The long-running legal battle between News-Service Europe ( NSE ) and anti-piracy group BREIN has quietly come to an end.

NSE was once one of the largest Usenet providers, but its legal troubles started in 2009, when BREIN took legal action on behalf of the movie and music industries.

In an early verdict in 2011, the Court of Amsterdam concluded that NSE willingly facilitated online piracy through its services. As a result, the company was ordered to remove all pirated content and filter future posts for possible copyright infringements.

According to the Usenet provider, this filtering requirement would’ve been too costly to implement, so it shut down its service while it appealed the case.

Supreme Court Win for NSE

After several more years of litigation, the Amsterdam appeals court ruled that NSE wasn’t liable for users’ pirating activities after all, but NSE was required to offer a responsive and effective notice and takedown procedure, possibly with additional measures.

Unhappy with the outcome, BREIN decided to take the matter to the Dutch Supreme Court. While NSE was no longer a threat, the case could prove crucial for many other Usenet providers.

In 2023, the Supreme Court confirmed that the Usenet provider shouldn’t be held liable for pirating users. The fact that NSE had a decent takedown procedure and no apparent knowledge of infringement weighed in its favor.

The Court also confirmed that NSE didn’t curate any content, nor did it specifically promote copyright infringement.

NSE Seeks Millions in Damages

The Supreme Court ordered BREIN to pay the legal costs. For NSE, however, the victory was bittersweet, as the company had already thrown in the towel well over a decade earlier.

In a final effort to recoup some of its claimed losses, NSE sued BREIN for damages last December . Exact details were not revealed, but the claim could’ve easily reached millions of euros.

While NSE shut down voluntarily, the company says that it saw no other option at the time due to BREIN’s legal pressure. As a result, the entire NSE team lost their jobs.

In its initial response, BREIN looked forward to the new legal battle with confidence. BREIN director Bastiaan van Ramshorst said that NSE willingly decided to shut down its service in 2011, instead of engaging in court-mandated negotiations.

NSE and BREIN Settle

This latest lawsuit could’ve easily added a few more years to the legal battle. However, it won’t come to that, as NSE and BREIN have decided to settle their differences once and for all.

Last Friday, the parties issued the same brief press release. This effectively confirms the end of the 16-year legal battle without adding any further detail.

“Last week the parties reached a settlement, which allowed them to avoid further escalating litigation costs. Both sides are pleased with the outcome and have agreed not to disclose the details of the arrangement,” NSE and BREIN announced.

This type of tight-lipped announcement suggests that the parties reached a compromise. Since NSE is a defunct entity with no operational future, financial compensation seems the only logical incentive for them to drop the multi-million euro claim.

NSE had little to lose at this point, but, for BREIN, the settlement means that it no longer has to face a claim for ‘millions’ in damages. The details of this agreement will remain secret, which underscores that it remains a sensitive issue after all these years.

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

For years, powerful rightsholders and media groups have demanded urgent and decisive action from the European Commission to tackle IPTV piracy of live sports and events.

From the MPA, to the Premier League, Sky, LaLiga and Serie A, the message couldn’t have been clearer or more consistent. It didn’t change after the EC’s rejection of their call for urgent legislative measures in 2022, and remained intact following a consultation and advice early 2023 on a ‘toolbox’ of existing measures .

EC Publishes Assessment of the Effects of Recommendation

In May 2023, the European Commission (EC) issued a Recommendation aimed at tackling online piracy of sports and other live events. It encouraged measures concerning the processing of takedown notices, dynamic injunctions, cooperation between stakeholders, and increasing the availability of legal alternatives.

Aiming to build upon existing legal frameworks such as the InfoSoc Directive, IPRED, and the Digital Services Act (DSA), it was detailed and comprehensive, without being especially urgent.

Some two-and-a-half years later, an assessment of the effects of the Recommendation were published by the EC last week. The report evaluates the progress made by Member States, national authorities, and stakeholders in implementing the various measures outlined in May 2023. Monitoring was carried out by the EUIPO Observatory using Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) concerning piracy volume, processing of takedown notices, use of blocking injunctions, and availability of legal offers.

Ensuring Prompt Execution of Takedown Notices

Recommendation: Hosting services should process takedown notices sent by rightsholders as quickly as possible, to help protect vulnerable live events which have most of their value built into the event itself.

Assessment: Only limited progress was reported. ‘Online platforms’ including social media, online marketplaces, and search engines, were generally more responsive due to their obligations under the DSA. Responses from other intermediaries such as Dedicated Server Providers (DSPs) and Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) were much slower, highlighting a significant gap in response times when compared to online platforms.

Further Action: According to the report, there’s a need for increased cooperation with intermediaries, including working towards technical solutions to automate processing of takedown notices. The Commission says it will examine the role of intermediaries within the DSA Board discussions.

Rightsholders’ Use of Blocking Injunctions in Member States

Recommendation: Authorized under Article 8(3) of the InfoSoc Directive and Article 11 of IPRED, Members States should facilitate use of dynamic/live blocking injunctions, with appropriate safeguards, against infringers and intermediaries whose services are used to infringe copyrights.

Assessment: The Commission notes that while injunctions are useful, implementation across Member States shows significant variation. At the extremes, some countries have very robust systems in place while others have no system at all. The Commission says there’s not only a need for much broader adoption across the EU, but also more consistent application.

