Every year, the US Trade Representative ( USTR ) issues an updated overview of “Notorious Markets” that allegedly facilitate copyright infringement.

This review is put together based on recommendations from copyright holders and other interested stakeholders. The ultimate goal of the annual report, which was first released in 2006, is to help combat piracy.

The USTR’s report is meant to highlight economic harm and raise awareness. Ideally, it should urge the affected sites and services to take action or, alternatively, motivate foreign governments to step up.

“In the absence of good faith efforts, responsible government authorities should investigate reports of piracy and counterfeiting in these and similar markets and pursue appropriate action against such markets and their owners and operators,” USTR wrote in its most recent report.

Unfazed Pirate Sites

Ideally, the USTR’s review should help to find solutions for existing concerns. However, after covering the submissions for many years, their repetitive nature stands out most. While new piracy players enter the scene occasionally, many arguments and rebuttals are repeated over and over.

While it is understandable that copyright holders see persistent piracy as a major concern, listing a website such as The Pirate Bay every year for nearly two decades raises questions of effectiveness. At this point, yet another listing seems unlikely to move the needle.

No one appears to be concerned by yet another callout. The Pirate Bay’s operators don’t seem to care, and neither do any of the other services that continue to work with the ‘notorious’ pirate site.

Therefore, we can likely expect The Pirate Bay to be listed again this year, alongside other ‘pirate’ markets that have been featured for more than a decade, including 1337x, Rutracker, Rapidgator, and others. Whether USTR’s clout will help to change the status quo is doubtful.

Accuse, Rebut, Repeat

A more problematic trend in this diplomatic process is the continued standoff between rightsholders and parties they accuse of wrongdoing, resulting in formal challenges over purported mischaracterizations of their business.

For more than a decade, copyright holders have called out U.S. infrastructure company Cloudflare in their recommendations. While the company is not seen as a notorious piracy market directly, it stands accused of helping pirate sites to shield their hosting locations.

The MPA and RIAA are among the rightsholder groups that persistently highlight Cloudflare’s involvement. Despite rebuttals from Cloudflare, the allegations have continued for many years.

In 2016, the California company responded for the first time, noting that these groups present “distorted descriptions” of the services Cloudflare provides. The company further noted that both the MPAA and RIAA use its “trusted notifier” program to obtain information on pirate sites from Cloudflare.

A year later, the process repeated itself during the next notorious markets review. Rightsholders characterized Cloudflare as a key intermediary in the piracy ecosystem, while Cloudflare rebutted their claims.

At the time, Cloudflare highlighted that the MPA and RIAA had essentially repeated the same arguments, to which the company had already provided a response.

“Most surprising is that their comments were basically the same complaints they filed in 2016 and contain the same mistakes and distortions that we pointed out in our rebuttal comments from October 2016. Simply repeating the same mischaracterizations for a second year in a row does not convert them into facts,” Cloudflare noted.

… 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, and 2025.

The same allegations were made in 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, and in 2025, not much has changed. Both the MPA and RIAA continue to highlight Cloudflare’s role, without flagging the company as a notorious market directly.

Again, Cloudflare highlights mischaracterizations in recent submissions, while stressing that it provides rightsholders with options to identify hosting locations and the operators of alleged pirate sites.

The company claims that rightsholders are using the USTR notorious markets process as a means to exert pressure on Cloudflare to conduct enforcement beyond legal requirements, which is not what the process is intended for.

“We firmly believe that the continued use of the Notorious Markets process to pressure Cloudflare and other Internet infrastructure companies into taking actions neither expected nor required by U.S. law is both misguided and a misuse of this vital trade tool,” Cloudflare notes.

Anti-Piracy Groundhog Day

This type of back and forth, with no apparent progress, is not unique to Cloudflare. The Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA), which represents prominent tech firms including Google, Meta, and Amazon, finds itself in a similar loop.

More than a decade ago , CCIA was particularly concerned with the mention of domain name registrars as Notorious Markets. This later expanded to U.S. tech firms in general , after rightsholders pinpointed the role of Amazon, Facebook, Namecheap, and others in their submissions.

The CCIA states that the Notorious Markets review should not include American companies. The USTR’s Special 301 process does not target local companies, many of which already have extensive anti-piracy policies in place.

These repetitive circular arguments are not limited to U.S. companies. Polish streaming service CDA has also submitted multiple rebuttals. This service has actually been featured as a Motorious Market by the USTR, a description the company vehemently rejects.

Without going into the arguments from both sides, CDA’s most recent rebuttal illustrates the ‘groundhog day’ nature of the process.

“[I]t should be noted MPA has already submitted almost identical statements regarding cda.pl in previous years. This year’s submission of MPA is almost a copy-paste of previously rebutted claims from [2024, 2023, 2022, and 2021],” CDA’s attorney writes.

“Similar allegations have been made by MPA in the comments on the [2020, 2019, and 2018 reviews]. In response to all those letters, my client successfully and extensively rebutted MPA’s claims in letters to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.”

