idriss Premium TV and Manx TV.

These services allegedly offered access to thousands of live channels and up to 100,000 movies and series on demand.

In addition, the complaint names Ali Ezzaary and various John Does as co-defendants. They allegedly promoted and enabled access to the pirate IPTV services as secondary infringers by collecting payments, among other things.

Dish has been aware of the IPTV services for years already and repeatedly issued takedown notices, hoping to stop the infringing activity. However, that didn’t yield the desired result, after which Dish decided to take legal action.

“Even after receiving 68 cease-and-desist notices from DISH between 2021 and 2026, Elkasmi and the other Defendants have defiantly continued to operate the Infringing Service, willfully infringing DISH’s copyrights on a massive scale with actual knowledge that their activities are unlawful,” the complaint reads.

Leather Backpack & Breaking Bad

According to the International Broadcaster Coalition Against Piracy (IBCAP), which coordinates the legal action on behalf of Dish, the operators also used various deceptive tactics to hide the nature of their operation.

When an undercover Dish investigator purchased an IPTV subscription, Elkasmi’s WhatsApp account sent instructions to send the payment to another business called “Genuine Leather”.

When finalized, the investigator received a receipt falsely stating the purchase was for a “Philos Brown Leather BackPack.” Soon after, the same investigator received working credentials to access the pirate IPTV service.

As DISH’s investigative activity intensified ahead of filing, Elkasmi allegedly took additional steps to obscure his identity. He took down his LinkedIn profile and replaced his Facebook profile photo with an image of someone else entirely.

“The new photo used by Defendant Elkasmi is in fact an image of a famous Hollywood director named Vince Gilligan, who gained notoriety as the creator of a popular television show called ‘Breaking Bad,’ as well as its spinoff, ‘Better Call Saul.’ The same image appears on Mr. Gilligan’s IMDB page,” the complaint reads.

“There is no indication that Mr. Gilligan has any connection whatsoever to Defendant Elkasmi or the Infringing Service,” the complaint adds.

$21 Million & a Broad Injunction

The lawsuit mentions that at least 145 registered copyrighted works were infringed, and DISH seeks the maximum of $150,000 in statutory copyright infringement damages for each, totaling over $21 million.

Beyond the multi-million damages figure, DISH requests a permanent injunction and the transfer of domains including dmtn4k.com, dmtn-tv.net, and dmtn8k.com. In addition, it would like the injunction to cover third parties enabling the service. That includes hosting providers, CDNs, ISPs, and payment processors.

IBCAP executive director Chris Kuelling said the organization expects the case to follow the pattern of previous successful actions. In addition to a victory in court, he hopes that intermediaries, ranging from payment providers to CDNs, will help to keep the IPTV services offline.

“In line with past lawsuit wins, we expect a similar outcome in this case, including a broad injunction that can be enforced against third parties, such as hosting providers, CDNs, ISPs, and payment processors, to stop this infringement,” Kuelling said.

The involvement of third-party intermediaries could be key, as the Moroccan defendants have not been very responsive thus far. They allegedly ignored previous takedown requests from rightsholders in the past, so there’s a realistic chance that they will not appear in court either.

As of the filing date, dmtn8k.com and dmtniptv.net remain active, and these services continue to operate.

—-

A copy of the complaint filed by Dish Network at the Southern District of New York is available here (pdf) .

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

VPNs have long been a thorn in the side of LaLiga, as they are used to circumvent the ISP blocking measures it has spent years securing in local courts.

To address this problem, the Spanish football league has recently gone to court to target the VPNs themselves.

Today, the Commercial Court No. 1 of Córdoba granted LaLiga and its broadcasting partner Telefónica Audiovisual Digital (TAD) an emergency injunction, targeting NordVPN and ProtonVPN . The VPN companies must block IP addresses linked to illegal streaming of LaLiga matches, making these inaccessible from Spain.

The orders offer no immediate appeal option, according to El Economista , and there is one significant caveat. Neither VPN company was present in court when the ruling was handed down.

VPNs Not Heard

The court orders were issued inaudita parte , which is Latin for “without hearing the other side.” Citing urgency, the Córdoba court did not give NordVPN and ProtonVPN the opportunity to contest the measures before they were granted.

Without a defense, the court reportedly concluded that both NordVPN and ProtonVPN actively advertise their ability to bypass geo-restrictions, citing match schedules in their marketing materials. The VPNs are therefore seen as active participants in the piracy chain rather than passive conduits, according to local media reports.

