In late 2022, several of the world’s largest music companies, including Warner Bros. and Sony Music, s ecured a key victory against Grande Communications.

A Texas federal jury found the Internet provider liable for willful contributory copyright infringement and ordered it to pay $46.8 million in damages , after Grande failed to disconnect pirating subscribers.

The verdict was a milestone in the recording industry’s campaign to hold ISPs responsible for their subscribers’ piracy. The ruling was later affirmed on appeal by the Fifth Circuit, which also vacated the damages award , sending that question back for a new trial.

That new trial might not come after Cox v. Sony changed the playing field. In March, the Supreme Court reversed a billion-dollar verdict against Cox Communications, holding that an Internet provider is not liable for contributory infringement simply because it keeps serving subscribers it knows have been flagged for piracy.

A few weeks later, the Supreme Court also wiped out the Grande verdict , ordering the Fifth Circuit to reconsider the case in light of the new standard.

Labels Offer to Walk Away

That reconsideration process was set in motion but, according to new filings submitted by both parties last week, it appears that the record labels are ready to throw in the towel.

In their supplemental letter brief, filed on Wednesday, the record labels effectively inform the court they are done.

“The Cox decision represents a material intervening change in law governing contributory copyright infringement by internet service providers. Plaintiffs do not
intend to litigate the merits of this case further in light of the new standard,” the labels write.

This offer to retreat is in line with earlier decisions in ISP liability cases. Since the Cox ruling, the labels have already dropped similar lawsuits against Altice and Verizon , for example.

The music companies say they informed Grande of their “willingness to dismiss the case voluntarily”. That would be with prejudice and with both parties paying their own bills. However, Grande does not agree.

Grande Wants More

Instead of simply dismissing the matter, Grande prefers to end the case with a clear win. In their own letter, the ISP asks the Fifth Circuit to “render judgment in favor of Grande” and declare that the labels cannot win under the new standard.

“The Court should render judgment for Grande. Because the Labels cannot prove contributory infringement under Cox, there is ‘no clear benefit to remanding
this case to the district court’,” the ISP argues.

This isn’t just a matter of principle, there’s a significant amount of money at stake too. To postpone that payment of the $46.8 million judgment during the appeal, the company had to post a bond, and it says the premiums added up.

According to the labels, Grande previously communicated that it incurred roughly $4 million in bond premium costs.

The record labels are pushing back hard against this potential multi-million dollar bill. They accuse the ISP of needlessly inflating its own costs by waiting over nine months to discharge the bond after the initial damages award was vacated.

In addition, the labels argue that any potential payout should be offset by $191,618 in unpaid sanctions that Grande still owes them for filing a “meritless” motion earlier in the litigation.

It’s worth stressing that Grande has not mentioned an exact cost figure in its letter. The exact amount will likely be detailed later, if it gets that far.

It is now up to the Fifth Circuit to decide whether this case should end quietly, by simply vacating the earlier judgment and splitting the costs. Alternatively, it can grant Grande a formal win on the merits, with potential compensation for the costs it made.

—

The record labels’ supplemental letter brief, filed last week, at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, is available here (pdf) . Grande’s supplemental letter brief can be found here (pdf) .

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

Operation Offsides was the largest sports piracy crackdown ever carried out during a single event.

From the start of the FIFA World Cup through the final, U.S. authorities and their partners seized more than 1,000 domains , while close to 2,000 more were blocked across Latin America.

The Motion Picture Association, which coordinated the effort through its Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment ( ACE ), previously praised the operation as a massive success. However, in an op-ed published by RealClearMarkets yesterday, MPA’s leadership admits that domain seizures have their limitations.

“It Does Not Dismantle the Business”

The op-ed, titled “Blowing the Whistle on World Cup Piracy,” is written by MPA Chairman and CEO Charles Rivkin and IPR Center Director Ivan Arvelo . It celebrates the operation as a clear success, noting that the seized sites racked up more than 156 million visits in July alone before they were taken offline.

Indeed, disrupting millions of potential visits has an impact. However, the crackdown also had its limitations, as it does not take out the operations running these sites. These limitations are also recognized in the op-ed.

“A takedown is essential, and it can interrupt access for a moment. But it does not dismantle the business behind it,” Rivkin and Arvelo write.

This is not the type of admission you expect from the MPA or the IPR Center, who just completed the largest piracy domain seizure round in U.S. history. However, the framing does nicely set up the policy argument that follows. At the same time, it corroborates our earlier coverage.

The Russian and Iranian Domains That Survived

Two weeks before the op-ed appeared, we reported that several major pirate streaming brands had switched to fallback domains on Iran’s .ir country-code TLD, in an apparent effort to move to infrastructure that is harder for U.S. law enforcement to reach.

Iranian domains have significant drawbacks of their own, especially for those operations who want to run ads, so there is no mass exodus. However, many that migrated to the .ir TLD remain online today.

