In 2020, Nintendo went to court to stop the sale of SX Core and SX Lite, two Team-Xecuter modchips designed to work on all Switch consoles at the time.

These lawsuits were followed by a criminal prosecution in the United States, and Team-Xecuter’s operation effectively shut down. The chips lived on, however, and remained available through compatible alternatives such as HWFLY and Picofly.

Now, Nintendo is also going after the repositories that host the firmware for these modchips.

In a takedown notice dated November 6, which GitHub published on Tuesday, Nintendo of America targets Ansem-SoD/Picofly. According to its description, this repository offered information and firmware for a Switch modchip based on the RP2040-Zero board.

The notice names only the parent repository, but its effect doesn’t stop there. Because the network was larger than a hundred repos and Nintendo said that all or most forks are infringing, GitHub disabled the entire network of 144 repositories.

From Emulators to Modchips

Nintendo’s earlier GitHub notices mostly went after emulators, key dumping tools and so-called sigpatches. This time, the gaming giant targets repositories offering firmware for SX Core, SX Lite, Picofly and HWFLY modchips.

According to Nintendo, the Switch’s technological protection measures (TPMs) include the console’s boot sequence and various cryptographic signatures. The company says the modchip firmware bypasses that boot sequence, violating the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provisions.

“The firmware allows Nintendo Switch modchips to illegally circumvent Nintendo’s TPMs in order to run illegal copies of Nintendo Switch games,” the notice reads.

As far as we know, this is the first time Nintendo has targeted modchip firmware on GitHub. None of the 90 earlier Nintendo notices in GitHub’s public archive mention modchips. The closest are the 2023 and 2024 notices against key dumping tools such as Lockpick_RCM.

A Team-Xecuter Precedent

To support its circumvention claim, the notice points to the criminal case No. 2:20-cr-00127-RSL. That’s the case against the alleged members of Team-Xecuter.

The U.S. indicted three people in 2020. One of them, Gary Bowser, pleaded guilty to conspiring to circumvent technological measures and to traffic in circumvention devices. He was later sentenced to 40 months in prison.

The other two defendants, including alleged leader Max Louarn, have not appeared before the U.S. court as far as we know, and both remain at large.

It’s worth noting that Bowser’s guilty plea is not a court ruling on modchip firmware. However, at the takedown stage, Nintendo doesn’t need one, and GitHub appears to have processed the notice regardless.

Firmware Still Online

When we checked on Wednesday, the Picofly repository was replaced by GitHub’s standard takedown message, which also explains that the owner can file a counter notice.

However, not all modchip firmware is gone. Several other GitHub repositories with Picofly and HWFLY firmware were still online, including what a GBAtemp forum user describes as the original Picofly source. None of these are named in Nintendo’s notice.

Nintendo also sent three emulator notices on the same day. One targets the Citron Neo emulator, where GitHub disabled a network of 71 repositories, and two target single copies of yuzu.

These yuzu repositories are still on GitHub, but their owner has since removed the code and cleared the commit history. Both now only host a README which says that the source code can be found on the Internet Archive.

For now, the Picofly network remains offline. Its owner can still file a counter notice, but GitHub’s archive shows no sign of one yet.

—

Nintendo’s DMCA notice targeting the Picofly repository is available at GitHub here. The Citron Neo notice can be found here, and the two yuzu notices here and here.

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

In June, WeLib became the second shadow library to be sued by the same group of book companies, after Anna’s Archive.

According to the complaint, the relatively young site was built on code and books that it copied from Anna’s Archive.

WeLib’s anonymous operators didn’t respond to the lawsuit, which prompted the publishers to request a default judgment last month. Their brief borrowed heavily from one they had filed against Anna’s Archive earlier this year, including a claim about BitTorrent that didn’t appear to fit the WeLib case.

After reviewing the paperwork, U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero nonetheless granted the request in full. In an order issued yesterday, he gave the publishers everything they asked for.

Maximum Damages

The judgment awards each of the thirteen publishers, which include Penguin Random House, Elsevier and HarperCollins, $150,000 per book for ten of their works listed in the complaint. That is the maximum in statutory damages for willful infringement, adding up to $1.5 million per publisher.

The total of $19.5 million matches what Judge Jed Rakoff awarded against Anna’s Archive in May. While that is a big win, collecting it is another matter, as WeLib’s operators have not been identified.

The judgment does order the WeLib operators to come forward. In addition to destroying all unauthorized copies of the publishers’ works, they must file a sworn report within ten business days after being served, including valid contact information for WeLib and “each of its managing agents.”

Domain Takedowns

The judgment also includes a permanent injunction that prevents WeLib from making the publishers’ works available anywhere in the world. At the same time, it targets the infrastructure that keeps the site online.

All domain name registries, registrars and hosting providers for the site are ordered to permanently disable welib.org, welib.st and welib-public.org. They also have to disable the site’s nameservers and stop hosting it, while preserving any evidence that could identify the operators.