Further Recommendation on Injunctions: Member States are ‘encouraged’ to provide for injunctions against intermediaries, who, regardless of their lack of liability, offer services that are misused for illegal streaming of live sports.

Assessment: Noting efforts in France and Belgium that have blocked CDNs , VPNs and DNS providers , and work in Italy to facilitate the same, the EC also highlights LaLiga’s work in Spain “ against ISPs and CDNs “. Under the DSA, some intermediaries may be exempted from liability, the EC adds, but the DSA does not preclude them from being blocked regardless.

Since these are recent developments, “there is not yet sufficient data to assess the efficiency of dynamic injunctions addressed to those intermediaries,” the report concedes, adding that “a number of end-users, have complained about a few instances of over-blocking.”

The Recommendation appears to have prompted some Member States to reassess their legal frameworks or engage in policy discussions to strengthen enforcement measures. Some Member States have clarified legal standing for sports event organizers, allowing them to pursue injunctions in their own right. Some rightsholders are demanding that blocking injunctions are recognized across borders.

Discussions about the possible introduction of dynamic injunctions have been discussed in a few Member States, but not have not yet materialized. In others, there are no developments to report “prompting concerns” from certain stakeholders, the EC reports.

Further action: The Commission will consider whether new measures are needed to ensure a wider and more consistent use of dynamic injunctions across Member States.

Cooperation between Rightsholders and Intermediaries / Public Authorities

Recommendation: Encourage cooperation between rightsholders and intermediaries to identify the source of unauthorized retransmissions and take measures to prevent repeat misuse.

Assessment: Cooperation agreements to fight piracy exist across Member States, some concluded directly between the parties and others with assistance from public authorities. Agreements between rightsholders and ISPs on blocking measures and issues related to content blocking/removal appear to be most common.

In 2024, participating rightsholders reported 49 voluntary cooperation agreements with intermediaries, rising to 62 in 2025. Cooperation with Dedicated Server Providers (DSPs) account for around two-thirds of agreements (42), with online platforms (18) quite a distance behind. Perhaps unsurprisingly, agreements to identify the source of infringement are far less common; just two were reported.

In general, cooperation has improved, with voluntary agreements becoming more common. The majority of infringement notices resulting in suspension of access to infringing streams were issued in the context of cooperation agreements, with 55% of those proving successful. However, some rightsholders complained that most cooperation agreements still rely on manual processing of infringement notices, which limits effectiveness when applied to live sports.

The Recommendation encourages Member States to actively engage in the exchange of information when sites and services are blocked as part of an injunction. Under the DSA, orders issued by authorities to act against illegal content must be shared by a Member State’s Digital Services Coordinator (DSC) with their counterparts in other Member States.

This system is considered directly relevant to tackling piracy of live events but is not yet fully operational. However, the network is described as a “crucial initiative” through which valuable information is exchanged between participating authorities.

Raising Awareness and Improving Availability of Legal Offers

Recommendation: Increase users’ awareness of legal content, increase the availability, affordability, and attractiveness of live event commercial offers.

Assessment: The report notes that submissions focused solely on live sports events. Several rightholders and sports event organizers have reportedly made efforts to make their offers more accessible, including “setting up a website which allows users to obtain information on where a specific sporting competition is available.”

Yet in noting the following, it seems that readily available information proved elusive enough to prevent an assessment.

“[T]he data submitted by sports event organisers and rightholders to the EUIPO does not allow to fully assess the progress made in terms of the availability of sports events or the affordability and attractiveness of commercial offers,” the report notes.

“Consumers responding to the call for evidence consider that this remains an area of concern, arguing that the availability of affordable legal offers remains low and legal offers are fragmented,” the report notes.

Some national authorities identified pricing of legal offers, fragmentation, and territorial availability, as “possible obstacles” faced by users attempting to access legal live content, “which often requires users to obtain multiple paid subscriptions.”

Overall Conclusions

The European Commission’s assessment concludes that while the Recommendation has encouraged positive developments, its overall impact is limited.

Despite signs of increased awareness and cooperation, piracy by volume has not reduced and remains a problem. While online platforms are seen as effective when processing takedown notices, DSPs reportedly lag far behind when it comes to suspension of pirate streams. Notices sent to CDNs and reverse proxies are increasing but are not effective.

“In addition, an increasing number of notices are being addressed to other intermediaries, including CDNs and reverse proxies, which are not subject to the DSA rules on notices. In this context, the assessment underlines that cooperation agreements have led to a better and quicker response by the relevant intermediaries.”

The assessment also highlights tension between protection from liability for intermediaries and the demand for more effective responses to piracy. Intermediaries are not required by law to proactively police illegal content, but the assessment nevertheless implies that even within existing legal frameworks, going beyond current obligations would make a significant difference.

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

Services offered by U.S tech giant Cloudflare improve the performance and security of millions of websites, amounting to a significant contribution towards the health of today’s internet.

Those hoping to benefit from Cloudflare’s services find few, if any, barriers to entry. Typically a working email address is sufficient to gain access, meaning new users can protect their websites in a matter of minutes.

Cloudflare Held Liable For Anonymous Users

Frictionless onboarding is popular with users and good for Cloudflare’s overall business. For Japanese manga publishers Shueisha, Kodansha, Kadokawa, and Shogakukan, the absence of identity verification is a gift to pirate site operators. Not only are they allowed to remain personally anonymous, their websites’ IP addresses can be hidden and exchanged for Cloudflare’s, making enforcement more difficult.