A check this week shows that Buffstreams, Footybite, Totalsportek, and Nflbite brands all remain reachable on their .ir fallbacks. None have been suspended or seized, which is no surprise since Iranian authorities are not eager to cooperate with the U.S.

Meanwhile, the largest sites were never dependent on U.S.-controlled infrastructure to begin with. A popular Futbol-libres domain, for example, operating on the Russian-run .su registry, was not among the seized domains and reportedly drew more than 200 million visits in July, according to Similarweb data . That is more than all seized domains combined.

MPA Sees More Attack Vectors

While domains are just part of a site’s infrastructure, it is clear that domain seizures have their limitations. This is not news to the MPA and ACE, who are constantly tracking these domain name migrations.

Speaking with TorrentFreak, MPA’s Executive Vice President and Chief Content Protection Officer Larissa Knapp notes that these familiar tactics are not without weaknesses.

“Piracy operators regularly move domains and infrastructure in an effort to evade enforcement. The migration to .ir domains is another example of that tactic, but changing a domain does not put an illegal operation beyond reach,” Knapp says.

“These services still depend on identifiable operators, hosting, distribution, payment systems, and other technical and commercial infrastructure. That is why ACE works closely with law enforcement and industry partners around the world to identify and disrupt the people and infrastructure that keep these criminal networks operating.”

Knapp suggests that pirate sites rely on a broader infrastructure than domain names alone, so MPA and ACE try to find other weak spots to bring them down. And that’s not all.

Pirate Site Blocking as Solution

This brings us back to the op-ed, which ends with a clear policy ask. Rivkin and Arvelo argue that domain seizures alone cannot solve live sports piracy, and that the U.S. needs “every tool” available to fortify its anti-piracy work.

“Chief among them would be judicial site blocking in the U.S.,” they write, describing it as an anti-piracy tool that’s already used in nearly 60 countries.

The MPA and IPR Center heads see domain seizures as part of a broader enforcement toolbox, which should be complemented with site blocking. While Iranian and ‘Soviet Union’ domains are not mentioned, these could be key site blocking targets.

The site blocking call comes at a time when U.S. site blocking legislation is high on the political agenda again. On June 30, the House IP subcommittee held a hearing on online copyright enforcement, where Chairman Rep. Darrell Issa signaled that bipartisan, bicameral agreement was near.

Thus far, such a unified U.S. site blocking bill has yet to be introduced, but it seems to be only a matter of time. That also applies to the overblocking concerns , which will undoubtedly come, as will the eventual evasive tactics of pirates.

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

Site-blocking orders are a routine tool for rightsholders in India, where the Delhi High Court has issued dozens against pirate platforms over the past several years.

These orders gradually expanded from basic site blocking orders that targeted just ISPs, to dynamic and updating blocklists, which also require global domain registrars to take action.

A new order, obtained this week by HBO and associated studios, follows the familiar template. It targets 30 “rogue website” operations as defendants, covering more than 120 pirate site domains. In addition to Indian ISPs, it also demands action from domain registrars including Namecheap, Porkbun, Tucows, and others.

This strategy is in line with previous court orders which have successfully taken down some of the largest pirate site domains. This latest order is no exception.

Pirate Streaming Giants

The order lists a wide range of pirate brands, including some heavy hitters. For example, it targets the popular streaming portal Streamzy.to, as well as other well-known pirate brands such as LordFlix, Watchseries, FMovies, YTS, KissKH, VegaMovies, MoviesMod, BollyFlix, MovieRulz, and FilmyZilla.

Justice Anup Jairam Bhambhani concluded that the 30 pirate operations appear to be “flagrantly infringing online locations.” Their registrant details are masked, no traceable contact information is available, and the content is overwhelmingly unlicensed.

“This is, therefore, not a case of incidental infringement, but one where the primary purpose of the websites appears to be to facilitate infringement of the plaintiffs’ copyright,” the order reads.

Based on these arguments, the court granted an ad-interim injunction restraining all 30 sites from streaming or making available the studios’ copyrighted works, and directed ISPs and registrars to block and suspend the listed domain names.

Suspended Within a Day

The order was handed down on Monday, and a day later it already had a global effect. For example, lead defendant, streamzy.to, was placed on both clientHold and serverHold, suggesting that action was taken at the registrar and registry level.

Streamzy’s registrar on record is the Government of the Kingdom of Tonga, which recently began suspending pirate site domains following an earlier Delhi High Court order, after years of .to being considered a safe haven for pirates .

This change coincided with a restructuring where the Canadian domain name company Tucows took over the technical registry backend for .to domains. This takeover made it possible to suspend domain names through EPP status codes such as clientHold and serverHold.

These suspensions also apply to the other .to domain names that were targeted, including f-moviesz.to, cinespot.to, cineplay.to, and bollyflix.to. Notably, several of these are only put on clientHold (not serverHold), suggesting the registrar acted alone, without registry-level action.