High Stakes Standoffs

This decade-long loop of accusations and rebuttals says nothing about the validity of the arguments from either side. However, it is a signal that USTR’s goal to motivate the key players to tackle piracy issues, ideally through cooperation, does not work in these instances.

The USTR does not report any legal findings in its annual reviews, and takes no direct position on the rightsholders’ arguments or their rebuttals. That said, there are also dozens of examples of sites and services shutting down after they appeared on the Notorious Markets list. Whether the Notorious Markets process facilitated those shutdowns isn’t clear, but the USTR’s involvement certainly didn’t hurt.

As Cloudflare pointed out, rightsholders can use the process to exert pressure. And as with all tools, this one can be used for good and bad. Whether that’s the case here depends on who you ask.

—

A copy of Cloudflare’s rebuttal in response to the 2025 Notorious Markets review can be found here (pdf) , CDA’s letter is available here (pdf) , and CCIA’s response is here (pdf) .

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

As pirate IPTV services have continued to grow in recent years, TV broadcasters and distributors have intensified their efforts to combat piracy.

Pay TV provider DISH Network has been at the forefront of these efforts. In April, the company sued then-unknown operators of popular ‘pirate’ streaming services Lemo TV and Kemo IPTV.

Through a lawsuit filed at a federal court in Texas, and various subpoenas to obtain information from hosting providers, domain registrars, payment processors, and social media services, and Google, DISH hoped to identify the operators.

The subpoenas were directed at Lemo TV and Kemo IPTV directly but also targeted some resellers. For example, the Google subpoena requested information related to the Gmail addresses of bestusiptv and 1dollariptv .

While the Texas court approved the subpoena request in July, the underlying lawsuit was suddenly dismissed last week. Having successfully identified the alleged operators of both IPTV providers, plus a US-based reseller, DISH refocused its action elsewhere.

DISH Identifies Lemo/Kemo, also Sues ‘1 Dollar IPTV’

Shortly after the initial lawsuit against Lemo TV and Kemo IPTV was dismissed without context, DISH filed a new complaint at a Florida federal court. This time, it names the alleged operators of the Lemo TV and Kemo IPTV pirate services, as well as one of their U.S.-based resellers: ‘1 Dollar IPTV’.

DISH alleges that the Malaysian company Kemo E Marketing Sdn. Bhd and its sole shareholder, Noorhayati Binti Abdul Rahim, are driving forces behind the Lemo/Kemo operation. Ammar Towir, also from Malaysia, allegedly owns and operates the Lemo/Kemo domains and financial accounts.

The identities of these defendants were presumably obtained with help from the earlier-mentioned subpoenas. This includes 1 Dollar IPTV, which was allegedly operated by Artistry Group LLC, a company based in St. Petersburg, Florida.

Artistry Group was voluntarily dissolved on February 27, 2025, but DISH notes that the company or its successors continue to run 1 Dollar IPTV.

Direct, Contributory, and Vicarious Copyright Infringement

The Malaysian defendants are accused of direct copyright infringement. They allegedly offered access to thousands of live channels and on-demand content through their pirate IPTV service.

“Direct Infringers offer United States Subscribers a 36-hour trial to the Service and sell Service Subscriptions for one device for one month, three months, six months, and one year at prices ranging from $11 to $69,” the complaint reads.

In addition to selling directly to consumers, both services operate reseller programs. This allows third parties to launch their own custom-branded IPTV streaming sites and apps for under $200. Resellers purchase credits for use with their branded services, which they can resell to their own customers at a significant markup.

According to the complaint, Artistry Group’s ‘1 Dollar IPTV’ is one of these resellers. The Florida-based company is accused of contributory and vicarious copyright infringement. According to DISH, the company willfully continued its infringing activities after being notified.

1 Dollar IPTV, which remains online today, advertises itself as the “Best IPTV Service USA”. DISH notes that it sent at least seven infringement notices to the Florida reseller. While the company responded to one notice, the infringing activities allegedly continued.

DISH writes that it sent at least 96 infringement notices to the Lemo/Kemo operators over the years. However, these all remained unanswered. Meanwhile, the operators allegedly switched hosting locations to evade enforcement actions.

$27 Million in Damages

The complaint accuses all defendants of infringing its exclusive rights to “at least” 181 copyrighted works. For these willful infringements, DISH requests the maximum statutory damages of $150,000 per infringed work, for a total of $27.15 million in potential damages.

In addition to the monetary damages, DISH requests a broad permanent injunction to shut the services down. This would include an order to transfer all domain names used in the infringing operations, such as Kemoiptv.io, Lemotv.io, and 1Dollariptv.com.

In addition to this new lawsuit in Florida, DISH previously filed a separate $25 million lawsuit against UK-based hosting provider Innetra. The hosting company allegedly provided the server infrastructure for Lemo/Kemo and other services, while advertising a policy of ignoring DMCA takedown notices.

By targeting the Lemo/Kemo operators directly, suing their U.S.-based resellers, and going after a hosting provider, DISH is trying to cover all bases. For now, however, they have yet to defeat the pirate IPTV operations.