The order is dynamic, which means that LaLiga and Telefónica can update the list of IP addresses the VPNs must block at any time, when new illegal streams are identified. In practice, this would require NordVPN and ProtonVPN to continuously receive and apply new blocklists during live match windows, effectively mirroring the real-time blocking infrastructure already imposed on Spanish ISPs.

In the past, Spanish blocking measures have been heavily criticized , as they also affected innocent parties that shared IP addresses with pirate services.

The court acknowledged this risk. It obligated LaLiga and Telefónica to preserve sufficient digital evidence that the IPs they report are genuinely tied to illegal content, a requirement designed to reduce collateral damage. It is not immediately clear how effectively this will prevent overblocking.

“We Have Not Been Formally Notified”

ProtonVPN apparently learned about the ruling from news reports, the same way everyone else did.

“We have become aware of recent reports concerning legal proceedings in Spain that may affect VPN services, including Proton VPN,” the company wrote on X . “At this stage, we were not aware of any proceedings that may have been underway prior to these reports coming to light and have not been formally notified of any proceedings or judgment.”

The company questions whether the order has any legal validity at all.

“Spanish courts, like all courts operating under the rule of law, are bound by procedural safeguards that ensure parties are given a fair opportunity to present their case before any binding judgment is rendered,” the VPN company noted.

NordVPN, speaking to Spanish tech outlet Bandaancha , called the approach “unacceptable” and also confirmed that it had not been involved in any legal proceedings in Spain.

Outside EU Jurisdiction

While the current orders are a first in Spain, we have seen similar blocking injunctions in France already. In May 2025, the Paris Judicial Court ordered five major VPN providers to block access to more than 200 illegal sports streaming sites, and similar orders followed .

In France, the orders are still under appeal. What options are available in Spain is unclear, however. The providers can comply, but they might also explore indirect options to challenge the injunctions, including jurisdictional concerns.

Enforcing the order is far from straightforward. ProtonVPN is operated by Proton AG, a Swiss company based in Geneva. NordVPN is operated by Nord Security, incorporated in Panama. Neither country is an EU member state.

This jurisdiction issue raises significant questions about enforcement. While the court has ordered the rulings to be translated and sent to the companies’ headquarters, it remains unclear what leverage a Spanish commercial court has over entities in Panama or Switzerland.

For now, the orders are in effect, and the companies are officially on notice. Whether any football match in Spain will actually become harder to pirate as a result remains to be seen, but LaLiga is pleased with the outcome and called it a landmark victory.

—

The original court filing from Juzgado Mercantil No. 1 de Córdoba was not immediately available to us.

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

HDFull is a pirate streaming portal that has served Spanish-speaking audiences for years, offering a massive library of movies and TV shows.

Despite being the target of court-ordered ISP blocks in Spain going back to 2018 , the site has proven remarkably resilient, hopping from domain to domain to stay accessible.

The site also maintained an active Discord community, “HDFull Oficial,” with roughly 33,000 members. However, while the main site remained operating, the Discord server abruptly disappeared last week.

On February 11, HDFull’s official X account posted a message informing users that there was an ‘issue’ with the original Discord community, directing them to a newly created replacement server.

The admins and moderators of the site and Discord server didn’t go into detail on this apparent ‘issue,’ but it didn’t take long before the culprit was identified. As it turns out, anti-piracy group ACE requested Discord to take action.

DMCA Subpoena Targets Discord

On February 13, the MPA filed a request for a DMCA subpoena at the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, targeting Discord. On behalf of ACE members Warner Bros. and Universal, MPA asked the company to identify two key users who operated the HDFull Oficial server.

The targeted accounts belong to the Discord user “hdfull”, who appears to be the server owner and primary moderator, and “xenus9999”, a moderator with “Mod” and “Uploaders” roles.

The filing includes a DMCA notice sent to Discord on February 9, two days before the server went dark. This notice explicitly asks Discord to disable the HDFull server, which is precisely what happened.

The notice came with a 23-page exhibit documenting the server’s activities in detail. Screenshots show the “hdfull” account sharing direct links to infringing streams of Warner Bros.’ The Batman and It Chapter Two on the HDFull website. The “xenus9999” account allegedly posted links to The Batman and Universal’s Furious 7.