The order names five past or present providers specifically: Public Interest Registry, Cloudflare, Tucows and two Njalla entities. That said, it also applies to all other registries, registrars and hosting providers for WeLib’s domains, now or in the future.

Signed Word for Word

The judgment is identical to the proposed order the publishers submitted in October and Judge Marrero signed it without changes. That includes the clause preventing WeLib from enabling users or third parties to make the works available, “including via BitTorrent.”

As far as we know, there is no evidence that WeLib uses BitTorrent. The WeLib complaint doesn’t mention it either. The same clause appears in the earlier default judgment against Anna’s Archive, where the complaint described the site’s dedicated “Torrents” page.

Still Online

With the injunction in hand, the publishers will likely ask intermediaries to take action. This includes the Public Interest Registry, which manages the .org domain and is based in the United States. Foreign intermediaries may not all comply with an American court order, however.

At the time of writing, welib.org and welib.st still load the familiar search page, advertising 43 million books and 98 million articles.

Anna’s Archive also lost several domains to an earlier injunction, obtained by music companies. However, it remains online through .gl, .pk and .gd domains, which are tied to registries and registrars outside the United States.

Whether WeLib plans to copy the moves of Anna’s Archive has yet to be seen, but given its history that would not be a surprise.

—

A copy of the default judgment, signed by Judge Victor Marrero on November 9, 2026, is available here (pdf). The publishers’ proposed order can be found here (pdf).

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

Every LaLiga match weekend, Spanish Internet providers must block hundreds of IP addresses that are linked to pirate football streams.

These blocks are the result of a December 2024 court order, obtained by LaLiga and Telefónica Audiovisual Digital, which broadcasts these matches on Movistar Plus+. The order targets Spain’s largest ISPs, including Telefónica’s own.

LaLiga is pleased with the blocking measures and said that they work as intended. However, they are not without controversy, as IP address blocks previously hit broader infrastructure including shared Cloudflare servers. On Saturday, this collateral damage landed in Telefónica’s own backyard.

Movistar Blocks Movistar

On Saturday evening, Movistar’s official forum became unreachable through several Spanish ISPs.

This Comunidad Movistar forum is where the ISP’s customers go for help with their routers, Movistar Plus+ programming, or to report outages. Shortly after 22:00, this support community became unreachable.

According to RedesZone, X user Alvaro Canteiro was the first to notice. At 22:17, he posted that LaLiga appeared to have blocked Movistar’s official forum, presumably as a side effect of its anti-piracy blocking.

Those who tried to visit the forum through rival ISP DIGI saw a blocking notice. It explained that the IP address was blocked under the December 18, 2024 ruling of the Commercial Court No. 6 in Barcelona, requested by LaLiga and Telefónica Audiovisual Digital.

DIGI wasn’t alone. Bandaancha reports that Telefónica routed the forum’s IP address into a black hole, leaving visitors in the dark, without any response at all.

Based on data from blocking tracker HayAhoraFútbol, RedesZone reports that all operators blocked the two Cloudflare IP addresses the forum used at the time. That included Movistar, which effectively blocked access to its own community.

Blocked Cloudflare IP addresses are nothing new in Spain. LaLiga started targeting them in February 2025, and site owners have complained about collateral damage on match days ever since.

‘Focused, Precise’

Under the court order, LaLiga identifies IP addresses that it associates with pirate streams, which ISPs are then required to block. This order is dynamic, allowing LaLiga and Telefónica to add new successor IP addresses based on their own assessment.

These blocks typically start shortly before a match starts and are removed again after the broadcast ends.

Why the forum’s IP addresses ended up on the blocklist is unknown. Neither LaLiga nor Movistar has confirmed the cause of the outage.

LaLiga has consistently defended this blocking approach. The league previously told TorrentFreak that its blocks are backed by judicial resolutions and are not indiscriminate. Third parties who believe they are affected can report this through a dedicated complaints mailbox, LaLiga clarified.

Forum Moves to CloudFront

By Sunday, the forum had moved to a different CDN. Both Bandaancha and RedesZone noticed that the domain no longer pointed to Cloudflare, but was linked to Amazon’s CloudFront instead.

A DNS lookup by TorrentFreak today shows that comunidad.movistar.es now points to movistar.lithium.com, which is indeed served through CloudFront. Who made the switch, and whether it was a direct response to the blocking, is not known.

Whether affected Movistar users will complain about the apparent overblocking has yet to be seen.

Last year, LaLiga told TorrentFreak that it hadn’t received any formal complaints, while stressing that the blocking system was “focused, precise, and without collateral impact on legitimate services.”

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

On October 22, DNS resolver Quad9 announced that it will stop serving users in France, after a Paris court ordered it to block pirate tennis streams or pay a daily penalty.

The underlying order, which beIN Sports obtained in May, initially listed six domains. That number has since grown considerably, with the latest additions coming in late October.

To take a closer look at the evolution of this blocklist, we compiled it from the notices that Google files with the Lumen database when it receives a blocking order. Today, 118 domains are listed under this order.