—

A copy of the complaint, filed at the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida, is available here (pdf) .

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

With an industrial-scale Piracy Shield blocking program not quite the panacea some had predicted, Italian authorities and rightsholders have recently upgraded their deterrent messaging capabilities.

After a database of 2,200 individuals who subscribed to a pirate IPTV service was obtained by police during the course of a raid, authorities made good on their promise to issue fines to those exposed.

For some of those who accepted responsibility and settled their debt to society, a hard lesson had been learned. In a letter delivered to their homes recently, the head of DAZN explained the details of a new lesson to the same people. Previously fined recipients were provided an opportunity to pay DAZN an additional €500 , this time to head off a possible claim for damages.

Lesson 3: Shame and Suffering, Respectfully

At the recent Sky Up The Edit event, part of a project championing digital inclusion, respect, and sports values, Minister for Sport and Youth, Andrea Abodi, spoke about the importance of respect.

“We must practice it, it’s an idea that can’t just fade away,” he said. “The more we respect ourselves and others, the better our quality of life.”

Sports content creator Lisa Offside spoke a little about social media, where respect can be in short supply.

“I’m realizing that negative comments define the person making them more than the person receiving them,” she said.

The minister wholeheartedly agreed. “You don’t have to respond to disrespect with disrespect: it’s a demonstration of strength and inner peace. We must continue to set a good example.”

IPTV Piracy is Disrespectful to Sport and the Economy

With the state and DAZN currently setting a different kind of example in respect of a couple of thousand luckless IPTV subscribers, Minister Abodi explained that buying pirate subscriptions isn’t simply being disrespectful to sport.

“We must be aware that buying an illegal ticket, piracy, means helping criminal economies. We must understand that we all become accomplices to this crime,” he warned.

Unlikely to do much to foster inner peace among those targeted, a new deterrent measure revealed by Minister Abodi suggests that setting an example doesn’t have to take place in private.

“I believe the names of those who buy illegal tickets may soon be published. It’s beyond privacy concerns, it’s a crime. I hope people understand that perhaps it’s better to spend a few euros more and avoid running into problems,” he added.

Pay Now or Pay More Later

While the ‘name-and-shame’ component is new, the advice from the minister is not dissimilar from that outlined in DAZN’s letter. In general terms, people are free to make their own choices; however, should they choose to pirate rather than buy a legal product (or settle a claim in DAZN’s case), it only gets more expensive when people get caught later on.

“It might seem, in some cases, like bravado,” Abodi explained. “My son also tried it, and I explained to him that it’s not just about taking money away from football.”

Italy’s Minister for Sport presented the new Sports Decree during the summer, which aims to pump money into the sport, in part by revisiting policies that have reportedly hurt the clubs financially.

In a move designed to suppress problem gambling, in 2018 Italy passed the Dignity Decree which imposed a blanket ban on gambling advertising and sports sponsorships. According to almost everyone, the decree hit revenues very hard indeed, so gambling operators are now being invited back after six years.

During that period, infamous betting operator 1xBet was the Presenting Partner of Serie A, Italy’s top football league.

1xBet logos were displayed on virtual advertising boards during matches but were only seen by overseas viewers due to the decree addressing problem gambling at home.

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

In a legal dispute now at the U.S. Supreme Court, the world’s leading record labels and Cox Communications disagree on many things, including how to respond to online piracy.

The labels’ preferred solution is to sever subscribers’ access to the internet. Cox believes that denying internet access is excessive. The case is much more complex than that as the venue suggests, but one aspect seems clearer when viewed in its own light.

When a person gets caught pirating music online, should everyone in their household be denied access to banking, health care, education, and everything else people need to simply exist? Is collective punishment the right way to satisfy a commercial dispute, between a record company and an ISP, over alleged activity of which the family likely had zero knowledge, and were never in a position to control or prevent?

Collective Punishment, Every Single Week

The proposition above sounds fundamentally unfair, because punishing innocent people is always unfair. Billions of people understand and respect the principle of individual responsibility and violations are quite rightly viewed with contempt.

Yet, some will argue that life is full of unfairness. Inconvenience for a few people is inevitable when solving important copyright disputes involving a lot more money than most people have ever seen.

In Spain, an important copyright dispute and accompanying site-blocking order certainly don’t authorize collective punishment on an unprecedented level. Yet, for several hours, several times each week, local ISPs now block hundreds of Cloudflare IP addresses to prevent access to unidentified pirate streaming services run by unidentified people.

There’s no discrimination; ISP’s deploy blocking measures that affect their own customers, denying access to websites using Cloudflare’s services and any others that also happen to be blocked.

There appears to be no warning and little transparency. ISPs never inform customers of incoming blocking, and it’s not uncommon for questions about suspected blocking to be brushed aside or simply ignored. Fingers invariably point to an unspecified court order, obtained by an unspecified entity, on unspecified grounds. As a solution to their current access problems, the information is totally useless to any customer.