Through the DMCA subpoena, ACE asks Discord to hand over names, physical addresses, IP addresses, telephone numbers, and email addresses for the individuals behind both accounts.

Cloudflare Subpoena Targets 19 Domains

The Discord subpoena was not the only filing submitted by MPA and ACE last Friday. They filed a separate DMCA subpoena at the Central District of California Court, targeting Cloudflare. This subpoena seeks to unmask the operators of 19 pirate streaming domains, including HDFull.org.

Cloudflare is asked to identify the customers connected to the pirate site accounts, with the MPA citing various copyright-infringing links that appear on these platforms.

The 19 targeted domains are noticeably diverse, covering multiple languages and regions. For example, in addition to English portals, they include the German streaming veteran kinox.to , mirrors of Spanish-language site Pelisflix, Turkish streaming sites, and an Arabic anime portal, among others.

The pirated titles range from recent blockbusters like Moana 2, Gladiator 2, Nobody 2, and Venom: The Last Dance, to older catalog titles including Tenet, Frozen II, The Lion King, and Tangled.

For all 19 domains, Cloudflare is asked to provide names, physical addresses, IP addresses, telephone numbers, email addresses, payment information, account updates, and account histories. While many pirate sites are known to share false data, ACE hopes to find sufficient information to expose some of the operations.

HDFull’s Long and Resilient History

HDFull has been a thorn in Hollywood’s side for the better part of a decade. In 2018, following complaints from Disney, Fox, Paramount, Sony, Universal, and Warner, a court in Barcelona ordered Spanish ISPs including Telefónica, Vodafone, and Orange to block the site along with fellow pirate portal Repelis.tv.

The site responded by doing what many pirate sites do: going on a domain hopping spree.

The court filing’s exhibit documents this in vivid detail. Screenshots from the Discord server show the “hdfull” account periodically posting updated lists of working domains for its users. An October 2025 screenshot shows at least 13 active mirror domains, from hdfull.org and hdfull.one to hdfull.love, hdfull.monster, and hdfull.buzz.

The Discord server, in other words, helped to evade the very ISP blocks that courts had ordered. Other messages also recommend Spanish users install Cloudflare’s WARP VPN to circumvent blocks imposed by their internet providers.
This dual role, as both a community hub and an anti-blocking tool, likely made the Discord server a key target for ACE.

What Happens Next?

Both subpoenas have yet to be signed off on by a court clerk. Interestingly, the Discord subpoena requires a response by February 27, “2025” rather than 2026. The request for subpoena and the declaration were also signed and dated February 13, 2025 , suggesting that the MPA is struggling to adapt to the new year. These errors will have to be corrected.

Whether Cloudflare and Discord will comply without resistance remains to be seen, but both companies are usually responsive to valid subpoenas issued by a U.S. court.

ACE has used this playbook before. Late last year, the MPA filed a similar DMCA subpoena targeting Discord over pirate streaming site OnionPlay, successfully getting the server shut down while seeking to unmask its operator.

For HDFull’s operators, being targeted from multiple directions at once likely puts them on high alert. For now, however, the site remains online, with over a dozen operational backup domains in place. In addition, the team has set up a new Discord server to replace the one that was taken down.

—

A copy of the Discord DMCA subpoena request, filed at the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, is available here (pdf) . The Cloudflare DMCA subpoena request, filed at the Central District of California, is available here (pdf) .

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

Amazon is not just the largest e-commerce retailer; the company also has a significant copyright portfolio.

In recent years, Amazon has increased its anti-piracy efforts, both individually and as a member of the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE).

The company does all it can to protect popular titles such as Fallout, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, and The Boys, which are typically pirated shortly after their release.

Amazon Sues Pirate DVD Operation

The main focus of these anti-piracy efforts is on pirate streaming and download portals, but it doesn’t end there. In 2023, Amazon sued several websites that sold pirated DVDs disguised as official releases.

While pirated discs are no longer as popular as they were 20 years ago, they remain a problem, especially when illicit copies are sold as the real deal.

The piracy operation consisted of at least eight websites, including dvdshelf.com.au, dvds.trade, dvd-wholesale.com, and dvdwholesale.co.uk. These sites were all linked to the same group of defendants: DVD Trade Int. Ltd, Media Wholesale UK, and an individual named Yangchun Zhang, who reportedly resides in China.