From 6 to 118 Domains

The pirate site blocklist, which is one of many in France, expanded in batches. The first update, reported by Google on June 15, added 22 domains. Three more updates followed on September 21, October 16 and October 26, each adding exactly 30.

Nothing appears to have been taken off the list. The notices only add domains, and the ones that no longer work were still blocked when we checked. The blocking measures remain in effect until November 14, when the WTA tennis season ends.

Transparency is limited and it’s hard for the public to see what is blocked and on what grounds. Arcom doesn’t publish blocking updates. Google’s Lumen notices are the only public record we found, and they take some digging. The later notices don’t mention the case number, so a search for the order only turns up the first few, and the full domain lists are only shown to people who request access from Lumen.

This example shows the value of the Lumen Database when governments or courts don’t provide transparency.

Quad9 didn’t block any of the domains before the court ruled on the penalty on October 21, according to the ruling, which records the foundation’s statement to that effect and beIN’s objections to it.

Expired Domains, Seized Site

ISPs, online intermediaries, lawmakers and rightsholders all have different views on the effectiveness and proportionality of site blocking. However, logically speaking, all should agree that there is no need to block a domain that no longer links to anything infringing. That’s not necessarily what happens.

We checked all 118 domains on October 28, from the Netherlands and through a French server. Most still resolve to an IP address. However, the exceptions are more interesting.

Four domain names no longer resolve at all. Two of these, predb.click and line.golden-iptv.in, aren’t registered anymore; the latter was one of the six domains in the original court order. Meanwhile, 4kib.xyz has been suspended by its registrar, and fermin37.com stopped working after we first checked it on October 23.

Another domain, fr4.sportplus.live, now loads a page titled “THIS DOMAIN HAS BEEN SEIZED”. Its main domain was among the pirate sports domains that U.S. authorities seized in July.

The mgntv-nexon.xyz domain, meanwhile, points to an IP address that belongs to domain marketplace Sedo.

In France, none of this makes a difference. Google’s DNS resolver blocks 91 of the 118 domains and NordVPN’s DNS blocks 89, dead names and all. The domains that aren’t blocked yet mostly come from the latest batch; only three of those 30 were blocked on October 28, two days after Google reported them. The exception is Cloudflare, whose 1.1.1.1 resolver blocks nothing. Cloudflare applies French blocking orders through its CDN instead, which a Paris court accepted as a reasonable effort in September.

We know all this because we looked at the DNS responses directly. Users that try to access these sites through a browser have no idea what is going on. They simply see an error message noting that the site can’t be reached. That also applies to rktv.top, which TorrentFreak owns today.

Under New Ownership

On October 23, two names on the list were free to register for anyone, as they had expired. These are rktv.top, which was added to the blocklist in June, and ap-live.top, one of the six domains in the court order itself.

We registered both domains and put up a short page on each, stating that TorrentFreak owns the domain for research and that it doesn’t offer, link to, or promote any streaming service. That’s all.

From the Netherlands, this page loads as expected. In France, however, Google refuses to resolve rktv.top. “The requested domain is subject to a judicial injunction or other governmental blocking order for FR,” its DNS response reads. The response carries extended error code 16, which the DNS standard labels “Censored”.

Some French ISP resolvers go a step further and redirect the DNS response. When we queried rktv.top through Bouygues Telecom and Free, the answer wasn’t a refusal but a different IP address, 54.246.190.12, which serves offrelegalesports.fr, a page that links visitors to licensed sports broadcasts. Completel, a business provider that belongs to SFR, gave the same answer. Orange’s resolvers, meanwhile, answered with 127.0.0.1, the address of the user’s own computer, or reported that the domain doesn’t exist.

In other words, a visitor who types in a domain that TorrentFreak owns, and that hosts a plain research notice, lands on an anti-piracy page instead.

The two research domains have been in place for two weeks and it seems that nobody noticed. We are not aware of an official appeal process for domain owners, as there apparently is no direct route to complain.

A Hong Kong Server

Finally, it is worth pointing out that most of the domains on the list point to Hong Kong. Of the 118 entries, 74 resolve to two IP addresses in a single Hong Kong range, and all of these domains return an “unauthorized” error when we try to load them.

Another 19 domains point to a second Hong Kong IP range. These all show the same page, titled “Service Premium — Online.” Together, that’s 93 of the 118 entries.

What is hosted on these servers is unknown, as we didn’t try to access them. However, they are likely linked to a pirate streaming service, given beIN’s complaint. If anything, it shows that this blocking effort largely targets one or two streaming operations.

Thus far, the blocking efforts haven’t stopped them, in part because the operators can easily register new domains, as if it were Groundhog Day.

Meanwhile, France is preparing to step up its blocking efforts. In July, the French Parliament adopted a law that allows new domains to be added automatically during live broadcasts, with Arcom reviewing them afterwards. As far as we know, that doesn’t come with a transparency layer.