A decision handed down this week by Judge Aya Takahashi at the Tokyo District Court, holding Cloudflare liable for infringement carried out by its customers, concerns a lawsuit filed by the publishers in 2022.

The companies said that the anonymity afforded by Cloudflare to site operators and their websites, provides an attractive environment for piracy of their content to thrive. When the publishers’ repeatedly complained, Cloudflare should’ve taken the strongest of action against such abuse, including terminating the accounts of known pirate sites.

Liability and Future Growth

Judge Takahashi agreed that the lack of identity verification was a piracy-enabling factor but Cloudflare’s inaction amounted to a failure to acknowledge responsibility.

“(Cloudflare) failed in its duty to stop providing the service,” Judge Takahashi said.

Liability in this instance led to a damages award against Cloudflare of 500 million yen, around US$3.2 million. In the bigger picture, the money is less important to Cloudflare than new liability and what that might mean for the growth of its business.

In this instance, the court did not issue an injunction to restrain Cloudflare moving forward. However, the finding of liability is unacceptable to Cloudflare so it intends to file an appeal and continue the fight.

“We appreciate the efforts of the Tokyo District Court, which spent a great deal of time and effort reviewing and ruling on this complex case. While we respectfully disagree with the court’s decision, we also express our dissent,” the company said in a statement sent to legal news outlet Bengo4 .

Cloudflare maintains its long-held position that as a CDN, it delivers data and doesn’t host anything. Since the pirated content is hosted elsewhere, that’s where it will remain, regardless of any action at Cloudflare.

Cloudflare Ups the Stakes, Warns of Global Implications

Cloudflare’s pursuit of a decision aligned with its own interests, will see the publishers defend their hard-won position with similar determination. For the former, the decision in Japan isn’t just a local storm, it’s a threat to intermediaries and sets a global precedent with far-reaching implications.

“Holding CDNs like Cloudflare legally liable for content they do not host removes the limitations on liability that have underpinned the growth of the global internet. This ruling is the first of its kind in the world and could have serious implications for the efficiency, security, and reliability of the internet not only in Japan but around the world,” the company says.

While a robust defense of its position is to be expected, Cloudflare seems to be especially vocal – and critical – not just of the decision, but how it will hurt Japan’s progress moving forward.

Describing the ruling as “undermining transparency, fairness and due process,” Cloudflare said the trial questioned whether Japan’s judicial system supports its aspirations for growth in tech.

“This ruling is contrary to the legislative intent of promoting Japan’s technological growth and risks stifling technological innovation among Japan’s emerging technology companies,” Cloudflare added.

If the decision stands, to avoid liability Cloudflare says it would need to terminate CDN services based on takedown notices, rather than under the formal instructions of a competent court.

The Publishers’ View the Decision in a Different Light

Yuki Hirai is an attorney at Sakurazaka Law Office, where he leads the case on behalf of the publishers.

In recent comments to the USTR, Cloudflare suggested that a negative outcome against the publishers would “necessitate U.S. CDN providers to limit the provision of global services.”

In comments to TorrentFreak, Attorney Hirai disputes that, noting that Cloudflare’s argument “distorts the essence” of the case.

“This ruling concerns responsibility for providing high anonymity and ignoring infringement notices, not the provision of the service itself nor other CDN service provider,” he explains.

“Cloudflare also argues that to avoid their legal liability, it would need to suspend CDN services for a website based on a notice rather than a formal order from an independent court, significantly increasing the potential for abuse. However, this judgment states, citing several reasons, that our infringement notice properly shows the URLs to the infringing content, and that upon viewing those URLs, it was immediately obvious they were pirate sites.”

Attorney Hirai says Cloudflare’s arguments are “highly self-defensive and contain numerous errors.” The publishers true aims are actually quite straightforward.

A Decision That Aligns With Cloudflare Policy

“What we are demanding is a very general act of ceasing to aid such crimes. Restricting the provision of global services is not the solution we seek, nor is it aligned to this judgement,” Hirai explains.

“What we are seeking is for Cloudflare to promptly cease providing services once the sites are notified as pirate sites, and to implement appropriate measures such as identity verification to prevent repeat infringers.

“These requests from us also align with Cloudflare’s policy in its statement to media outlets, of ‘not hesitating to cooperate in combating piracy’”

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

For many pirate sites and apps, ad revenue is the only viable lifeline. This is why the advertising industry is an important ally in the fight against piracy.

Over the years, several ad-focused anti-piracy initiatives and partnerships have tried to prevent branded ads from appearing on these sites.

This includes a European Union-led Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in which several leading advertising companies, including Google, signed up to play their part. The origins of this agreement date back to 2016, and the EU Intellectual Property Office ( EUIPO ) has monitored progress ever since.

The latest report on the state of the pirate advertising landscape was published this week . As in previous years, the EUIPO commissioned UK-based research firm White Bullet to provide a detailed overview of what types of ads appeared on pirate sites throughout 2024.

The report looked at advertisements on 7,250 websites and 398 mobile applications across 18 EU member states. All ‘pirate’ sites and apps provided access to copyright-infringing content and were classified as either “illegal” or “high-risk”.