Since Amazon has never released some of these Prime Video series on DVD, there was no doubt the discs were created from illicit sources. Amazon’s investigators conducted more than twenty test purchases, and the Motion Picture Association confirmed that every single sample was pirated.

Defendants Don’t Appear in Court

The defendants were served with the complaint in April 2024 but never appeared in court. According to Amazon’s attorneys, however, the defendants shut some domains down, trading them in for new ones, suggesting that they were aware of the legal pressure.

When Amazon eventually filed its motion for default judgment in March 2025, at least two of the piracy websites were still active. That still holds true at the time of writing, as dvd-wholesale.com and dvdshelf.com.au remain online.

Amazon argued that the defendants were willingly ignoring the lawsuit and simply refused to show up in court. The company requested millions of dollars in damages as well as domain transfers to shut the sites down. After reviewing all the evidence, the court agreed.

$6 Million in Damages

This week, Judge Fernando Aenlle-Rocha of the Central District of California granted Amazon’s motion for default judgment in full, awarding a total of $6,075,000 in statutory damages for copyright and trademark infringement.

Amazon Content Services was awarded $3,075,000 for copyright infringement covering 78 copyrighted episodes across seven television series, including The Rings of Power, The Boys, Clarkson’s Farm, and The Legend of Vox Machina.

The court awarded $75,000 per infringed work for titles Amazon exclusively owns, and proportionally lower amounts for co-owned titles. This is in line with what Amazon proposed itself.

The court also awarded Amazon Technologies an additional $3,000,000 for willful trademark infringement, at $1 million per infringed mark for three of its registered trademarks. This is also in line with what Amazon proposed.

All three defendants, DVD Trade, Media Wholesale UK, and Zhang, are jointly and severally liable for the full damages amount. However, enforcing this type of order against evasive foreign defendants might prove difficult. Therefore, Amazon also requested an injunction targeting the hosting companies and domain names.

Broad Injunction and Domain Transfers

In the order, Judge Fernando Aenlle-Rocha agrees a permanent injunction that extends well beyond the named defendants is indeed warranted.

Specifically, the order prohibits defendants from reproducing, distributing, advertising, or selling any copies of Amazon’s copyrighted works, and also targets the infrastructure behind the piracy operation.

The court directed domain registrars GoDaddy and Drop.com.au to transfer ownership of all eight piracy domains to Amazon. Meanwhile, top-level domain registries, including Verisign, auDA, Elite Registry Limited, and Nominet UK, are also ordered to assist with the transfers.

Finally, hosting providers that receive notice of the order must suspend services to the piracy websites and place administrative locks on them to prevent the sites from simply moving elsewhere.

To be Continued?

Importantly, the court also left open the option to extend the injunction to additional domains and websites in the future, if Amazon can demonstrate they are operated by the same defendants and infringe its copyrights or trademarks.

This extension might be much-needed, as the defendants have shown no signs of engaging with the legal process, and it remains to be seen whether a single penny in damages will ever be collected.

Ultimately, the broad injunction is the real prize, however, as this should make it significantly harder for them to continue operating their piracy network, at least under these domain names.

—

A copy of the court’s order granting default judgment and permanent injunction, filed at the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, is available here (pdf) .

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

Like most other countries, South Korea has a persistent piracy problem. Online streaming platforms in particular have flourished in recent years.

While several large piracy platforms such as Noonoo and TVWIKI have been shut down, new threats continue to emerge.

To deal with this problem, Korean rightsholders use advanced OSINT tools to track down offenders and hold them responsible. In addition, dedicated anti-piracy groups deployed advanced AI monitoring systems.

While anti-piracy efforts increasingly turn into an AI-assisted arms race, human involvement remains valuable too. In fact, the Korea Copyright Protection Agency ( KCOPA ) is actively recruiting more people to help monitor foreign language pirate sites.

In the current application round , KCOPA is hoping to add 25 people. These ‘K-Copyright Monitors,’ as they are called, will be paired with the agency’s automated detection systems to track down pirated Korean content overseas. The initiative, now in its fourth year, helps to flag foreign pirate sites early.

The full recruitment notice, published by the Korea Software Copyright Association on behalf of the KCOPA, notes that ten languages are targeted: Chinese, English, Thai, Vietnamese, Spanish, Indonesian, Arabic, Russian, Portuguese, and French.