The current blocking order expires on November 14. Whether the domains on the list, including our two research domains, will be unblocked after that has yet to be seen.

A copy of the Paris Judicial Court’s October 21 ruling (RG 26/11882) is available here (pdf).

Method: DNS checks were carried out on October 28, from a Dutch connection and through a French NordVPN server. Google DNS and Cloudflare DNS were queried over DNS-over-HTTPS, NordVPN’s resolver through the VPN connection. ISP resolvers were tested on November 6 through Globalping probes in French consumer networks and through whatsmydns.net. The figures are a snapshot and will change as blocking continues and resolvers update. Landing pages and open ports were checked from the Netherlands on October 23 and 28. Registration data is from WHOIS lookups on October 23 and 24.

The full list of 118 domains, by the date Google reported them to Lumen:

May 13 (court order), 6 domains: ap-live.top, line.golden-iptv.in, mrctop.net, tennis-open.ru, tennistream.com, thetvapp.to

June 15, 22 domains (19 + 3): 32740-defend.tx-4kott.com, 4kib.xyz, activefrance.net, akkaouiz.xyz, asokax6.com, balentv.xyz, bestp55.xyz, buffnetwork.sbs, djamel.site, dru4.xyz, erw55.xyz, faraka.xyz, fr4.sportplus.live, mgntv-nexon.xyz, neomixtv.xyz, partner.nonamejose.sx, predb.click, premium999.xyz, rktv.top, suphotte.xyz, supralf.xyz, zikotv.cc

September 21, 30 domains: allinone.cx, almaksor.pro, babadedachannel.online, celltvsoftware.com, cherry-tv.net, chrixkl4s2cls234lumopxlwyc234y.com, cleptomania.xyz, cmax.space, eztvclub.live, forstreem.com, ftv-live.win, hosttach.xyz, jtowntv.com, mag1311.net, maguland.xyz, neomspeaks.com, nexus-cdn.xyz, nionni.net, portaltivi.shop, redvisionstreamz.com, s416k.online, seee.info, sehpie.xyz, smartliststg.online, smartott.store, strongbow.online, strongtv.org, tatan.xyz, tvplanetstore.com, waseemiptv.com

October 16, 30 domains: 86862944.cdnmax.pro, 8k-super.xyz, albastrong.top, alveropro.online, bfeplex2.sbs, bilelhosting.info, blackboxiptv.vip, bus8kservice.store, ciptvservices2021.xyz, daso2026.xyz, datedriver.com, discovery8k.org, dramily3.xyz, ewmedia69.org, fermin37.com, higher8k.xyz, invictus667.com, iva-ehe.com, latvroom888.xyz, niko05451.com, ossytv.net, pandoratv4k.site, powerwatchy.com, rachatducredit.com, rachid4k.top, tdigi.store, tudiptv.xyz, unstabletv.xyz, vfmbx.com, yhiuhv.com

October 26, 30 domains: 0213422.eu, 131233.xyz, 159premium.com, angli8k.xyz, beachwavestv.com, cable.directory, chahinplay.com, cw-32.com, dannly.xyz, eliteprovip.com, elitestream.cc, eumatrix.xyz, goldenpro.xyz, goldenyass.com, greentv.xyz, gstatic.top, headbussa423.com, host-strong.sbs, iptv-anas.sbs, kekol235.xyz, new2026.online, opencableco.net, samyx-ott.me, tvgreece.site, tvkudoplayer.de, ukchannels.xyz, v1nland.xyz, vpn.xtreme-gold.ink, xhd1337.xyz, zieiptv.me

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

For years, record labels sued U.S. Internet providers that kept serving subscribers who were repeatedly accused of piracy.

This strategy took a major hit in March, when the Supreme Court wiped out the $1 billion verdict against Cox.

According to the Court, knowing about piracy and failing to act on it is not enough to make an ISP liable for contributing to it. However, south of the border, lawmakers have now taken a different approach.

On Tuesday, Mexico’s Senate approved a reform of the Federal Copyright Law that ties ISP liability to having a policy to terminate repeat infringers.

Senate Backs ISP Liability Rules

The Senate approved the amendments with roughly two-thirds of the vote, as the opposition voted against.

The Chamber of Deputies already approved the same text in October, so the decree now goes to President Claudia Sheinbaum. Her government proposed the changes in May to bring the law in line with the USMCA trade agreement between Mexico, the United States and Canada.

U.S. rightsholders pushed Mexico for ISP liability rules as well. In January, copyright industry coalition IIPA complained that Mexico’s 2020 reform “did not provide a clear principle of secondary liability for those inducing or promoting copyright infringement.”

In April, the USTR moved Mexico to a lower tier of its piracy watch list, citing the draft amendments.

Disconnect Repeat Infringers

The trade agreement also prompted an earlier change in 2020, when Mexico added DMCA-style safe harbors to its copyright law. As a result, hosting platforms and search engines are only protected if they have a policy to terminate the accounts of repeat infringers, but this didn’t apply to regular consumer ISPs.