The Blocking of NO-IP’s Dynamic DNS

For well over a week, users in Spain have been reporting problems with ddns.net, a dynamic DNS service offered for free by NOIP.com . DDNS.net and similar services offer a solution to an issue affecting anyone with an IP address that periodically changes.

When not at home, for example, gaining access to CCTV cameras might suddenly prove impossible when an ISP allocates a new IP address. Using a service like DDNS.net allows users to associate their IP address with a DDNS.NET subdomain (examplemyaddress@ddns.net) with future IP address updates handled automatically.

Not only are services like these useful, some routers have them built in, so people may be using and benefiting from them without even knowing.

Some users recognized the problem immediately, and with records showing almost 350,000 URLs associated with the ddns.net domain, there’s plenty of scope for disruption.

The above post on X is a fairly typical report with some useful additional detail. It mentions an ISP called Digi, which, instead of returning the correct IP address associated with the user’s DDNS.net subdomain, points it to the 127.0.0.1 loopback address that refers to the user’s current device.

A follow-up post by the same user a day later reveals that blocking actually began on October 8, and despite requesting information from Digi, no explanation had been forthcoming. Another user affected by the issue eventually received a response earlier this week.

While a court order was confirmed as the root issue, refusal to elaborate any further isn’t just common; it’s the standard across all ISPs in Spain. To our knowledge, blocking orders to date haven’t carried any non-disclosure conditions, so in most cases, there’s no legal reason underpinning the lack of transparency.

DDNS.net is Definitely Subject to Blocking

Confirmation that Digi continues to block at the time of writing is available via the unofficial third-party blocking transparency portal hayahora.futbol .

Current information shows that Digi continues to block the service, but details reported elsewhere show that this wasn’t a lone action.

Local reports state that Movistar displayed Error 451 (Unavailable for Legal Reasons), MásOrange displayed the message “Content blocked at the request of the Competent Authority, communicated to this Operator,” while Vodafone said it could do nothing about the outage: “For reasons beyond Vodafone’s control, this website is unavailable.”

Alone in the Dark

The lack of transparency is pervasive, and the indifference to the problems experienced by subscribers all over Spain is evident every week. People with zero connection to any of the parties involved in blocking disputes continually pay the price, wasting hours finding workarounds to bypass deliberate network blockages that, for no good reason, are shrouded in secrecy.

A user who could no longer access his server using Wireguard reported the problems to his ISP, Digi, on October 13. He was informed that, having looked into it, no issues could be found. That led to an entire thread of potential solutions, including replacing the ISP’s DNS with another service and replacing DDNS.net with a similar service operated by DuckDuckGo.

Consolation: Could’ve Been Significantly Worse

Tests suggest that the blocking efforts target the DDNS.net domain, but how far the damage goes in respect of subdomains is difficult to determine by users of non-blocking ISPs.

Digi operates at least two public DNS servers, but remote tests yielded no useful information. Fortunately, domain blocking doesn’t appear to be accompanied by IP address blocking, at least in this case. DDNS.net has thousands of subdomains, but if its IP address had been targeted too, the exponential scale of the fallout could’ve been extraordinary.

The situation in Spain has no parallel in Europe. Blocking is expanding elsewhere, including in the UK, most recently to protect a company behind several well-known weight loss drugs. However, avoidable collateral damage on this scale has never happened.

That it takes place in a member state of the increasingly heavily regulated European Union remains completely unfathomable.

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

To combat online piracy, copyright holders frequently use DMCA subpoenas to compel service providers to unmask alleged infringers.

Because these requests don’t require a judge’s approval and are typically signed off by a court clerk, they offer a swift and powerful tool to identify pirates.

In recent years, Internet infrastructure company Cloudflare has been targeted with DMCA subpoenas dozens of times. While the personal information it discloses may not always be accurate, it has been instrumental in several enforcement actions.

Shueisha vs. Mangajikan

In some instances, the mere threat of potential legal trouble may already be sufficient. This was the case a few months ago when the massively popular manga piracy site Mangajikan.com shut its doors days after publisher Shueisha obtained a DMCA subpoena directed at Cloudflare.

While Shueisha must have been pleased with the quick result, the publisher still didn’t know who was running the site. Shortly after Shueisha obtained the DMCA subpoena, the anonymous operator of mangajikan.com and related domain alammanga.com, submitted a motion to quash at a California federal court.

Anonymous Operator Relies on Cox Precedent

The ‘John Doe’ operator’s motion to quash cited several reasons why disclosure of their personal data should be denied. This includes the Cox precedent confirmed by the Court of Appeals in August , which held that DMCA subpoenas don’t apply to Section 512(a) service providers, i.e mere conduits that simply pass on bytes.

“Cloudflare is not a proper DMCA target in this instance because here, it only provides DNS and CDN services to the Domains and cannot remove or disable access to content,” Doe’s attorney explained.

“[F]ederal courts have repeatedly held that DMCA subpoenas cannot compel disclosure from service providers acting solely as conduits or CDNs, as they do not host or control the allegedly infringing content.”