In addition to the .to domain names, all Namecheap-linked domains have also been suspended. These were put on clientHold on July 28th, a day after the Delhi High Court order was issued.

Registrars Pushed Back on ‘Carte Blanche’

The order also brings something new to the table. Domain registrars Namecheap and Porkbun said they had no problem blocking the listed sites, but pushed back against a blanket order requiring them to block any future domain name that rightsholders send in.

These follow-up suspensions are part of the dynamic blocking structure, but the registrars are not comfortable with additional blocks without the court’s supervision.

Justice Bhambhani agreed with this reservation. He ruled that rightsholders who discover a new mirror domain must submit an affidavit to the registrar with supporting evidence. The registrar then technically verifies whether it is in fact a variant of an already-blocked site, and if so, suspends it as a temporary measure. At the same time, the rightsholders must file with the court to formally add the domain to the case.

“Any mechanism that requires an ISP or DNR to satisfy itself, upon its own assessment, that a subsequently identified website is a ‘rogue website’ engaged in infringement of the plaintiffs’ rights, would effectively cast upon such intermediary an adjudicatory responsibility that it is neither equipped nor authorised in law to discharge,” the order reads.

This effectively adds a new oversight layer to the blocking and suspension process.

Mixed Results

At the time of writing, most of the targeted domain names remain accessible outside of India. This includes domains using the popular YTS and KissKH brands. Interestingly, the main domains for these brands, which have over 100 million monthly visits, are not listed in the order.

Since the order was only issued a few days ago, it is possible that other domain registrars still have to take action. However, previous orders have shown that some registrars do not comply with Indian court orders at all.

Taking out domains with millions of monthly visits is still a notable result, with Streamzy.to as the main trophy.

However, the operators are not sitting still. Soon after the order was issued, they started to point their visitors to streamzy.org, as seen below.

At the same time, other .to domains from the same operation were all pointed to .org alternatives as well. And so, the game of whac-a-mole continues.

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A copy of the order in Home Box Office Inc & Ors. v. Streamzy.to & Ors. (2026:DHC:5967) is available here (pdf) . Via Livelawbiz . An overview of the defendants, domains, and registrars can be found below. There are 132 domain entries, including 10 subdomkains, excluding #116–121 which are skipped in the order.

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

Earlier this year, the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) classified Vietnam as “ Priority Foreign Country ,” because of its lacking anti-piracy enforcement.

That designation, applied for the first time in over a decade, triggered a Section 301 investigation , opening the door to potential trade sanctions.

As part of this process, stakeholders were requested to provide input on Vietnam’s alleged shortcomings. This includes the piracy challenges and concerns, which were highlighted as the primary concern.

One of the key submissions came from the Motion Picture Association (MPA). As we reported earlier , Hollywood’s trade group called for tougher prison sentences and action against copycat pirate sites that swiftly take the place of ones that are shut down.

In total, there were more than 170 submissions from stakeholders. These include a massive 3,500+ page response filed on behalf of the Government of Vietnam, which we initially missed. It is worth highlighting separately, however, as the timing ties into the broader enforcement picture.

Vietnam Responds

Vietnam filed its response on July 2, before the USTR deadline. As expected, the country argues that it doesn’t belong on the priority watchlist, because its practices are not “unreasonable or discriminatory,” and they do not “burden or restrict U.S. commerce,” the two tests that matter under Section 301.

Instead, the country argues that any remaining problems are mostly capacity limitations, not policy shortcomings.

The submission closes by asking USTR to reconsider its stance, and remove Vietnam from the Priority Foreign Country List, without issuing any sanctions or imposing trade tariffs.

Piracy Crackdowns and Site Blocking as Defense

To back up its request, Vietnam cites a variety of anti-piracy efforts. The submission notes that more than 1,200 pirated websites were blocked in 2025, which is notable as the U.S. itself is still mulling its own site blocking legislation.

The report also cites other prominent enforcement actions. This includes the shutdown and prosecution of the Fmovies piracy ring , which was once the largest online piracy operation. This operation was dismantled in 2024 with intelligence from ACE, the MPA’s anti-piracy arm.

Meanwhile, Vietnam also mentions the shutdowns of Xoilac TV, Rophim, and Y2Mate. The latter operation was taken down in collaboration with music group IFPI , which should signal to Washington that it is cooperating on intellectual property matters.

The HiAnime Card

What stands out most in the submission is the timely mention of the HiAnime prosecution. This was publicly announced by the Vietnamese authorities on July 2, the same day that it submitted its USTR rebuttal.

The submission tells USTR that “on 1 July 2026, the Ministry of Public Security initiated criminal proceedings […] against 07 suspects” under Article 225 of the Criminal Code. It references more than 100 websites offering over 26,000 unauthorized films and roughly USD 12.85 million in advertising revenue.

While HiAnime isn’t mentioned in this description, we were able to pinpoint it as the key target in this prosecution , which was also confirmed by ACE .