White Bullet compiled a similar advertising report for EUIPO in 2021, which makes it possible to measure progress over the past four years.

Major Brand Ads Surge 567% on Pirate Sites

The headline figures reported by EUIPO this week suggest that advertising volume on piracy sites grew rapidly throughout last year. Globally (EU+UK+US), the monitored websites generated 28.3 billion ad impressions over the year, with a 92% increase in impressions from the first to the fourth quarter.

More concerning, perhaps, is that adverts run by major brands are still common on pirate sites. No names are mentioned in the report, but EUIPO notes that advertising impressions from major brands increased 567% between 2021 and 2024.

Overall, branded advertising accounted for 61% of ad impressions on monitored websites and 96% on the monitored apps. This includes ads for both major and less-well known brands.

The EUIPO highlights this significant increase in its “main conclusions” alongside some other concerning developments.

The report explicitly links this resurgence of major brand ads to a breakdown in industry cooperation, noting that education campaigns for advertisers were halted right before the spike occurred.

“The massive growth in Major Brand advertising on IPR-infringing websites may be correlated with the 2023 termination of several coordinated outreach programmes focused on educating brands that had been placing advertising on IPR-infringing websites,” EUIPO’s report reads.

It’s all Relative

While the headline numbers reported by EUIPO are correct, they deserve some nuance. The number of ad impressions on pirate sites by major brands did not increase 567%; not by a long shot.

What the report found is that major brand ads went from just 3% of all ad impressions on websites in 2021, to 20% of all ad impressions in 2024. While that technically represents a 567% increase in market share, the number of displayed ads tanked at the same time.

Across all monitored countries, ad impressions on pirate sites crashed from 146.1 billion in 2021 to 28.3 billion in 2024. So, the total number of ads on these sites fell by roughly 80%.

While the “567% increase” statistic is technically accurate when looking at relative market share, the increase is largely driven by the collapse of low-quality, non-brand ads. In real terms, the number of major brand ads served increased by roughly 30%.

Fraud & Malware Increase/Decrease

The same logic applies to a reported surge in fraud and malware advertising, which was also highlighted in the EUIPO’s main conclusions.

“The report also notes a 250% increase in fraud and malware advertising from 2021 to 2024, showing that infringing websites not only exploit brand reputations but also expose users and advertisers to broader digital risks,” EUIPO writes.

Again, this 250% increase is relative. Looking at the absolute numbers, fraud and malware ads actually decreased by roughly 1.8 billion impressions from 2021 to 2024. That’s roughly a ~31% reduction in malicious ads.

The above makes it clear that absolute and relative comparisons can show an entirely different picture. This is largely attributable to a key change that took place over the past few years, which, strangely enough, is not mentioned in EUIPO’s main conclusions.

EU: Pirate Ad-Impressions & Revenue Plunged

The fact that the EUIPO report found an unprecedented 80% drop in pirate site ads receives very little attention. Yet, the numbers clearly show that, in the 18 monitored EU Member States, pirate site ad impressions also plunged: from 70.3 billion in 2021 to 14.4 billion in 2024 .

The report links this drastic decline to an increasingly fragmented landscape of pirate sites, leading to lower traffic numbers overall. That sounds like a welcome result, but in the report the finding receives no obvious emphasis.

The same applies to the associated decrease in advertising revenue for pirate sites. The report notes that the advertising revenues from the monitored countries dropped 78%, from €102.5 million in 2021 to €22 million last year .

The Missing Number: €8.29 per day

While the EUIPO focuses mostly on the relative increases of major brand ads and fraud advertisements, one key number was not highlighted. That is, the average estimated revenue these 7,250 sites generate per day from visitors in the 18 monitored EU countries.

That number is not reported, but if we crunch the numbers, we see that the average pirate site generates roughly €8.29 per day from these EU users.

The EUIPO report puts the global revenue of these sites at ~€91 per day. This leads to the logical conclusion that the EU advertising traffic only represents a fraction of the total income of these sites. That’s worth calling out, we think.

—

The full report, which includes many more data points and intriguing statistics, is available here (pdf) .

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

Offering a wide range of services useful for the majority of websites, including many provided completely free of charge, Cloudflare continues on an upward trajectory.

While its popularity isn’t in question, Cloudflare’s stance on copyright issues has placed it at odds with copyright holders who believe that the company should do more to fight against piracy.

For its part, Cloudflare counters that its policies are in line or exceed legal requirements, including those established in the United States where, under appropriate circumstances, the company cannot be held liable for infringement carried out by its customers.

Complaint and Settlement (2018/2019)

Disappointed by Cloudflare’s stance in response to their allegations concerning several manga piracy sites, in 2018 major publishers Shueisha, Kodansha, Kadokawa, and Shogakukan filed a motion at the Tokyo District Court.

They argued that since Cloudflare was in a position to curtail infringement, the company should stop providing services to the pirate sites. Caching and replicating the sites’ content was described as especially problematic, with the publishers arguing that this amounted to Cloudflare delivering infringing content to the public.

A 2019 settlement with Cloudflare wasn’t revealed until 2020 but the premise was fairly straightforward. If the Tokyo District Court ruled that the sites in question were illegal, Cloudflare would “stop the replication of the sites to Cloudflare’s servers in Japan,” the publishers said .