The new amendments change that, requiring Internet providers to have a policy for terminating the service of repeat infringers. This policy has to be published permanently on their website and in their terms of service, and it must include a basic way to notify users.

In other words, what can be terminated is the Internet connection itself, not just an account. According to Mexican business outlet EL CEO, this means that access providers such as Telmex and Izzi will need such a policy.

Providers that don’t comply risk facing liability.

Under the new rules, any ISP that fails to meet its safe harbor conditions becomes liable for its users’ infringements if it knowingly contributes to, induces, or causes the infringement.

The same goes for an ISP that can control the infringing user and profits directly from the infringement. In both cases, the Mexican Institute of Industrial Property (IMPI) can fine the provider up to roughly 4.7 million pesos (~$250,000), depending on the infringement.

Who Is a Repeat Infringer?

The law doesn’t explicitly define the term repeat infringer, nor does it say how many piracy accusations it takes before a subscriber can be cut off.

According to Aurora López-Portillo, director of legal services at IP firm ClarkeModet, each provider has to decide its own threshold. She told EL CEO that ISPs should also check whether the accusations actually hold up, while giving users a chance to respond, even though the law doesn’t require that.

During Tuesday’s Senate debate, some lawmakers in the opposition raised similar concerns. Senator Gabriel Elizondo warned that families can share a single connection, so the pirating activities of one person could leave an entire household offline.

Previously, opposition lawmakers proposed requiring a court order before Internet service could be suspended, but that proposal was not adopted.

Not Like Cox

In the U.S., the DMCA has a similar requirement too. ISPs that want safe harbor protection must implement a policy to terminate repeat infringers in appropriate circumstances. However, as the Supreme Court pointed out in the Cox case earlier this year, failing to meet that requirement doesn’t count against an ISP that argues it didn’t infringe.

“Under our precedents, a company is not liable as a copyright infringer for merely providing a service to the general public with knowledge that it will be used by some to infringe copyrights,” Justice Thomas wrote in the Court’s opinion.

Mexico’s law uses a different route.

There, failing to meet the safe harbor conditions, including the repeat infringer policy, is the first requirement for liability. If an ISP also contributes to infringement with knowledge of it, or can control the infringer and directly profits from it, it can be held responsible.

The new repeat infringer rules will take effect 180 days after their publication in Mexico’s official gazette, which hasn’t happened yet as far as we can see. How Mexican ISPs will define a repeat infringer, and how many accusations it takes, has yet to be seen.

—

A copy of the amendments approved by Mexico’s Congress is available here (pdf, Spanish). The U.S. Supreme Court’s opinion in Cox v. Sony can be found here (pdf).

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

Last year, adult film producers Strike 3 Holdings and Counterlife Media sued Meta, accusing the tech giant of downloading thousands of their films via BitTorrent to train AI models.

Meta denies the allegations. Early on, the company already suggested that employees or visitors may have downloaded the videos for personal use.

That position is now being put to the test in discovery. A joint status report, filed by both parties, shows that Meta’s own search turned up employees who appear to have “interacted” with the producers’ videos.

Employees ‘Interacted’ With Strike 3 Films

The status report was originally filed on October 21 with large parts blacked out. A week later, Meta narrowed the redactions, refiling a version that clearly shows what was previously hidden.

According to Strike 3, Meta first shared the names of five employees who “interacted” with torrented versions of its films back in July. Meta says that this was a draft, sent by mistake, and clawed it back.

Meta later shared the names again, but only for Strike 3’s lawyers to see. Strike 3 is not happy with this restriction, and in the status report it writes that the “Attorney’s Eyes Only” label limits its ability to investigate these individuals.

There may be more, too. Meta has told Strike 3 about additional employees who ‘interacted’ with the films and related torrent files, but it hasn’t named them yet. Why they are not named is not mentioned.

Meta, meanwhile, stresses that it has no evidence that the videos were torrented by these individuals or anyone else. According to the company, they “appear to have interacted with (e.g., viewed or opened)” Strike 3’s videos.

“To date, Meta has not found any evidence supporting Plaintiffs’ claims that the alleged torrent downloads were performed with Meta’s knowledge and authorization or for its benefit,” the tech company writes, adding that none of the activity listed in its interrogatory response was authorized or related to its AI training.

Third-Party IP Addresses

Meta also has an explanation for the IP addresses Strike 3 flagged. Most of the alleged downloads came from third-party IP addresses it has no control over, the company argues.

Meta’s own corporate IP addresses, meanwhile, mostly belong to an internet service it acquired years ago. This unnamed service was offered to the public and phased out in 2019.

While not mentioned in the legal paperwork, the Onavo VPN would perfectly fit this picture. This controversial service was owned by Meta until it was shut down in early 2019.