The non-hosting argument appears to align with Cloudflare’s own policy. The company does not disable access to allegedly infringing URLs that use its CDN service because it doesn’t host the content permanently. Instead, Cloudflare forwards DMCA notices to the affected subscribers.

Shueisha Counters: Caching is Key

In its response, Shueisha pointed out that since Cloudflare temporarily stores the contested materials in its cache and then serves the content to the site’s visitors, Cloudflare qualifies as a Section 512(c) service.

The manga publisher backed up its claim by simply submitting a screenshot from Cloudflare’s own website describing how its cache “stores copies of frequently accessed content.”

“Cloudflare does, in fact, store content on its servers in the form of cached data which allows for faster loading of sites. Courts, particularly in this district, routinely issue DMCA subpoenas to Cloudflare that Cloudflare does not move to quash,” Shueisha argued.

Shueisha further argued that the pirate site’s operator failed to cite a single case in which Cloudflare was seen as an “improper recipient” of a DMCA subpoena in this context.

Jurisdiction, Fair Use, and Retaliation

In addition to the disagreement over the correct application of a DMCA subpoena, the operator argued that a U.S. court is not the right venue. In a declaration, they explained that Mangajikan.com allegedly blocked U.S. visitors, had a non-commercial nature, and has already been shut down.

The underlying DMCA notice is also invalid, they argued, because it didn’t properly identify the infringing content and failed to take fair use into account.

Finally, the John Doe operator asked the court for a protective order to shield his identity, noting that he feared retaliation since Shueisha had released personal details of adversaries in the past.

These additional arguments were contested by Shueisha. Crucially, the publisher said that since their declaration was submitted anonymously, the operator can’t be held to the standard of “penalty of perjury” so should be ignored.

Other defenses, such as fair use claims, do not need to be considered for a motion to quash, the publisher added.

Court: Caching Qualifies for a DMCA Subpoena

After reviewing the filings from both sides, the court ultimately sided with the manga publisher.

Firstly, Judge Gonzalez Rogers ruled that Shueisha sufficiently identified a copyrighted work. In addition, its takedown notice included the required statement of good faith belief that Mangajikan’s use was unauthorized.

Finally, the court found that Cloudflare is not a mere conduit service provider under Section 512(a), as it stores cached content. Siding with Shueisha’s argument that Cloudflare functioned as a Section 512(c) service provider, the Court confirmed that a DMCA subpoena can be used.

“The parties offer limited evidence to demonstrate what functions Cloudflare performed for Doe’s websites. Still, Shueisha has made a prima facie showing that Cloudflare stores content on its servers in the form of cached data to support faster loading of sites.”

“Because there is no evidence to the contrary, the Court accepts Shueisha’s prima facie showing and concludes that Cloudflare functioned as a Section 512(c) service provider,” Judge Gonzalez Rogers added.

DMCA: A, B, C…

Interestingly, the order didn’t mention Section 512(b), which specifically references caching. That likely wouldn’t have changed the outcome, however, as DMCA subpoenas also apply to these services.

Cloudflare likely sees itself as a caching service in relation to its CDN services, as it typically does not remove cached content, unlike content that it hosts permanently. Therefore, the court’s ruling here should be seen as limited to this particular case.

For Mangajikan’s operator, the ruling effectively means that their battle for anonymity is over. However, the court did order the parties to create a protective order, which will limit how Shueisha can use Doe’s identity, particularly in public.

—

A copy of U.S. District Court Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers’ order is available here (pdf)

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

Under the international umbrella of IFPI, the RIAA in the United States, and the BPI in London, the world’s leading recording labels have been on a constant upwards trajectory for a decade.

After the likes of Napster, Grokster, and LimeWire gatecrashed the party and introduced unwelcome (not to mention illegal) competition into the equation, in 2002 revenues tumbled and somehow managed to keep going south until 2014.

Making peace with YouTube was a necessary step that contributed billions of dollars to the overall recovery. The turning point came in 2015, marking the start of ten consecutive years of growth. Revenues more than doubled, from a low of US$12.9 billion in 2014 to a high of US$29.6 billion in 2024.

Piracy hasn’t gone away, but visible legal action against traditional pirate adversaries has been minimal, at least when compared to the periods when revenue was headed in the opposite direction.

Increased Threat, Unfinished Business

IFPI’s reporting in 2019 was upbeat; piracy had fallen dramatically and music consumption was on the up. Yet a relatively new form of consumption was already causing alarm and was soon described as a greater threat than pirate sites.

So-called stream-ripping was nothing new, but when fueled by the massive repository of recorded music on YouTube, the preferred tactic of shutting down the source was effectively obsolete. So, continuing along lines similar to those that had shuttered YouTube-MP3 in 2017, the industry took what action it could against sites that converted YouTube links into MP3 downloads.

One of the most notable disputes saw the RIAA take on the Russian owner of 2conv.com and FLVTO.biz. In an ideal world, the $83 million judgment in the labels’ favor back in 2022 would’ve dampened enthusiasm among those tempted by the same line of business. Ongoing streaming-ripping complaints in the RIAA’s annual reports to the USTR suggested minimal deterrent effect.