Malware, Viruses & Minimum Wage

While foreign applicants are welcome, the job application is in Korean and targeted locally, which isn’t likely to invite many outsiders. The job starts next month and runs until November 27, and applicants are required to work from a registered home address.

Prospective applicants must currently be unemployed and should not expect a high salary. The hourly rate is 10,320 won, or roughly $7.50, which is South Korea’s minimum wage.

The day-to-day work involves scanning overseas websites for pirated copies of Korean films, dramas, web novels, webtoons, music, and published works, then collecting infringement data and evidence. The KCOPA shares this data with rights holders and also uses it for enforcement purposes.

One detail that stands out is that applicants must be prepared to deal with “viruses and ransomware” that can occasionally be found on pirate sites. For this reason, they may want to set up a virtual machine for the piracy monitoring job.

Why Humans Still Matter

In response to questions from TorrentFreak, KCOPA explained why it continues to rely on human monitors alongside its automated systems. The agency said that while AI-based detection is effective at identifying large volumes of infringing content, the techniques used to distribute pirated material are also evolving rapidly.

Human monitors can identify new patterns of infringement that automated systems struggle to detect, and can make more flexible judgments about whether content actually constitutes a violation, the agency said.

The experience of human monitors with analyzing pirate sites across different language regions helps to improve the automated system’s accuracy over time.

“For repetitive and standardized types of infringement, we actively utilize automated systems,” KCOPA senior official Park So-yeon told TorrentFreak, translated from Korean. “At the same time, we use human monitoring to compensate for the limitations of automated systems and to verify the accuracy of detection results.”

240,000 Links Deleted

The ten languages are picked based on survey data, identifying the foreign languages where Korean Wave content is most prevalent. According to KCOPA, the K-Copyright Monitors have been quite effective over the years.

Since the program started, link deletions have increased every year. In 2025 alone, approximately 240,000 pirated links were removed, KCOPA notes in a press release this week.

“To recognize the fair value of K-content in the global market, an immediate and systematic response to illegal distribution is essential,” KCOPA Director Park Jung-ryeol said, translated from Korean. “Through the operation of K-Copyright Monitors, we will closely analyze overseas infringement situations and respond immediately.”

—-

https://cm.asiae.co.kr/en/article/2026020909455719985

https://www.kcopa.or.kr/eng/index.do

https://www.kcopa.or.kr/eng/lay1/S120T436C508/contents.do

https://m.blog.naver.com/kcopastory/221883080121

https://m.blog.naver.com/PostView.naver?blogId=kcopastory&logNo=224156143734&navType=by

https://www.asiae.co.kr/article/life-general/2026020909455719985

https://www.spc.or.kr/ko/notification/noti/sw_sub411?no=1420

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

In September 2024, we reported on an unprecedented anti-piracy measure handed down in Argentina.

Judge Esteban Rossignoli required local ISPs to block 69 domains linked to the pirate IPTV service Magis TV. More controversially, the judge also ordered Google to remotely uninstall sideloaded Magis TV apps from all Android devices with Argentine IP addresses.

“What was achieved is an unprecedented court order, which is in the process of being analyzed by Google – we understand that they cannot deny it – which is to uninstall, through the Android operating system update, the application on all devices that have an IP address in Argentina,” prosecutor Alejandro Musso said at the time.

While the Magis TV crackdown has some effect, the brand wasn’t gone. New IPTV services continued to pop up, including an apparent rebrand: XuperTV. This week, these two services are both targeted in a new high-profile court order.

70+ Domains Blocked, Apps Go Dark

On February 10 and 11, thousands of Argentine users discovered that Magis TV and its successor Xuper TV had stopped working entirely. Channel lists wouldn’t load, connections timed out, and in some cases, the apps completely vanished from smart TVs and mobile devices.

This is the result of Judge Rossignoli’s new court order, which covers more than 70 domains. The order requires ISPs to block domains and IP-addresses and, similar to the earlier version, orders Google to disable the applications on Android devices connecting from Argentina.

Users attempting to open the apps are greeted with a blunt message:

“Due to policy limitations, the account cannot be used in your area. Contact your retailer.”

The court order is part of a broader enforcement action, led by Argentina’s Specialized Unit on Cybercrime (UFEIC) under prosecutor Musso. According to La Nación and Cadena 3 , the investigation included raids and the seizure of hundreds of TV Boxes. Those identified as responsible face up to six years in prison.