Meta: Alleged Pirate Had Already Left

The filing also brings some news on a separate case. In late August, Strike 3 identified an anonymous AT&T subscriber as a Reality Labs executive and asked the court to relate his “John Doe” case to the Meta lawsuit. Judge Eumi K. Lee denied that request without prejudice, as Strike 3 first needed permission to disclose his identity.

On October 15, Magistrate Judge Virginia K. DeMarchi granted that permission. After learning the name, Meta then informed Strike 3 that it will oppose a renewed motion, as this person had already left Meta at the time of the alleged torrenting activity.

Strike 3 disagrees, stating that it has “traced” John Doe’s copyright infringement to several years before he left the company. The adult producer still wants to relate these cases, but as far as we can see, it has yet to file a new motion.

For now, the employees’ names remain under the “Attorney’s Eyes Only” designation and kept away from the public. Whether their activity was as unrelated to Meta’s work as the company says has yet to be seen.

—

A copy of the joint case management statement, with Meta’s narrowed redactions, is available here (pdf).

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

In May, the U.S. Trade Representative opened a Section 301 investigation into Vietnam, arguing that the country’s piracy prosecutions lacked a deterrent effect.

USTR pointed to recent cases in which defendants received suspended sentences and relatively low fines. A few weeks earlier, Vietnam’s Prime Minister had ordered a nationwide crackdown on copyright infringement. Several criminal cases have since moved forward, including those against the alleged operators of HiAnime and the Xoi Lac TV sports streaming network.

Another site in the crosshairs was Bún Chả TV, which offered Premier League and Champions League streams with Vietnamese commentary. According to police, the site drew hundreds of thousands of visits a day.

Investigators described the site as an underground company, with separate teams for programming, commentary, SEO and accounting. The main revenue came from ads and from redirecting viewers to illegal gambling sites.

On May 15, police from several provinces moved in. They summoned suspects, searched homes and workplaces, and seized 38 computers and 42 phones. Less than two weeks later, Vietnam’s Ministry of Public Security announced that Bac Ninh police had charged ten people.

Up to a Year in Prison

That case has now reached a verdict. In a first-instance ruling reported last week, a court in Bac Ninh convicted 14 defendants of infringing copyright and related rights under Article 225 of Vietnam’s Penal Code, VTC News reports.

Four defendants, including the heads of the content, programming and operations teams, were sentenced to 12 months in prison. Five others received ten months, and two were sentenced to eight months.

Notably, three of the site’s commentators were not sent to prison. Their ten-month sentences were suspended.

All 14 defendants reportedly admitted the charges and cooperated with the authorities. According to investigators, Bún Chả TV streamed more than 150,000 sports matches and it allegedly made more than 20 billion dong, roughly $760,000, in illegal profits from betting and gambling ads.

The verdict reports don’t mention a total. Instead, they list illegal gains per person or team. The leader of the content team allegedly gained more than 430 million dong, while commentators made from more than 31 million to more than 480 million dong each.

‘Strong’ Penalties

The verdict was picked up by Rouse, the law firm that represents the Motion Picture Association in Vietnam. In an article headlined “Strong Vietnam criminal penalties,” published on Lexology on November 3, the firm calls the ruling another victory for Vietnam’s IP landscape.

“The defendants were all sentenced to terms of 8-12 months in prison,” Rouse writes.

While Rouse is correct on the length of the terms, it doesn’t mention that three of the sentences were suspended. Instead, Rouse stresses that the ruling is part of a tougher enforcement trend.

“This ruling reflects a shift in enforcement strategy by Vietnamese authorities, who are increasingly moving past preliminary domain blocking to deliver criminal convictions against the operators of commercial-scale piracy rings,” the firm notes.

“This perhaps reflects the strength of the national crackdown following the USTR pressure in May,” the firm adds.

Organizer Not on Trial?

The 14 defendants worked on the site, but according to the indictment reported by VTC News, the operation was directed by Bùi Bá Hiến, who manages and runs a company called S24. Hiến allegedly instructed employees and hired collaborators to build and run Bún Chả TV.

Hiến is not among the 14 defendants named in the reports, as far as we can see. The reports don’t name any of the impacted rightsholders either.

Interestingly, in September, Bac Ninh police issued a wanted notice for a man of the same name, Bùi Bá Hiến, CEO of esports company Box Vietnam. This person is also charged under the same copyright statute.

Police said this man fled on May 13, two days before the Bún Chả TV raids, but none of the reports we’ve seen confirm that this esports executive is the same person that’s named in the Bún Chả TV indictment.

The USTR has until November 29 to make its Section 301 determination, although it can extend the investigation by three months if needed. On paper, Vietnamese law allows for sentences up to three years for copyright infringement. Whether the 8-12 month sentences are what Washington had in mind when it called for more deterrent punishments has yet to be seen.

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

With more than 150 million monthly visits, HiAnime was one of the most popular piracy portals to ever exist.

The anime streaming giant, previously known as Zoro.to and Aniwatch, shut down in March without offering an explanation.

Four months later, Vietnamese police arrested four of its alleged operators, and charged seven people in total.