Publishers File a Copyright Lawsuit in Tokyo

Late January 2022, it was reported that the same publishers were again preparing to sue Cloudflare in Japan over its provision of services to known pirate sites.

The publishers said that they requested Cloudflare to bring the infringements to a halt and Cloudflare advised that they had “taken the necessary measures.” When technical analysis revealed that the pirate sites were still using Cloudflare’s services and cache, legal action was inevitable.

Within days the publishers revealed a “partial claim” against Cloudflare, concerning just four copyrighted works, one for each of the manga publishers. Their claim for damages was a relatively modest US$4m but arguably more important was the request for an injunction. That would not only restrain the company in the current action, it would also establish ground rules for similar disputes moving forward.

“With regard to the infringing content illegally stored on the sites, we asked Cloudflare to stop the temporary reproduction (cache) on the company’s servers in Japan [and] terminate their contracts with pirate sites that are clearly illegal,” the companies said.

Cloudflare said that it had gone “above and beyond its obligations” to assist rightsholders in Japan, including by adopting an abuse process to connect rightsholders with hosting providers “actually able to remove infringing content from the Internet.”

Tokyo Court Declares Cloudflare Liable

After a wait of more than three and a half years, the Tokyo District Court rendered its decision this morning. In a statement provided to TorrentFreak by the publishers, they declare “Victory Against Cloudflare” after the Court determined that Cloudflare is indeed liable for the pirate sites’ activities.

In a statement provided to TorrentFreak, the publishers explain that they alerted Cloudflare to the massive scale of the infringement, involving over 4,000 works and 300 million monthly visits, but their requests to stop distribution were ignored.

“We requested that the company take measures such as stopping the distribution of pirated content from servers under its management. However, Cloudflare continued to provide services to the manga piracy sites even after receiving notices from the plaintiffs,” the group says.

The publishers add that Cloudflare continued to provide services even after receiving information disclosure orders from U.S. courts, leaving them with “no choice but to file this lawsuit.”

Factors Considered in Determining Liability

Decisions in favor of Cloudflare in the United States have proven valuable over the past several years. Yet while the Tokyo District Court considered many of the same key issues, various factors led to a finding of liability instead, the publishers note.

“The judgment recognized that Cloudflare’s failure to take timely and appropriate action despite receiving infringement notices from the plaintiffs, and its negligent continuation of pirated content distribution, constituted aiding and abetting copyright infringement, and that Cloudflare bears liability for damages to the plaintiffs,” they write.

“The judgment, in that regard, attached importance to the fact that Cloudflare, without conducting any identity verification procedures, had enabled a massive manga piracy site to operate ‘under circumstances where strong anonymity was secured,’ as a basis for recognizing the company’s liability.”

The publishers confirm that the litigation involved one protected work per company and that the overall damages recognized in the judgment total approximately 3.6 billion yen (US$24 million). However, since their claim sought to recover less than the damages suffered, the judgment against Cloudflare of 500 million yen, around US$3.2 million, isn’t as punishing as it could’ve been.

Moving Forward

The publishers believe that the judgment clarifies the conditions under which a company such as Cloudflare incurs liability for copyright infringement. Failure to carry out identity verification appears at the top of the publishers’ list, followed by a lack of timely and appropriate action in response to infringement notices sent by rightsholders.

“We believe this is an important decision given the current situation where piracy site operators often hide their identities and repeatedly conduct large-scale distribution using CDN services from overseas. We hope that this judgment will be a step toward ensuring proper use of CDN services. We will continue our efforts to protect the rights of works, creators, and related parties, while aiming for further expansion of legitimate content,” the publishers conclude.

Cloudflare May Have Already Signaled its Response

According to Japanese media , Cloudflare plans to appeal the verdict, which was expected. In comments to the USTR last month, Cloudflare referred to a long-running dispute in Japan with the potential to negatively affect future business.

“One particular dispute reflects years of effort by Japan’s government and its publishing industry to impose additional obligations on intermediaries like CDNs,” the company’s submission reads ( pdf ) .

“A fully adjudicated ruling that finds CDNs liable for monetary damages for infringing material would set a dangerous global precedent and necessitate U.S. CDN providers to limit the provision of global services to avoid liability, severely restricting market growth and expansion into Asian Pacific markets.”

Whether that heralds Cloudflare’s exit from the region is unclear. The statement to the USTR seems to suggest that the company knew that a decision was coming and probably wouldn’t reflect the protections available to it in the United States.

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

With millions of regular users, YTS is arguably the most visited torrent site on the internet today.

The current operators ‘unofficially’ took over the YTS brand in 2015 after the original group threw in the towel. Since then, it has amassed a rather impressive user base.

After adopting one of the most iconic piracy brands, YTS faced its fair share of legal troubles. In 2019, the popular torrent site and its operator were accused of mass copyright infringement in multiple lawsuits filed by filmmakers in the United States. Surprisingly, YTS managed to settle these lawsuits to live another day, although that came at a price .

YTS also dealt with various domain name challenges. When the site first entered the scene, it was operating from the YTS.ag domain name, which it traded in for YTS.am a few years later. In 2019, the torrent site moved to YTS.lt, which it swapped for the YTS.mx domain in 2020.

YTS.mx = Gone

Over the past five years, the Mexican ccTLD proved to be a rather stable domain option, but that didn’t last.