Y2Mate and Eleven Similar Sites Call it Quits

In an announcement Tuesday, IFPI confirmed that one of the most persistent threats with the greatest volume of online traffic, has now been shut down.

Y2Mate.com had been featured in the RIAA’s reports to the USTR for several years, and while its traffic had shown signs of decline more recently, 620 million visits per year between Y2Mate and eleven other sites (under common ownership), is clearly significant.

“Y2mate has been subject to website blocking actions in 13 countries and has appeared in numerous editions of the USTR Notorious Markets Report and the EU Counterfeit and Piracy Watchlist. The shutdown of the sites is a result of targeted enforcement action by IFPI against the operator of the sites,” IFPI reported.

“The operator of Y2mate and the other 11 websites agreed to shut down the sites for good and to stop infringing IFPI’s members rights in the future. Most of the domains are now in IFPI’s possession, including Y2mate.com, Yt1s.com, Utomp3.com, Tomp3.cc, and Y2mate.gg.”

Finer Details Go Unmentioned

Other than an agreement to shut down and a promise not to infringe IFPI’s members’ rights in the future, IFPI’s announcement offers no further detail on the agreement or the assumed change in circumstances that led to it. It’s reasonable to assume that domains were handed over as part of a deal, however.

The full list of domains is available below. Records suggest that several were updated recently, with at least one currently displaying the message below.

Given the record industry’s complaints over registrant details being hidden away, it’s somewhat ironic that most of the domains have WHOIS records displaying ‘Withheld for Privacy’. That being said, there are more significant gaps in the information being made available. The absence of a lawsuit is unusual; the lack of a large settlement amount, even more so.

Sites Operated From Vietnam

Considering that IFPI’s multi-year mission to shut down Y2Mate led them to Vietnam, and despite the chances of obtaining anything close to a deterrent custodial sentence being close to minimal, IFPI still managed to obtain the sites’ domain names.

In theory, this should make it more difficult to relaunch the sites, but in practical terms, Y2Mate has been evading site blocking measures for years and is unlikely to consider the loss of a few domains as especially problematic. Nevertheless, control of the domains means millions of eyes on the shutdown notice and any benefits that might bring.

None of this means that the return of the sites is inevitable. Yet, if that was the chosen path, preventing it would be almost impossible. Enforcement with lasting results remains elusive in Vietnam, and sites like these can be launched, torn down, and relaunched in the time it takes to eat a sandwich.

The full list of websites shut down by IFPI:

9convert.com
In-y2mate.com
Tomp3.cc
Ump3.cc
utomp3.com
y2mate.gg
yt1s.gg
youtubepp.com
y2mate.com
yt1s.com
vidcombo.com
Y2mates.com

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

With many millions of daily users, Reddit is undoubtedly one of the most visited sites on the Internet.

The platform celebrated its 20th anniversary this summer and has grown from a hobby site, started by two college roommates, to a billion-dollar company.

This growth also brought added responsibility. In addition to the billions of casual, insightful, and heartwarming messages, Reddit’s popularity was also embraced by those who color outside the lines of the law.

Reddit’s Transparency

One of the issues Reddit has to deal with is copyright infringement, a relatively small task early on. In the first transparency report published ten years ago , Reddit reported that it received 176 takedown requests in an entire year.

Most of these DMCA notices did not lead to any removals, with Reddit stating that the infringing content was often stored on external sites and that “links do not generally infringe copyright.”

Today, that perspective has changed. Reddit’s current copyright overview clearly states that hyperlinks can trigger copyright violations. This is also evident from the many subreddits that warn members not to link to pirated material.

2025: DMCA Notices Up, Removals Down

The volume of takedown notices has also evolved quite a bit. According to Reddit’s latest transparency report , the company received 58,920 copyright takedown notices in the first half of 2025, a 5% increase over the 56,210 notices in the same period last year.

Despite receiving more takedown notices, Reddit actually removed less content, in part due to notices containing fewer links. In the first half of 2025, the platform removed 220,233 pieces of content – a 31% drop from the same period last year.

More Fair Use

Reddit’s reasons for declining to remove content in response to some takedown requests reveal an interesting trend. The number of instances where the company declined to remove content for fair use reasons increased more than 1000%, from 110 to 1,243.

This suggests that Reddit is devoting more attention to defending user-generated commentary and criticism. The transparency report lists several examples of fair use cases, including a discussion about copyrighted poems.

“We received a removal request from the creator of multiple poems, for a Reddit image post featuring said poems. The Reddit post also contained interpretations and criticism of the author’s intent. We declined to remove this content because we believe it made fair use of the poems,” Reddit writes.

Fair use remains a relatively rare reason to decline takedown requests. Most of the time Reddit takes no action is because the content has already been removed or no infringement was found.