The authorities didn’t name the site at the time, but we identified it through footage aired by state broadcaster VTV. Vietnam’s Supreme People’s Procuracy now names HiAnime directly, in an indictment that also reveals where the money came from.

Seven Defendants Head to Trial

Today, the procuracy indicted Nguyễn Đình Minh Khoa and six co-defendants, who will be tried by the Hanoi People’s Court. Khoa, Nguyễn Trung Anh, Nguyễn Hoàng Thanh and Nguyễn Đình Xuân are charged with copyright infringement and money laundering. The other three only face copyright infringement charges.

According to state news agency TTXVN, the case originated with a complaint filed with the Ministry of Public Security by Rouse, the law firm that represents the Motion Picture Association (MPA) in Vietnam.

This complaint was filed on May 7, which was also the first day of a nationwide crackdown on pirate sites, triggered by an urgent order from Vietnam’s Prime Minister.

The HiAnime investigation eventually traced the operation back to early 2019, when Khoa allegedly came up with the idea to build pirate streaming sites that were easier to use than existing ones.

Khoa reportedly bought more than 100 domain names and worked on search engine optimization. Trung Anh managed the servers, Xuân programmed the sites, and Thanh designed them and handled the payouts. To expand the operation, co-defendant Nguyễn Phước Toàn was allegedly put in charge of the Zoro, Aniwatch and HiAnime pages on Reddit.

HiAnime wasn’t the only brand. The indictment also mentions Sflix/Myflixerz and 9animetv. Between mid-2019 and March 2026, the group allegedly offered 26,000 TV series and 7,500 anime titles through its network of sites.

12.85 Million USDT Through PropellerAds

The prosecution says that Khoa was in charge of the advertising. He allegedly dealt with advertising platform PropellerAds via Skype and Telegram, and placed its ads on the various pirate sites.

“Through the Propeller Ads platform, the defendants received a total of 12.85 million USDT, equivalent to 12.85 million USD,” Báo Bảo vệ pháp luật’s report reads (translated).

According to TTXVN, PropellerAds paid out 12.85 million USDT which was sent to the group’s crypto wallets.

The indictment notes that Khoa personally received 2.5 million USDT from 2020 onward, while Thanh collected 10.35 million USDT through wallets on the Binance exchange starting in September 2023. After costs, the four main defendants split the profits equally, which earned each of them at least 50 billion Vietnamese dong, roughly $2 million.

PropellerAds has been criticized by Hollywood before. The MPA recommended the advertising company for the USTR’s annual notorious markets list, arguing that many pirate sites use it to generate revenue. PropellerAds rejected these claims and, in 2023, accused the MPA of harassment and defamation.

Whether PropellerAds was aware of HiAnime’s activities is unknown.

Update: After publication, PropellerAds’ attorney Val Gurvits sent us a statement on behalf of the company. PropellerAds says it is an intermediary between advertisers and publishers that “does not host, produce, control or endorse the content of publishers’ websites.”

“Propeller does not tolerate copyright-infringing content and it carefully processes any copyright abuse notices filed through its abuse form available on their website,” the statement adds.

The company declined to comment on the HiAnime case itself. “Regarding the case in Vietnam, as a matter of policy, Propeller does not comment on individual publisher accounts, payment information or allegations made in ongoing legal proceedings, which have yet to be tested in court,” Gurvits writes.

The attorney adds that PropellerAds is not a party in the Vietnamese proceedings and “had no involvement in the ownership, operation or management of HiAnime.”

Cloudflare Storage, DMCA Subpoenas

The indictment also mentions other intermediaries. Trung Anh allegedly rented servers from hosting company Evoluso between 2019 and 2022. From 2023 until March 2026, the group’s storage system relied on services from Cloudflare.

The MPA previously tried to identify the people behind HiAnime through Cloudflare. In October 2024, it requested a DMCA subpoena requiring the company to share information on hianime.to and several related domains. A year later, it requested another one, listing a new batch of HiAnime branded domains.

Whether these subpoenas produced any information that helped the Vietnamese investigation is unknown.

From Porsche to G63

Over the years, the sites repeatedly received DMCA copyright warnings from Google, prosecutors say. However, the defendants kept changing the site addresses, so they could continue streaming and collecting ad revenue. This matches with the rebranding efforts.

Early this year, the defendants allegedly began to cover their tracks. In February, fearing detection, Trung Anh had his sister register his Porsche in her name. Xuân did the same with a Mercedes, which he registered to his father and later his sister, while also changing its license plate.

By March 2026, as the authorities stepped up their action against copyright infringement, the defendants decided to stop operating and deleted the websites they had used,” Báo Bảo vệ pháp luật reports (translated).

The money laundering charges are linked to how the advertising revenue was spent. The four main defendants allegedly moved the USDT through several crypto wallets, sold it for Vietnamese dong, and transferred it to personal bank accounts. The money was then used to buy property and cars.