Vietnam’s USTR submission does mention HiAnime.to by name elsewhere, among the sites and services that were “shut down or forced to terminate their operations.”

Crucially, the HiAnime operation already closed its doors in March, months before the prosecution was announced on July 2. This coincides with the USTR submission deadline, where that same prosecution is used in Vietnam’s defense.

Whether the timing is coincidence or tied to the deadline is unknown.

All Eyes on the Sentences

The enforcement actions highlighted by Vietnam are not news. The MPA and USTR have acknowledged the same takedowns, but complained that the resulting sentences carry no deterrent. For example, the Fmovies operators previously dodged prison , which allegedly does little to tackle the country’s piracy image.

Vietnam does not dispute this. Its submission restates the U.S. view that enforcement has been “light, mainly suspended sentences and low fines,” and answers by asking Washington to “recognize the efforts undertaken” rather than defending the outcomes.

What it offers instead is to update the current legislation. The MPA previously noted that Vietnam’s Ministry of Public Security is drafting amendments to the Penal Code to better address high-tech crimes and cyber offenses.

Whether that will indeed result in harsher sentences and a deterrent effect that will make it less appealing for locals to run pirate sites has yet to be seen.

The HiAnime defendants are the next test. Four remain in custody awaiting trial, while the other three were placed under travel restrictions. At the time of writing, USTR has not issued a determination in the Section 301 investigation.

—

A copy of Vietnam’s submission, filed through the Ministry of Science and Technology, is available here (pdf) .

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

France has been at the forefront of the fight against online piracy for years.

More recently, it has been one of the pirate site blocking pioneers. In addition to demanding action from ISPs, their orders also targeted DNS resolvers and VPN providers.

While the expansion of the blocking measures is still contested, French lawmakers have already prepared the next one.

The French Parliament has handed ARCOM , the country’s audiovisual and digital regulator, the power to block pirate sports streams in real time without checking each targeted piracy source manually. The change is part of a broader professional sports law that both chambers formally adopted on July 21.

Article 10 of the new law rewrites the section of the previous sports law, Article L. 333-10, which rights holders have used to block pirate streaming sites in recent years.

From Manual Checks…

Under the old system, a rightsholder would obtain a blocking order in court, targeting specific domain names. These orders would require ISPs, DNS resolvers, or VPN services to block access on their systems.

If new domains were spotted later, rightsholders would send these to ARCOM, whose sworn agents would confirm that each one is streaming matches illegally before ISPs are ordered to block these.

One of these older orders was issued on July 8 by the Court of Paris. In that case, the French football league (LFP) won a block against nine Internet providers, covering the full 2026/2027 season, with ARCOM having to approve each new site that’s added along the way.

The order lists 30 domains and their associated subdomains, including kzontop.com, ligue1live.xyz, iptvfrancai.com, euroiptv.fr and sportsurge100.is.

…To Automated Blocks

Under the old system, it can take days before a new target is added. That’s a problem when dealing with live-streaming piracy, one that the new law aims to fix.

The new law strips out the pre-check of domain names (or IP addresses) that are added after the initial order is issued. It lets ARCOM run an automated system that pushes freshly identified targets straight to providers during a live broadcast. The providers then have to take action “without delay”.

ARCOM’s agents no longer approve each block in advance, but they keep an oversight role. They will now audit the new additions afterward, and a blocked party can appeal to ARCOM’s president, even while the targeted sports event is ongoing.

The new law is expected to significantly increase the volume of blocked sites and services, with the goal to further deter live-streaming piracy.

The judicial process leading up to the blocks barely changes, with one significant exception. Foreign entities that organize or hold rights to competitions abroad can now bring these actions in French courts themselves, opening the door for Spain’s LaLiga and England’s Premier League.

The groundwork for the blocking scheme was already laid. Under a private 2025 agreement between rights holders and ISPs, first revealed by L’Informé , the parties tested real-time IP address blocking during the 2026 World Cup, with ARCOM involved.

Italy’s “Piracy Shield” as Inspiration

French officials have not hidden the inspiration for the new law. In a study delivered to the Assemblée nationale in December 2025 , the regulator recommended this automated real-time system, citing foreign precedents including Italy’s “Piracy Shield”.

The head of Italy’s own regulator AGCOM, Massimiliano Capitanio, publicly welcomed the vote on Instagram , describing it as France adopting a version of its “Piracy Shield” model.

That comparison is sensitive. Italy’s system has been heavily criticized for overblocking, at one point knocking Cloudflare and countless unrelated sites offline . European ISPs have since demanded that rightsholders be held liable for overblocking damage .

This critique is one of the reasons why ARCOM keeps a human supervision element in the takedown process. This is to avoid overblocking, which the regulator considered as being potentially unconstitutional in France.

Not Live Yet

With the new French law, yet another country moved to a more automated site blocking process. This follows the example of Italy and other countries, with support from rightsholders including the Motion Picture Association .