Subreddit and User Bans

The latest transparency report also shows a significant increase in the number of subreddits that were banned for repeat copyright violations. In the first half of 2025, the company removed 709 subreddits, more than double the number it removed in the same period last year.

While subreddit bans skyrocketed, bans against individual user accounts for repeat copyright infringements grew at a more modest pace. Reddit banned 837 user accounts in the first half of the year, up from 757 bans in H1 of 2024.

These swings may suggest that copyright-infringement-related bans are reaching new highs, but that is not the case. If we zoom out further, we see that Reddit banned 3,215 subreddits and 5,853 users for excessive copyright infringement in 2022, which was the all-time high.

A Speck on the Radar

Zooming out further, it soon becomes clear that a few hundred users and subreddits banned for infringement are little more than a speck on the radar. Reddit and its moderators remove many more for other reasons, including spam, violent content, and harassment.

In the first half of 2025, Reddit mods and admins removed more than 158 million pieces of content from the site, while over 2 billion new posts and comments were added.

During the same period, Reddit admins banned 430,544 subreddits, mostly related to spam, while 2,613,473 users were issued temporary and permanent account bans, with ‘violent content’ the most cited reason. From this perspective, a few hundred copyright-related bans sound rather insignificant.

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

Considering the volume of AI-related lawsuits in U.S. courts, AI companies probably have enough copyright-related pressures to contend with right now. Yet with no shortage of rightsholders with developing claims, significant legal distractions will likely be a feature of the business for many years to come.

From the usual content behemoths to authors of a single book, the level of hand wringing thus far doesn’t seem to vary with scale, much like the stories of impending doom heard dozens of times before.

Yet many other contributors of content that collectively make our online universe great will have had their rights infringed as well. Few will see a penny but will instead get to witness something very close to magic in their own lifetime, and that can’t be all bad.

Here We Go Again…

On the copyright front, whether the ends justify the means will be decided in court, most likely at great expense. A few companies will likely demand a disproportionate share of the wealth, as always, while everyone else will probably have to consider their involuntary input to artificial intelligence a charitable donation.

Our 15,700+ article donation collectively represents almost 40 years of work, yet it’s already clear that many AI models have measures in place to limit discussion of the topic we cover.

Right now, it’s far from a complete lockdown and of course there are ways to coax cooperation. But as another years-long campaign gets silently underway, upgraded from the last one – and the one before that – existing piracy knowledge and discussion surrounding it, regardless of context and intent, are already being throttled.

Awareness and education will be provided from official sources, as ever, but with liability always looming, information from unofficial sources will likely face more difficult times.

Right now, many AI models already show signs of aversion to perceived risk. Yet surprisingly, they can also respond to the bluntest of prompts.

No Dinner Required, No Need to Buy Even a Drink

Like Claude, albeit differently, Grok is also a fantastic feat of engineering. Yet on X over the weekend, we received a tip about a chat with an X user that seemed quite out of character, if we discount the controversial outburst a few weeks ago.

It began quite innocently and while Grok’s initial response suggested things could go quickly downhill, soon it was right back on track and providing the names of several entirely legal services. For the user, it still wasn’t enough.

The next couple of exchanges put Grok under pressure. “@grok what about non apps for streaming like tvapp and tvpass,” the user wrote, referring to a pair of piracy platforms.

Grok didn’t take the bait, responding again with Pluto, Tubi, Xumo, The Roku Channel, Freevee and CBS, but this time with a warning.

“For ad-free, paid like ESPN+ or YouTube TV. Always check legality in your region,” Grok advised.

The warning was completely unnecessary but in the context of the discussion, increased caution goes with the territory.

Pirate Site, Grok, Take the Hint

With a few signs of user impatience starting to creep in, Grok received a reminder.

“@grok without paying too,” the user wrote.

Yet Grok was still unmoved. Another six legal services stubbornly presented for consideration was followed by another seven, this time with added Plex.

Whether by pure luck or calculated persistence, Grok suddenly appeared to succumb to a less ambiguous context thanks to the bluntest of prompts.

On one hand the approach yielded the expected results. No longer was this about free but legal streaming sites. In the context of Methstreams and Crackstreams, only free pirate streaming sites would do. So that’s what Grok delivered, along with something else to consider.

ACE Up Grok’s Sleeve

We can assume that a free advert on X, timed to absolute perfection, will be welcomed by ACE. It’s the type of intervention that only works because of previous efforts to seize domains and the sharing of links to those domains thereafter.

In this case the delivery might’ve been even more impactful had Grok opted for a slightly different domain order. Streameast.live was seized back in February but had it appeared at a different position in Grok’s list, the ACE banner would’ve been swapped for a worthy replacement.

Of course, it’s not all sunshine and rainbows. Albeit under considerable pressure, Grok did provide a list of domains where pirate streams were available.

But is that what actually happened?

Grok accepts queries about X and when prompted will supply an overview of an X user’s activity. We redacted anything unrelated to the matter at hand, but having received it from our tipster as-is, something caught our eye.