Before the full block hit, the platforms reportedly tried to limit their exposure by deleting all Argentine channels . However, that clearly didn’t work.

Operación 404

The Argentinian enforcement is part of Operación 404 , an international anti-piracy operation led by Brazil’s Ministry of Justice that has previously coordinated raids and domain seizures across Latin America.

Coinciding with the Argentinian actions, Chile’s Department of Telecommunications ordered ISPs to block all sites using the brands Magis Tv, Flujo TV, Xuper TV or their variants. That includes “any domain, subdomain, IP address, link, redirect or mirror” that reproduces the content. The dynamic blocking order gives ISPs five days to comply.

The Chilean action was triggered by a complaint from Warner Bros. Discovery. ISPs must display a notice stating the sites were blocked for intellectual property infringement.

The Milei/Trump IP Agreement

The timing of the anti-piracy actions might not be coincidental. On February 5, Argentina and the United States signed a trade and investment agreement that includes explicit commitments on intellectual property enforcement.

Argentina committed to “establish a robust standard of protection for intellectual property” and to create “effective systems for enforcement in civil, criminal, and border areas” that “combat and deter the infringement or misappropriation of intellectual property, including in the digital environment.”

The United States reportedly lodged more than 100 copyright-related demands in the negotiations. Article 1.10 specifically commits Argentina to “investigate and bring criminal proceedings against operators of Argentina-based websites that engage in commercial-scale copyright piracy.”

That language goes well beyond Magis TV. It also targets sites like Fútbol Libre and Pelota Libre, which stream Argentine football without authorization.

VPN Interest Spikes

In addition to blocking pirate sites, the actions had an immediate side effect: a surge in VPN usage.

On February 10, Proton VPN’s account on X posted a graph showing a sharp spike in Argentine connections, asking: “Is everything okay in Argentina?”

Apparently, pirates quickly began sharing workarounds on social media. A common one involves installing ProtonVPN, connecting to a Mexican server, then reopening Magis TV or Xuper TV. In some cases, the apps work again via the VPN.

Others are changing DNS settings on their smart TVs manually, though this is reportedly becoming less effective. According to FayerWayer, rights protection systems are now using AI to identify pirate IPTV traffic in real time, leaving users who reconnect with constant interruptions and degraded quality.

What’s Next

The search for workarounds in response to blocking efforts is not new. We have seen this countless times already, dating back more than a decade ago. These blocking workarounds don’t only apply to users, the operators of pirate services and apps also have to get creative.

Whether Google actually complied with the removal order and, if so, what actions it took precisely remains an open question. Magis TV apps were distributed mostly as sideloaded APK files from third-party websites. For Google to remotely disable such an app, it would need to intervene on the users’ devices directly.

App developers could likely find ways to work around it by rebranding again, simply continuing the game of whack-a-mole. But that’s nothing new, of course.

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

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

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

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

Through a preliminary injunction targeting domain registrars and registries, the shadow library lost several domain names. However, not all were taken down, and with the addition of a new Greenland-based backup , the site apparently pushed through with the feared Spotify data release.

Millions of Music Files

While there hasn’t been an official announcement or a formal listing on the torrent page, several people have spotted dozens of new Spotify download links in the torrents.json file hosted on the site. These files were added on February 8, presumably with a single seeder.

At the time of writing, we count 47 new music torrents, plus a new metadata torrent. These releases all contain 60,000 files, except for a smaller batch, bringing the total to roughly 2.8 million files. That’s roughly 6 terabytes of music.

In addition, there’s a massive 29 GB ‘seekable’ metadata file, which likely acts as the index for the 2.8 million tracks that use abstract Spotify track IDs as names.

On Reddit, the mysterious releases are actively discussed in various threads. They do indeed contain music files, ranging from a few hundred kilobytes to several megabytes. The filenames reference what appear to be Spotify track IDs but contain no artist names or song titles. Instead, they likely match Spotify’s internal cache format.

The music files themselves come with embedded media information and metadata, including song, album, artist, and publisher, among others. If applicable, the cover art is also included.

The torrents are labeled “pop_0,” which, based on Anna’s Archive’s earlier blog post, refers to the popularity rank. The site previously said it planned a staggered release, based on how popular releases are, but additional batches could follow.