The updates to the French sports law still have to be implemented formally, which isn’t expected to happen until later this year.

Whether existing orders like the LFP’s will migrate to the automated system once it goes live, or whether only future orders will, is not yet clear. For now, however, France’s pirate sports blocking still runs the old, manual way.

—

The Sports Law, adopted on July 21, can be found via the Assemblée nationale dossier here . A copy of the Court of Paris ruling in the LFP blocking case, issued on July 8, is available here (pdf) .

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

Last summer, adult content producers Strike 3 Holdings and Counterlife Media filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Meta, alleging that the tech company downloaded thousands of their films via BitTorrent to train AI models.

After Meta’s motion to dismiss was denied last month by U.S. District Judge Eumi K. Lee, Strike 3 filed an amended complaint expanding its claims to 2,973 films, up from the original 2,396.

With that many works at stake, potential statutory damages could reach a massive $446 million.

This week, Meta filed its answer to the amended complaint at the California federal court, denying all allegations while raising several affirmative defenses. At the same time, the company also gave further insight into the piracy allegations.

Meta’s Data Engineer

The original complaint identified a then-unnamed Facebook employee who allegedly used a residential Comcast IP address to download content, while also sharing files through Meta corporate IPs and what Strike 3 described as “stealth” IP addresses.

According to the amended complaint, that single address was linked to the infringement of 97 of Strike 3’s works.

Meta’s answer offers a straightforward explanation that has nothing to do with an organized data collection effort. The company admits that “the subscriber’s adult son was a Contingent Worker at Meta from October 2022 to October 2024.” It further confirms that the same person became “an employee at Meta with the title Data Engineer from April 2025 to May 2026.”

This phrasing is careful. By referring to “the subscriber’s adult son,” Meta positions the alleged torrenting as personal activity on a family member’s home Internet connection, unrelated to Meta.

Strike 3 apparently identified this person through their LinkedIn profile, which Meta says “speaks for itself”. In any case, Meta flatly denies that any employee’s BitTorrent activity was connected to its AI research or data collection.

The amended complaint, however, alleges that the infringement from the subscriber’s account stopped when the son’s contract with Meta ended.

Denials and a Fair Use Fallback

The broader answer follows a standard pattern of denials, which is common at this stage of a lawsuit. Meta denies downloading or uploading any of Strike 3’s adult films.

The tech company does admit downloading “portions of certain publicly available text datasets through direct download and by torrenting for purposes of developing and training some of its LLaMA models,” but insists these did not include adult films.

The company also acknowledges that it tried to prevent distributing any of the text files it had downloaded via BitTorrent for developing and training its language models. This shows that Meta admits sharing other content via BitTorrent, while explicitly denying Strike 3’s torrenting allegations.

In its affirmative defenses, Meta explicitly reserves fair use without asserting it. The company denies sharing any adult content, so fair use is not relevant, but it keeps it as an option just in case.

In the related Kadrey v. Meta lawsuit, where Meta admitted torrenting books for AI-training, fair use is the central defense, and Meta wants to keep that option open here as well.

Seeding Was “De Minimis”

As America’s most prolific copyright litigant, Strike 3 has built tens of thousands of lawsuits on the premise that sharing files via BitTorrent is copyright infringement. In those cases against individual defendants, a typical defense is that an IP address doesn’t identify a person.

Meta takes a different route. The company’s ninth affirmative defense doesn’t deny that data was uploaded from its IP addresses. Instead, it argues that any uploads during the torrenting process were “de minimis and did not result in the creation of an identifiable or usable copy of any copyrighted work.”

In other words, the fragments exchanged during BitTorrent transfers don’t amount to a meaningful copy. As far as we know, this argument has not been tested in court before, so it will be interesting to see how this will fare.

Meta also takes aim at Strike 3’s copyrights themselves. The tenth affirmative defense alleges that the adult films may incorporate others’ works without permission and may be “derivative of or copy preexisting works, including works undisclosed in Plaintiffs’ copyright filings with the U.S. Copyright Office.” Strike 3, Meta suggests, may have overstated its own copyright claims.

The remaining defenses include a statute of limitations argument, uncertainty about Strike 3’s copyrights, and a constitutional challenge arguing that the statutory damages would violate the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause.

With potentially hundreds of millions of dollars at stake, it is clear that Meta will fight the matter tooth and nail. Alternatively, an early settlement is also an option. The case now moves forward, with mediation due by early August and a jury trial set for February 2028.

—

A copy of Meta’s answer to the amended complaint, filed at the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, is available here (pdf) . For full context, Strike 3’s amended complaint is available here (pdf) .

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

Canada’s approach to pirate site blocking has evolved quite a bit since the Federal Court issued the first ‘GoldTV’ order in 2019.

That original order targeted a specific service and a fixed set of domain names. If rightsholders wanted to add a domain to the blocklist, they had to go back to court.