Visitors to YTS yesterday became aware that the YTS.mx domain had stopped resolving. Many simply assumed that the site had issues due to the global Cloudflare outage but hours after Cloudflare’s troubles had been resolved, YTS.mx remained unreachable.

This was not a simple domain suspension either, as the domain’s nameservers appear to have completely vanished.

In fact, according to the Mexican domain name registry, YTS.mx no longer exists . This is highly unusual since the domain was prepaid through 2028. Clearly, an external intervention forced the action.

YTS Relocates to .LT

Initially, the YTS team remained quiet, but through various official communication channels, they eventually confirmed that something was up. While the operators don’t explain what the problem was, they note that the site has relocated to YTS.lt.

“Please use https://yts.lt (YTS.LT) for now to access our site. We’re working on some updates, and this domain will be the best way to stay connected. Stay tuned for more info!,” they note.

As we were writing this article, the official YTS Status site was also updated. All mentions of the .mx domain name have been removed in what appears to be more than a temporary update.

Indeed, in an edited blog post on YTS.lt, the team now confirms that YTS.MX is no longer used.

Legal Pressure?

While it is apparent that the .MX domain name issues are serious, it is not immediately clear what caused them. TorrentFreak asked Registry .MX for a comment on the situation, but the organization did not immediately respond.

It is possible that third-party pressure by copyright holders may have played a role here. Earlier this year, the U.S. Trade Representative identified YTS.mx as a notorious piracy market. And a few weeks ago, YTS was nominated as a notorious market again by various rightsholders.

For now, all we know for sure is that YTS.mx is gone. If more information becomes available, we will update this article accordingly.

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

Brazil’s Special Task Force to Combat Organized Crime (Gaeco), part of the Public Prosecutor’s Office of Ceará (MPCE), carried out a large operation on Tuesday targeting individuals and companies believed to be behind several pirate streaming platforms.

With assistance from the Civil Police of Ceará (PCCE), Operation Endpoint saw the execution of 19 search and seizure warrants and five arrest warrants in Alagoas (AL), Ceará (CE) and Santa Catarina. Three people were arrested. Two individuals with outstanding warrants are reportedly still at large.

Investigation

Based on a combination of reports from the Ministry of Justice and Public Security, the Prosecutor’s Office, law enforcement bodies, and local TV news, the investigation began following claims made against the operators of popular pirate streaming services.

Sold under brands including DezPila, Tyflex, and Onlyflix, it was alleged that the operators of the IPTV services were not only committing large scale copyright infringement, but are also involved in wider criminality, including money laundering as part of an organized criminal group.

The authorities claim that the pirate services presented as legitimate subscription TV providers, offering live TV, movies, and TV shows to customers. While they may have appeared legitimate, countless videos posted to YouTube suggest that many customers were aware that authorization from rightsholders was unlikely to be part of the equation.

Asset Seizures, Blocked Sites, Search Engine Delisting

The Prosecutor’s Office says that those higher up in the group used “front men” to facilitate the movement of funds generated by the services, in an effort to conceal the true owners of various assets. To counter the group’s obfuscation efforts, investigators were authorized to obtain information normally protected under Brazil’s banking, tax, and digital secrecy laws.

Social media platforms including WhatsApp and Telegram were reportedly used to attract customers to the streaming services, and via websites hosted by companies including Wix and Hostinger, new customers were signed up.

Online payments were reportedly processed through specialist checkout services, with payments received by various means but predominantly via Pix, an instant payment platform operated by the Central Bank of Brazil.

“As the investigations progressed, it became necessary to request the seizure of assets and valuables from the Judiciary, totaling R$ 12 million (US$2.25m),” the Ministry of Justice reports.

“Simultaneously, 118 websites and social media profiles were blocked, search engines results were de-indexed, and cryptocurrencies were seized.”

Domains Down

TorrentFreak has been unable to find any sites displaying an official seizure banner. However, by matching registered domains to the three brands, and then using alleged use of Wix and Hostinger as a crude filter, hundreds of domains were reduced to a few registered in Brazil.

None are currently functional and some appear to have ‘clientHold’ status, a sign that things aren’t going according to plan. Surprisingly, WHOIS records don’t appear to be consistently redacted, leading to ostensibly real names making repeat appearances.

Maybe they’re bogus, maybe they’re not, but at least one matches a person that has attracted significant interest from the authorities in the past.

Keeping Things Cool

Items of equipment seized by the authorities include what appear to be high-powered fans/blowers or at least according to some searches, vacuum-type devices or even air conditioners. Whether they blow or suck, they presumably exist to prevent electronic equipment from overheating.

In the event that the equipment gets warm enough to catch fire, the spherical object in the image below (top right) will come in handy. Suspended above most fans, it’s actually a self-contained fire extinguisher. In the image top center, a car engine appears to be generating electricity. Bottom left features some quartz watches and a presentation box containing prop money.

Further Investigations, Unanswered Questions

The Ministry of Justice says that investigators identified a number of legal entities linked to the group, used for the ‘transit and distribution’ of illicit funds.

“The investigation also identified partnerships between members of the scheme, who shared shell companies and irregularly traded machinery used for cryptocurrency mining.”

Whether that explains the images above is up for debate, but it’s certainly plausible.

Brazil’s Ciberlab also receives a mention for its technical and scientific support to track and dismantle digital infrastructures “that transcend geographical boundaries.”