According to the indictment, Khoa spent more than 24 billion dong, starting with a Porsche Panamera that he registered in his wife’s name in January 2022. He later sold it, and used the proceeds and more crypto money to buy a Mercedes G63 in April 2024. That car was sold for 8.5 billion dong, which went toward a Land Rover Autobiography earlier this year.

The other main defendants allegedly spent their share on cars and property too, as can be seen in the summary below.

This high-profile case is also being watched in Washington. In May, the USTR opened a Section 301 investigation into Vietnam’s copyright enforcement, which could lead to tariffs. In its response, Vietnam cited the HiAnime prosecution to show that it is taking piracy seriously.

The defendants are not the first pirate site operators to face trial in Vietnam. Two operators of the Fmovies piracy ring dodged prison last year, as they received suspended sentences.

That was a thorn in the side of rightsholders. The USTR also flagged the issue, urging Vietnam to seek “deterrent-level prison sentences.”

None of the reports we have seen mentions a trial date. Whether the Hanoi court will hand out the deterrent sentences Hollywood and the USTR have called for has yet to be seen.

The details of the indictment were reported by Vietnamese newspaper Báo Bảo vệ pháp luật and state news agency TTXVN, through VietnamPlus. Quotes from the newspaper’s report on the indictment were translated from Vietnamese by TorrentFreak.

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

In April 2024, anime streaming service Funimation shut down its app and website, as it became part of Crunchyroll.

The closure also cut off access to the Funimation digital copies that came with DVDs and Blu-ray discs. This wasn’t well received by anime fans.

Today, Crunchyroll’s help page still states that it does not currently support these copies. Instead, the page encourages affected users to explore the anime streaming library that Crunchyroll does offer.

The movies and shows are still on the discs and in theory American buyers could make their own digital replacement copies. However, doing so would break the law as the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provision prohibits bypassing the encryption on DVDs and Blu-rays, unless an exemption applies.

Petitions Seek New Disc Ripping Exemption

The U.S. Copyright Office reviews these exemptions every three years, and last week it opened ten proposed classes for public comment. Two of the underlying petitions deal with works for which digital access was discontinued, and one specifically mentions the Funimation case.

One of these petitions comes from Jayden Milne. He asks the Office to allow owners of DVDs, Blu-ray and Ultra HD Blu-ray discs to make a single secured, local copy for personal use, when the digital copy promised on the packaging is no longer available.

That covers two situations. The first are people who redeemed a digital copy before the service behind it shut down, as happened with Funimation.

The second are buyers of new discs whose code had already expired. According to the petition, Warner Bros. states that its digital codes expire based on a title’s release date rather than the purchase date, and that expired codes are not replaced. This means that a disc bought years after its release may come with a code that no longer works.

Milne wants owners of these physical discs to be able to rip a replacement from them, under strict conditions.

The replacement can’t be better than what was promised. If the box offered an HD digital copy, for example, owners can’t rip the 4K version. Also, the copy is for personal use and it must be destroyed if the disc is sold, given away or lost.

Disappearing Anime Streams

A second and related petition, submitted by Zakaria Zerhouane, focuses on anime more broadly. It covers series and films that were removed from authorized U.S. streaming platforms after their licenses expired, as well as anime released on disc by U.S. distributors that no longer exist.

The petition does not mention Funimation but lists several distributors, including ADV Films, Bandai Entertainment, Central Park Media and Geneon.

In addition to bypassing encryption on discs, Zerhouane also wants to legally circumvent the DRM, geo-locking, and session-based access controls that streaming platforms use. This is needed, the petition argues, as the anime licensing market is unstable.

“Streaming platforms provide no advance removal notice, preventing users from finishing or preserving works before they disappear,” Zerhouane writes.

He adds that the consolidation of the U.S. anime market under “a single dominant entity” has made catalogs more volatile. The petition doesn’t name the company, but the description appears to fit Sony-owned Crunchyroll.

Neither petition covers all video content. Zerhouane’s request is limited to anime, while Milne’s only covers discs that came with a digital copy. Both petitions are restricted to personal and noncommercial uses.

Rightsholders Respond in February

The Copyright Office grouped these requests with four other ‘replacement’ petitions. These ask for personal backups of discs, including before they deteriorate, and permission to format-shift discs as playback hardware disappears. These become more relevant every year, as old formats decay.

The Office notes that the Register of Copyrights has repeatedly declined to recommend such format-shifting exemptions in the past. This means that, while they are on the agenda, approval is uncertain.

Before making any decision, the Office wants more details from stakeholders. It asks which copy protections are involved, whether the titles can be watched legally some other way, and why making these copies wouldn’t infringe copyright. It also wants to know whether allowing this would hurt sales.

Supporters have until December 7 to send in their comments. Opponents can respond until February 22, and public hearings will follow in the spring.

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A copy of the Copyright Office’s notice of proposed rulemaking is available here (pdf). Jayden Milne’s petition can be found here (pdf), and Zakaria Zerhouane’s petition is available here (pdf).

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