Defying the Injunction

The release comes despite a preliminary injunction signed by Judge Jed Rakoff on January 16. That order explicitly prohibited Anna’s Archive from hosting, linking to, or distributing the copyrighted works, and also targeted third-party intermediaries, including domain registries, hosting companies, and Cloudflare.

Anna’s Archive previously appeared to comply, at least in part. The site’s dedicated Spotify download section was removed and marked as “unavailable until further notice.” However, the new torrents suggest that this was a temporary measure rather than a lasting retreat.

Until now, only metadata had been released publicly, compressed into roughly 200GB. The actual music files, which the lawsuit specifically sought to prevent from being distributed, are of much bigger concern.

What’s Next

Given the gravity of the situation, Spotify and the labels are not expected to sit idly by. Anna’s Archive previously said it archived roughly 86 million music files, and almost 300 terabytes in total, so there could be more to come.

Whether the music companies will also monitor people who share these files for potential legal follow-ups is unknown, but they will do their best to keep the pressure on intermediaries.

The music companies already have a court-ordered injunction that compels domain name registrars and registries to make the site inaccessible. However, we have observed that companies and organizations that fall outside the U.S. jurisdiction don’t automatically comply with these.

At the time of writing, Anna’s Archive has not publicly commented on the new release yet. Spotify informed us that the company has no further comments at this time and referred us to the preliminary injunction it obtained in U.S. court last month.

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

Pirate site blocking is a common practice in dozens of countries around the world, and the Netherlands and Germany are no exceptions.

The neighboring countries rely on court-ordered blocking decisions, with a twist; ISPs in both countries voluntarily agreed to honor orders against other providers. At the start of this year, this applied to two Nintendo-related pirate sites.

Dutch Dynamic ‘NXBrew’ Blocking Order

In the Netherlands, the Rotterdam District Court granted a blocking order requested by Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN . Last week, the court ordered local ISP Delta Fiber to block access to NXBrew.net, a popular platform that reportedly links to more than 12,000 pirated Nintendo Switch games.

This is the first site blocking order against a gaming-related site in the Netherlands.

The order includes a dynamic blocking provision, requiring Delta Fiber to also block future domains, subdomains, proxies, and mirrors. This means if NXBrew shifts to new domains to evade the blockades, BREIN can add them without returning to court. For now, however, only the .net domain is targeted.

Delta Fiber made an appearance in the Dutch court, but it offered no substantive defense. The court subsequently granted BREIN’s requests in full, adding NXBrew to the national blocklist.

Nintendo was not directly involved in the legal proceeding; instead, its rights were represented by BREIN, which is the primary driver behind Dutch blocking requests.

ISPs and Google Cooperate

While Delta Fiber was the only targeted ISP, other major Dutch Internet providers have agreed to follow suit under the site-blocking covenant that was signed in October 2021.

In addition to broadening the ISP blockades, the covenant also requires BREIN to complete a step-by-step plan before taking legal action. This includes trying to contact the site operators or urging the respective hosting companies to take action. A blocking order should be used as the last resort.

In addition to notifying all ISPs, BREIN says that it also sent Google a copy of the ruling requesting removal of NXBrew links from its search results. While not part of the covenant, the search engine is known to voluntarily comply with ISP blocking orders, even when the company itself is not named. That further increases the scope of the injunction.

German Court Blocks NSWPedia

The Dutch order is not the only Nintendo-linked blocking action this year. On January 27, Cologne Regional Court in Germany ruled that NSWPedia, another piracy site, must be blocked by German ISPs.

German ISPs also agreed to cooperate through the CUII (Clearing Body for Copyright on the Internet) framework, which coordinates blocking efforts between rightsholders and ISPs. Under this system, one court order triggers voluntary blocks across participating providers, similar to the Dutch scheme.

NSWPedia was classified as a “structurally copyright-infringing website.” Through a representative random sample, the court determined that between 94.4% and 99.8% of the content was infringing.

CUII’s implementation order doesn’t mention the rightsholder and the underlying court order was not immediately available. However, we expect that Nintendo (or their affiliate) is the complainant.

Transparency Concerns

While both systems rely on judicial oversight, transparency remains a concern, especially when ISPs don’t substantially push back in court proceedings.

Transparency is particularly limited in Germany, where there is no official public blocklist. This lack of openness led a German developer named Lina to create CUIILliste.de , an unofficial monitoring site that has exposed several blocking errors.