The name ‘Operation Endpoint’ was apparently a strategic choice; instead of focusing on arresting individuals, the reported goal was to “target the access points — such as servers, domains, and monetization channels.”

Yet while domains and monetization channels can’t be photographed, the same can’t be said about servers. At least thus far, no images of servers have been released.

Whether the theory holds any weight is unclear, but some IPTV resellers in Brazil appear to be linking recent events in Argentina with the disappearance of DezPila, Tyflex, and Onlyflix, apparently thanks to their “reliance on a central server.”

That was eventually shut down but in line with tradition, others have already taken its place.

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

For much of 2025, top-tier Spanish football league LaLiga has waged war against online piracy in controversial yet completely unapologetic fashion. A more single-minded approach may not have been deployed by any other entity, ever.

Launched around February, LaLiga’s persistent blocking of Cloudflare (and by extension, countless innocent customers) is a story still being told from distinct perspectives.

In LaLiga’s view, a court order granted it the necessary authority to block pirate sites. In the event that collateral damage even exists, that should be attributed to Cloudflare for a) harboring pirate sites and b) using innocent customers as ‘human shields’ by forcing them to use the same IP addresses as pirate sites. Cloudflare regrets that LaLiga saw fit to obtain a business-disrupting blocking order, without giving it an opportunity to appear in court , causing a rift that still hasn’t been bridged 10 months later.

Silent Cooperation No Longer Enough

The voices of the innocent sites and services, blocked by Spanish ISPs at LaLiga’s behest, have complained but haven’t really been heard. When approached by customers for comment, the ISPs carrying out the blocking haven’t been heard either, mostly because they have said very little indeed. Compliance with a court order has been mentioned in their roles as ISPs; as internet broadcasters with rights to air LaLiga broadcasts that presumably benefit from their own blocking? No comment.

The role of Spanish ISPs in whatever comes next won’t be a secret. As LaLiga opens up the bidding process for the seasons 2027/2028 until 2031/32, the league’s expectations are detailed in black and white.

First impressions raise questions of autonomy; specifically, how much independence will ISPs be required to sacrifice under an anti-piracy regime controlled by LaLiga, one in which it dictates policy, compels support for legal action, and mandates cooperation in investigations against their own customers.

Obligations to Collaborate

There’s little doubt that LaLiga views piracy seriously, but should any remain, none have any hope of surviving the obligations laid out in its anti-fraud policy.

The first paragraph states that successful bidders must ensure exclusive access to LaLiga content within the designated territory and implement at minimum several specified security measures. They include Digital Rights Management (DRM), anti-VPN systems, geo-blocking systems at the device and CDN levels, and security marking at both the source and CDN.

Visible watermarking is required to identify users, and measures must be in place to verify their locations. LaLiga also expects documentation to show the location and sources of any unauthorized retransmissions.

General Obligations

LaLiga says that its partners must “collaborate efficiently” and proactively, including against “the provision of public information aimed at promoting or facilitating unauthorized access to said contents,” whether on Facebook and YouTube, or on Whatsapp, Telegram, and Discord. User Generated Content (UGC) platforms, web-based illegal streaming sites, card-sharing services, IPTV suppliers, and BitTorrent-like systems such as Acestream, are all seen as legitimate targets.

Also under the spotlight, authorized entities “who exploit the content abusively and fraudulently.” When LaLiga initiates legal proceedings against these entities, its broadcasting partners are required to participate as an injured party.

LaLiga also places restrictions on the type of viewing devices broadcasters make available to their customers. LaLiga says that there are only three “safe environments” for installing software – Google Play Store, Huawei AppGallery and iOS Store. Functionality to load software from any other source must be prevented.

Create Synergies, Share Details of Users Detected as Pirates

When rights organization Promusicae sued Telefonica in 2005, demanding the identities of customers accused of pirating music, Telefonica fought all the way to Europe’s highest court to avoid handing over its customers’ personal details.

In 2008, the Court of Justice of the European Union handed Telefonica a landmark win.

But that was then, and this is now.

[T]he successful bidders who, by virtue of their status as telecommunications operators, are internet service providers, undertake to actively cooperate in judicial actions such as preliminary proceedings, aimed, at the request of LaLiga, at identifying those customers who access audiovisual content illicitly through the internet service, through illegal systems such as, for example, P2P (AceStream) or Cardsharing, avoiding formalizing an appeal against the judicial resolutions agreed upon in this area.

ISPs Must Promote Dynamic IP Address Blocking to the Courts

At a time when internet groups and researchers are issuing warnings over the dangers of IP address-based blocking, becoming a successful bidder for LaLiga broadcasting rights requires ISPs not to just ignore the advice, but to invest time and resources to ensure the courts endorse its use.

LaLiga says that the effectiveness of the measures must be promoted as effective against third-party intermediaries it perceives as undermining its blocking efforts.

They include VPN and DNS providers, anonymization services and, in a move unlikely to be well received at the White House , reverse proxy services. Despite receiving no direct mention here, a well-known American company would likely become a primary target.

The Successful Bidders also undertake to promote a joint policy against audiovisual fraud and to cooperate in speeding up the adoption of dynamic blocking of those websites and web resources identified as broadcasting, distributing, or sharing LALIGA content without consent, in particular, the modality of “live dynamic blocking” via IP, as well as through any of its technical modalities, collaborating to promote its adoption by the courts of justice and cooperating to achieve maximum effectiveness in the shortest possible time, providing, if necessary, the necessary personnel and means to ensure that such blocks, communicated by whoever is judicially designated for this purpose, take effect any day and time of the week immediately upon communication.