Later orders against Soap2Day and, more recently, various stream-ripping sites , went a step further. Instead of targeting specific operations run by the same people, they allowed rightsholders to update the blocklist with alternative domains that would pop up, as well as copycats of the already named brands.

These new orders streamlined the site blocking process. Rightsholders no longer had to file a new case for every domain that popped up. They did, however, still have to go back to the Federal Court, which had to issue a new order before anything new could be blocked.

Rightsholders say these types of blocking orders are needed to effectively curb piracy. However, they are not without criticism. Opponents including the Canadian ISP TekSavvy have previously complained that site blocking is a slippery slope , where more sites might eventually get blocked with less oversight.

Hollywood Seeks Broad Blocking Order

Thus far the global trend has indeed been to expand blocking powers and the latest Federal Court order, issued earlier this month, is no exception.

The blocking order, requested by Rogers, TVA, Netflix and various Hollywood studios such as Disney and Warner Bros., targets thirteen named piracy brands. This includes existing domain names, but also any future domains that use the same brands, whether these are linked to the original operation or not.

The order requires Canadian ISPs, including Bell, Rogers, Telus, and TekSavvy, to block an initial list of 18 domains and subdomains. It is also the first Canadian blocking order to cover both IPTV subscription services and public streaming sites in a single proceeding.

The order splits its targets into two groups. Six are IPTV subscription services: Apollo Group TV, Diablo IPTV, GLO TV, IPGuys, Jio TV, and Smart4K/Platinum. The other seven pirate streaming sites are 123Movies, Cineby, FMovies, HydraHD, Putlocker, TheTVApp, and WatchSeries.

After the first site blocking order survived several appeals, there hasn’t been any significant opposition from ISPs to the follow-up orders. That also applies here, as the most recent blocking order was approved without any notable pushback.

Schedule 1 lists 13 domains and five subdomains. With more than 50 million global monthly visitors, 123moviesfree.net is one of the prime targets. However, the value of this order lies less in what it blocks today than in what it can block tomorrow.

The Catch-All ‘Expanded Scope’ Order

The blocking order adds a new feature which is framed as an “Expanded Scope.” Earlier Canadian orders reached a single brand and its copycats. The latest blocking order goes further, as it also covers “similarly infringing platforms operating under other brands.”

This effectively means that the movie studios and other rightsholders can add new pirate sites and services to the blocklist. Justice Southcott agreed that this is needed to deal with the piracy whac-a-mole problem where new pirate sites swiftly take the place of blocked ones.

“[W]hen access to infringing platforms is blocked, other similarly infringing platforms appear and/or increase in popularity,” the order reads.

To justify the expansion, Justice Southcott looked at a recent UK High Court order , described as an “omnibus order,” which we covered in May. According to the Motion Picture Association, which represents its member studios in site blocking efforts, this order makes it possible to block any “structurally infringing audiovisual piracy service” without naming it in advance.

The UK judgment itself has still not been published on BAILII or the National Archives, as far as we know, but it is clearly seen as the new frontier in site blocking efforts.

Adding New Brands

The order explains how new brands are added through what it calls a “Simplified Procedure.” To add a platform, rightsholders must file an affidavit which confirms that the new target meets the order’s conditions.

In this case, it means that the target’s sole or predominant purpose is the unauthorized distribution of the studios’ film and television works, that it operates like the IPTV or open-web services already named, that it is reachable in Canada, and that the operator was sent a notice of infringement and given seven days to respond.

If no targeted ISP files a notice of motion to object within five business days, the updated list takes effect without any hearing and no further order from the court. These new submissions can be made every ten business days.

That last part is a subtle but notable change. Under the stream-ripper order issued last month, ISP silence meant the Court “may grant an Order amending Schedule 1 as proposed by the Applicants without further proceedings.” A judge still signed off, even if nobody argued.

Under the new order, silence alone is enough. The proposed list “shall be considered Schedule 1 under this Order,” with no involvement from the court at all.

Together, the two changes remove both limits that applied before. The court no longer has to sign off on blocklist updates, and the additions no longer have to involve a brand that was already named in the case.

Justice Southcott describes this as “an incremental modification to precedent site-blocking orders.”

A Judicial Guardrail

Justice Southcott did not grant everything the studios asked for. The rightsholders wanted the new order to also apply to “any works for which the Applicants own the copyright.”

The order limits its scope to “the Applicants’ Works,” meaning the specific titles mentioned in the judgment. In practice, that prevents the studios from using copyrights they acquire later to justify new additions, without first going back to court.

TekSavvy, which previously fought back against site blocking in Canada, has already published a compliance page for the order. While the company did not oppose the current order, it remains highly skeptical.

“[W]e see blocking orders as a grave violation of network neutrality and a fundamental change to what we do as an ISP. The principles of common carriage and network neutrality mean ISPs carry traffic to and from end users in as neutral a fashion as possible,” TekSavvy notes.

The latest order runs for two years, with the blocklist starting at 13 domains and five subdomains. The more telling figure may be how many names get added before it expires.