Not only did Grok seem to appreciate that the requests went on a bit, the text clearly mentions defunct sites. So, whether by chance or by some fiendish calculation, that’s exactly what the user received.

In all-but-one unfortunate case, the domains provided by Grok had either been seized, shut down, or abandoned; i.e. effectively useless.

Piracy is the Problem, Not Discussion

So, via a real-life process, the user was exposed time and again to several entirely legal services, before being exposed to the consequences of piracy thanks to the timely ACE seizure notice. None of this would’ve happened if Grok had treated piracy as a topic for immediate shutdown.

That’s not to say every interaction will produce a similar outcome, they won’t, but shutting discussion down means that nobody learns anything.

The data in the table below was generated in seconds in response to a prompt that requested benefits and drawbacks of the sites mentioned. We don’t know if it’s 100% accurate, but it certainly has the potential to do more good than harm.

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

Since 1997, the Tonga Network Information Center ( Tonic ) has been responsible for the .to top-level domain

This country-specific extension is linked to the Kingdom of Tonga but the Tonic registry is incorporated in the United States and operating from the California city of Burlingame.

Compared to more than 160 million .com registrations, use of .to is relatively modest with just over 60,000. Interestingly, however, .to domain names appear to be somewhat of a magnet for pirate site operators.

This unusual attraction is a thorn in the side of rightsholders. Earlier this month, the MPA listed the registry in its overview of notorious piracy markets submitted to the U.S. Government, highlighting Tonic’s alleged inaction over piracy-related issues.

Warezio Sees Tonic as a Piracy Haven

Today, the .to registry is again at the center of a complaint. The Czech anti-piracy firm Warezio , which works on behalf of many local rightsholders, wrote a letter to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers ( ICANN ), urging it to take action, or else.

“As an anti-piracy company, we frequently encounter .to domains in our enforcement activities, which has given us firsthand insight into the registry’s problematic practices. This is not a coincidence but a direct result of the registry’s operational approach that prioritizes anonymity over accountability,” Warezio writes.

Warezio’s letter complains that the Tonic registry lacks basic transparency and accountability mechanisms. For example, there is no public Whois database and no formal terms and conditions for domain owners, which frustrates anti-piracy actions.

The letter adds that the .to registry also lacks a dispute-resolution mechanism, does not publish sufficient contact information, and fails to comply with European privacy legislation.

Warezio Threatens ICANN with Legal Action

While complaints about Tonic are not new, Warezio addresses ICANN directly and suggests that the organization can be held legally responsible under the Czech Republic’s unfair competition law.

Warezio argues that by “knowingly tolerating a registry operator that facilitates unlawful commercial activities,” ICANN risks being regarded as an “auxiliary participant” in the alleged unfair competition that takes place through the .to domain ecosystem.

“Should ICANN continue to remain inactive despite having been duly informed of these facts, it would expose itself to potential legal actions for unfair competition before the competent Czech courts,” Warezio writes.

“Such proceedings could seek injunctive relief, corrective measures, and compensation for the ongoing market distortion and harm suffered by Czech rights holders and legitimate businesses.”

Warezio calls on ICANN to require domain registry operators to provide Whois data and take additional measures to guarantee transparency and accountability. This applies to Tonic, but also more generally to other registries that have similar shortcomings.

“The internet community deserves domain registries that balance legitimate privacy concerns with the need for accountability and legal compliance. We trust that ICANN will take swift and decisive action to address these critical issues.”

The anti-piracy outfit demands a response within seven days. If no action is taken, it reserves the right to follow up on the unfair competition claims.

ICANN’s Limited Authority Over ccTLDs

ICANN has yet to respond to the letter, but Warezio’s allegations appear to go beyond how the organization sees its own role in the domain name ecosystem.

Warezio wants ICANN to enforce new standards on the .to registry but ICANN has repeatedly stated that it lacks the authority to do so. According to ICANN, its compliance department “does not have contract authority to take compliance action against ccTLD operators.”

ICANN has significant influence over generic top-level domains (gTLDs), such as .com and .net, accrediting registrars and overseeing relevant policies for these domains. In contrast, country-code top-level domains (ccTLDs) operate differently.

These ccTLDs and their registries operate under local laws and regulations. This also applies to the implementation of policies concerning Whois requirements and domain name disputes.

“The ccTLD policies regarding registration, accreditation of registrars and Whois are managed according to the relevant oversight and governance mechanisms within the country, with no role for ICANN’s Compliance department in these areas,” ICANN writes .

Notably, the anti-piracy outfit is not threatening to take legal action against Tonic directly. At least, there is no mention of any direct threats against the registry or Tonga’s authorities.

Instead, Warezio’s letter appears to challenge ICANN’s policy, suggesting that it can be held liable for ccTLD-related issues under the Czech Republic’s unfair competition law. Whether this approach will work is unclear, but if it results in a legal battle, that would certainly be one to watch.

—

A copy of the letter, sent by Warezio’s CEO Jakub Hájek to ICANN’s legal department, is available here (pdf) . This also includes more detail on a potential claim against ICANN.

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