The successful bidders undertake to promote, together with LaLiga, the appropriate judicial and extrajudicial actions to promote the effectiveness of the blocks, in particular against third-party intermediaries whose services are used for the direct or indirect circumvention of the aforementioned blocks, such as, for example, providers of VPNs, reverse proxies, anonymization services, DNS, and/or hosting services.

Immediate Blocking Without Need For Judicial Intervention

An issue as potentially serious as this deserves another direct quote. For obvious reasons the statement here is translated from the original Spanish, but the original document is linked below and available for review.

The Successful Bidders, regardless of whether they are established in the territory or not, voluntarily, expressly and directly undertake, without the need for judicial intervention, to agree to the immediate blocking of those domains, subdomains, IP addresses and web pages and resources that, for violating intellectual property rights and other related rights, are notified to them by LALIGA or by the entity designated by it through any means of notification that allows proof of receipt, who will provide as proof of this evidentiary support extracted and compiled through any of the trusted providers approved by the Spanish or European authorities, together with a technical report issued by their audiovisual anti-fraud department, thereby taking effective knowledge of the illicit nature of the actions of the domains, subdomains and IPs.

Both the supporting evidence and the technical report will be recognized by all Successful Bidders as sufficient proof to directly and free of charge agree to the requested block, which will be facilitated immediately upon receipt of the request by LaLiga.

Surprisingly, the above isn’t even a full accounting of all requirements, far from it, so we’ll return to the topic later.

At this point it’s worth mentioning the tone of the document, which is absolutely uncompromising in both its determination and the instructions required to achieve its goals. On several occasions the Successful Bidders are warned that if they fail to meet LaLiga’s requirements, and then fail to improve or correct the issue at hand, they will have their contracts terminated.

Failure to comply with these obligations, or their partial or defective compliance, after a reasonable period has been provided for their correction, will be a mandatory cause for automatic termination of the contract, with written notification from LaLiga accompanied by a technical report from its Audiovisual Anti-Fraud Department demonstrating the verification of the non-compliance being sufficient proof for this.

There are further examples in the ‘Competitive Tender Process’ document here (pdf)

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

With an impressive 185 million visitors in May this year, Mangajikan was one of the largest piracy sites on the Internet.

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

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

Motion to Quash / Protect

While Shueisha must have been pleased with the quick result, the publisher was still eager to identify the culprit. The operator, in turn, filed a motion to quash, hoping to protect their identity.

In court, the parties disagreed on whether Cloudflare is a proper recipient for DMCA subpoenas. In October, the California federal court eventually ruled that Cloudflare’s caching made it a valid subpoena target .

As a result, Cloudflare is required to share all information it holds on the pirate site operator. However, before any information was handed over, the court instructed the pirate site operator and Shueisha to agree on the terms of a protective order. That’s easier said than done.

Recently, the parties failed to reach an agreement on what Shueisha is allowed to do with the operator’s identifying information. To resolve this new dispute, they are now back in court, seeking a breakthrough.

Pirate Site Operator Seeks Privacy Fortress

Seeking maximum privacy, the pirate site operator wants the information handed over by Cloudflare classified as “Attorneys’-Eyes-Only”.

This restriction effectively means that the operator’s identity would only be revealed to Shueisha’s external U.S. lawyers. The information would be explicitly hidden from Shueisha’s own employees, in-house lawyers, and executives in Japan.

The proposed protective order would forbid Shueisha’s lawyers from sharing the identifying information with anyone else, including other copyright holders, who may have had their pirated content appear on the site.

Importantly, Mangajikan’s operator proposes a 180-day ultimatum to use the obtained details to file a U.S. copyright lawsuit. If Shueisha’s lawyers don’t take action within this timeframe, they must destroy all copies of the identifying information.

Shueisha Wants Broad and Global Action

In its submission, Shueisha fiercely opposes these strict limitations. The company argues that an extreme protective order rewards concealment efforts and obstructs enforcement. Their proposal is the polar opposite, and aims to facilitate a global enforcement strategy.

Specifically, Shueisha is demanding the right to share the name of the operator internally, including with its employees in Japan. This ‘confidential’ information may also be used for legal action abroad, not just in the United States.

In addition, Shueisha should be able to share the name with law enforcement and other affected parties when that’s appropriate.

“Shueisha must be free to use identifying information to pursue claims wherever appropriate, coordinate with law enforcement, seek additional subpoenas if the identifying information in the production is insufficient, or notify others whose works were infringed,” they note.

The Court Decides

Since the parties failed to reach a compromise, the terms of the protective order will be determined by Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers.

This isn’t just a procedural squabble. The judge’s ruling will set a precedent for how much power a DMCA subpoena can truly hold. Are they only designed to help U.S. legal efforts, or can information be used globally?

Needless to say, other rightsholders will monitor the outcome of this battle with great interest. The same holds for pirates who may want to put up a similar defense in the future.

—

A copy of the Joint Discovery Letter, where both parties explain their respective positions to the court, is available here (pdf) . The associated proposed protective orders can be found here (operator) and here (Shueisha)

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