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A copy of the site-blocking order, issued by Justice Southcott, is available here (pdf) . The full domain list can be found here (pdf) .

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

At the height of the cyberlocker boom in the early 2010s, Uptobox was already an established name.

The platform remained online despite a fierce anti-piracy crackdown that led to the demise of Megaupload, Hotfile, and many other file-hosting services.

Uptobox eventually met its fate in September 2023, when a coalition of entertainment companies including Disney, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, Paramount, and Warner Bros. obtained a court order to seize its servers at various data centers.

Uptobox Crackdown

The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment claimed responsibility for the operation, which was carried out simultaneously in France and the UAE. While Uptobox put up a fight in court, hoping for a comeback , the courts disagreed and kept it offline.

Behind the scenes, Disney was pursuing a parallel case against a French national residing in the UAE. Local news site L’Informé previously identified the defendant by his X.com pseudonym “Starouille”, who previously described himself as the CTO of Uptobox.

In October 2023, Disney obtained an order from a Paris enforcement judge, authorizing seizures of up to €16.127 million against his personal bank accounts. In the legal paperwork, Disney described the defendant as one of the “founders, operators, and de facto co-directors” of Uptobox.

When the seizure was executed at the BNP Paribas bank, it froze approximately €197,000. Two additional seizures followed under separate orders. These seized assets are not damages awards, but they are kept as a security while the case is fought on its merits.

Not a Director

Starouille, who is identified in the legal paperwork as ‘M. [U]’, did not agree with the way Disney described him. His lawyer Me Damien Faupin argued that he was a technical contractor who managed server infrastructure, not a co-director. The CTO title on social media did not reflect reality, the lawyer clarified.

In January 2025, the enforcement judge agreed that Disney could not prove the defendant’s director role, ordering the seized funds released. However, Disney objected and requested a stay of execution while they appealed. This decision eventually came this month.

After considering all evidence, the Court of Appeal upheld the finding that Disney failed to prove Starouille was a de facto director. The evidence showed he began as a freelancer in 2012, but there’s no hard evidence that he actually had a managerial function.

“The fact that [the defendant] presented himself on social media, notably on his Facebook and Twitter accounts, as ‘Chief Technical Officer’ (CTO) of Uptobox does not in itself constitute, even assuming this title to be accurate, a sufficient element to establish that, beyond operations of installation, maintenance, and upgrading of servers, he was more generally engaged in management or technical development of the service.”” the court said (all quotes aretranslated) .

The Court of Appeal noted that there was insufficient evidence to prove the defendant was engaged in the general management of the service. Instead, his role was strictly limited to operations, maintenance, and server upgrades. This was corroborated by evidence seized at hosting provider Opcore, which listed him as “interlocuteur technique N1” (Technical Liaison Level 1).

While the court concluded that Disney failed to prove that the defendant had a director role, it ultimately ruled that the funds should remain frozen for another reason.

DNS Tweets Keep Funds Frozen

The court order notes that the defendant was not ignorant of the alleged piracy-facilitating activities of Uptobox. In fact, his own social media posts showed that he was aware of site blocking efforts and shared information on how these could be bypassed.

For example, in one of the X/Twitter posts that are no longer public, Starouille wrote (translated): “for those who can no longer access Uptobox/Uptostream, change your DNS on all your devices (procedure here: uptobox.info/dns). You can also use uptobox.link.”

When a user asked whether this was about “yet another court order,” Starouille confirmed, and he later posted specific instructions for changing DNS settings in a Freebox router’s download manager.

According to the Court of Appeal, these posts show that the defendant was aware of the blocking orders, as well as the copyright-related reasons for these blocking measures. His defense that the DNS instructions were meant to help rightsholders contact the service was dismissed.

“[The defendant] cannot validly maintain that his message, far from enabling the circumvention of an institutional block, was solely intended to allow users, rightsholders such as the appellant, or any other natural or legal person to be able to contact the company or the service, in particular to report a copyright infringement problem.”

This was not the first time Starouille’s social media activity was used against him in court. As L’Informé previously reported, a since-deleted tweet showing a car entering a parking lot tagged “@online DC2” helped entertainment companies locate Uptobox servers at Scaleway’s second data center in Vitry-sur-Seine, facilitating the September 2023 raid.

Importantly, this is not a finding on the merits. Starouille is not held liable, the court merely concluded that Disney’s claims are plausible enough to keep the funds frozen for now.

From €16 Million to €306,000

The defendant also booked a win, at least on paper. Disney previously calculated its claim using the lost Disney+ subscription revenue over 2020-2023, applying its 15% streaming market share to Uptobox’s estimated one million monthly unique visitors.

The Court of Appeal adjusted this number downward, citing a study which concluded that roughly 80% of pirates already subscribe to legal streaming services. This means that these would not necessarily result in lost revenue.

Additionally, the court found that Starouille’s alleged wrongful conduct was limited to his July-August 2023 social media posts, which further limits the damages.