In the Netherlands, some ISPs offer more transparency. This includes Delta Fiber, which provides a list of all blocked domain names. The list, which includes piracy and Russian propaganda blocks , is currently a few hundred entries long and publicly accessible on the company’s website.

—

A copy of the CUII blocking implementation statement on NSWPedia, referencing the Cologne court order, is available here (pdf) . TorrentFreak has seen a copy of the NXBrew ruling issued by the Rotterdam Court, but it has not been published publicly yet.

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

With an impressive 185 million visitors per month early last year, Mangajikan was one of the largest piracy sites on the Internet.

The site’s popularity did not go unnoticed by manga publisher Shueisha, which took legal action at a California federal court last summer to uncover the operator’s identity.

Shueisha filed a request for a DMCA subpoena, directed at Cloudflare, hoping to expose the operator. This appeared to yield results right away, as mangajikan.com and the related domain alammanga.com were voluntarily taken down soon after.

The DMCA subpoena was granted last October , despite fierce objections from Mangajikan’s former operator. However, Cloudflare could not hand anything over yet, as both sides disagreed on the scope of the associated protective order. This disagreement was finally resolved this week.

U.S. Enforcement Only

At the heart of the dispute was whether Shueisha could use the pirate site operator’s identity for copyright lawsuits in Japan or other foreign jurisdictions. The manga publisher argued it should have that flexibility, as it couldn’t know the operator’s location when requesting the subpoena.

Magistrate Judge Thomas S. Hixson disagreed.

In a discovery order issued this week, the court stated that the DMCA subpoena’s purpose and scope is clearly defined by the sworn declaration Shueisha made to obtain it. This legally required statement says that the subpoena “will only be used for the purpose of protecting rights under this title.”

“‘[T]his title’ means title 17 of the United States Code, so only U.S.-based copyright claims are within the purpose of the subpoena,” Judge Hixson wrote, adding that “foreign litigation is outside of that scope.”

The ruling effectively means Shueisha can identify the operator to its team in Japan, as long as this is to aid U.S. copyright enforcement. However, it cannot use the data obtained through the Cloudflare subpoena to file copyright infringement actions in foreign courts.

U.S. Lawsuit Can’t Be Used as Bypass

The court also rejected Shueisha’s argument that filing a U.S. copyright lawsuit would effectively end the protective order’s restrictions, allowing the publisher to then use the publicly filed information however it wished, including in foreign proceedings.

Judge Hixson characterized this as an impermissible bait-and-switch.

“Filing a U.S.-based copyright claim does not cause the protections of the protective order to evaporate. They remain in place; otherwise, Shueisha’s attestation was false. It is not acceptable for Shueisha to make an attestation that it will use the requested information ‘only’ for one purpose and then later change its mind,” the order states.

Mangajikan’s attorneys previously warned the court that Shueisha’s position would create a “roadmap” for rightsholders to circumvent DMCA limitations. They could simply obtain identity information through a DMCA subpoena, file a token U.S. lawsuit to make the info public, and then use it for foreign lawsuits.

No Privacy Fortress for Pirate Site Operator

While the pirate site operator won on the foreign litigation issue, the court rejected most of the operator’s proposed privacy protections as excessive. Judge Hixson called the operator’s 19-page protective order proposal “excessive,” noting it would have micromanaged Shueisha’s internal operations.

The final protective order clarifies that, while Shueisha can publicly identify the operator by name in U.S. court filings, other personal information, such as email addresses, phone numbers, and financial data, remains protected.

The order allows Shueisha to share the operator’s identity with its employees in Japan, coordinate with U.S. law enforcement, and use the information for settlement negotiations or U.S.-based copyright claims.

What’s Next

With the protective order now in place, Cloudflare must hand over the identity information to Shueisha’s lawyers. The publisher must then decide if it wants to use that information to file a U.S. copyright lawsuit, or pursue alternative enforcement options.

If Shueisha fails to file a U.S. action before the statute of limitations expires, the company must destroy all identity information.

Needless to say, the case continues to be closely watched by other rightsholders and pirate site operators. DMCA subpoenas are a widely used intelligence gathering tool, and the present order confirms they are not without boundaries.

—

A copy of Magistrate Judge Hixson’s Discovery Order is available here (pdf) . The final protective order as modified by the court is available here (pdf) .

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