Ultimately, this shorter ‘liability’ window and the reduced lost subscriptions, slashed the authorized asset freeze of more than €16 million to €306,000. However, since this is still more than the €197,000 that’s frozen at BNP Paribas, nothing is returned yet.

For now, Starouille’s savings remain frozen and the merits case is pending. No piracy damages have been awarded yet, but the ruling shows that publicly instructing users to circumvent court orders can be used to justify piracy-related asset seizures.

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A copy of the Paris Court of Appeal ruling is available here (pdf) .

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

Earlier this month, Vietnam’s Ministry of Public Security announced it had dismantled the network behind the high-profile HiAnime piracy ring .

While the associated site already closed its doors in March, the action is vital for Vietnam since the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) recently classified it as “ Priority Foreign Country ,” because of its lacking anti-piracy enforcement.

Last month, USTR formally started a Section 301 investigation which opened the door to potential trade sanctions. As part of this process, stakeholders were requested to provide input on Vietnam’s alleged shortcomings. This includes the piracy challenges and concerns, which are highlighted as the primary concern.

One of the key submissions for the USTR investigation comes from the Motion Picture Association ( MPA ), which represents the major Hollywood studios, Netflix and Amazon. The MPA has vast experience in the country through its anti-piracy arm ACE and assisted in local copyright enforcement efforts for years.

This cooperation resulted in the takedown of the Fmovies piracy ring, for example, and ACE also provided key intelligence for the recent HiAnime action. While the MPA is pleased with the enforcement efforts, it hasn’t been pleased with how Vietnamese courts and prosecutors deal with the matter.

MPA: ‘Mild Sentences are the Problem’

When MPA submitted its commentary the HiAnime arrests had not been announced yet. The MPA has since applauded the arrests, but its USTR filing suggests that the eventual sentences will be crucial.

Previously, the prosecutions of key defendants in the Fmovies piracy ring , dubbed the largest piracy operation ever, resulted in suspended prison sentences and relatively low fines. The same applied to the operator of the popular BestBuyIPTV service .

MPA’s SVP Global Policy and Government Affairs, Gail MacKinnon, informed the USTR that the lack of deterrent penalties in Vietnam are the main reason why online piracy remains a significant problem in the country.

“Without sentences and monetary penalties that outweigh the financial gains from copyright infringement, online piracy operations originating in Vietnam will not be sufficiently deterred,” MPA’s submission reads.

“There needs to be visible and credible consequences to effectively deter infringement and counter the perception that piracy is a low-risk, high-reward activity,” MacKinnon adds.

Copycats, Successors, and Resurgents

MPA notes that, as a result of the mild sentences, major takedowns are often only a short-lived success. Pirate brands or operations often reappear swiftly, a problem India’s High Court previously likened to a “hydra-headed” threat.

In its recommendations to the USTR, MPA urges Vietnam to make sure that such copycats and successors are also addressed properly.

“Take effective and deterrent enforcement action against the notorious piracy services identified by MPA, including timely follow-up actions against any successor, mirror, or copycat sites that emerge”

“Criminal enforcement action must be taken against the operators of these pirate syndicates to ensure that they do not resurface. Consistent enforcement is also necessary to deter the emergence of copycat
services that fill the gap left by these shutdowns.”

Much of the same critique is shared by International Intellectual Property Alliance ( IIPA ), which highlighted the same problem in their submission to the USTR’s Vietnam investigation.

The IIPA documents the same pattern in more detail, tracing a rather obvious branding shift that started in 2023, when Zoro.to was shut down by ACE, but not before it was rebranded as AniWatch. A year later, Aniwatch became HiAnime , which eventually went offline this year.

IIPA’s submission, which also predates the HiAnime crackdown announcement, also calls for tougher enforcement and deterrent sanctions.

“It is critical for responsible enforcement authorities, including the relevant police units, the MPS, and the Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism (MOCST), to follow through on infringement complaints, take meaningful and effective enforcement actions, and impose deterrent sanctions against infringing websites.”

Dispatch 38

Both the MPA and IIPA acknowledge that Vietnam has started to take the piracy problem more seriously. In May, the Vietnamese government issued Official Dispatch No. 38, asking agencies nationwide to intensify IP-related enforcement efforts, including actions against piracy websites.

Dispatch 38 also requests prosecutors and courts to prioritize serious copyright cases, improve prosecution timelines, and to strengthen deterrence. The MPA separately notes that the Ministry of Public Security is drafting amendments to the Penal Code to better address high-tech crimes and cyber offenses.

Whether the recent wave of enforcement actions and policy signals will be enough to change Vietnam’s piracy image has yet to be seen. The HiAnime arrests are recent, and the planned prosecution of the site’s operators will be the first real test of whether the judicial system is ready to move along.

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The IIPA’s Section 301 comments are available here (pdf) . The MPA’s filing can be found here (pdf).

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