Since 2024, the Paris Judicial Court has expanded the typical piracy site blocking orders beyond Internet providers.

Initially, rightsholders set their aim at DNS resolvers. This resulted in orders targeted at Cloudflare, Google, and others, requiring them to actively block access to pirate sites through their public DNS resolvers.

These blocking expansions were requested by sports rights holders, covering Formula 1, football Ligue 1, MotoGP, and other major sporting brands. They claimed that public DNS resolvers could help users to bypass existing ISP blockades, and the court agreed.

Last year, rightsholders cast their net even wider by targeting VPN providers with similar blocking demands. Again, the Paris Court acknowledged the threat of circumvention, ordering CyberGhost, ExpressVPN, NordVPN, ProtonVPN, and Surfshark to start blocking access to specific websites in France.

VPN Blocking Expands

The VPN blocking effort was not a one-off. After the first order was granted in May, more followed in June and July . These additional orders target various sports piracy sites as requested by the French entertainment powerhouse Canal Plus (SECP) and beIN Sports.

After this initial barrage, the blocking activity seemed to have quieted down, but it is far from over. On December 18, the Paris Judicial Court issued a new blocking order. This time around, the French top football league (LFP) and its commercial arm are the requesting parties.

As in previous orders, ProtonVPN, Nordvpn, Cyberghost, Surfshark and ExpressVPN are the main targets. These VPN providers have to block access to several domains that provide access to pirated sports streams.

The order covers 13 initial domains, including miztv.top, strikeout.im, and prosmarterstv.com. However, it is a ‘dynamic’ order in the sense that, through the overseeing body ARCOM, LFP can add new domains in case additional mirrors and proxies are launched. These blocks remain active for the entire 2025/2026 football season.

The court concludes that these VPNs help people to bypass existing site-blocking measures, rendering ISP blocking ineffective. While the VPN blockades are no silver bullet, combined with other blocking measures they should make it more difficult to access these pirate sites.

The No-Log Defense

All VPN providers, except ProtonVPN, appeared in court to argue a defense. They raised various arguments, with the “no-log” defense from Surfshark and NordVPN standing out.

Specifically, the VPNs argued that their “no-log” policy means they do not track user IP addresses or geolocate their users. Therefore, a court order to block access only for French users would violate their contractual obligations.

The court was not very receptive to this argument. Instead, it bluntly concluded that “the contractual stipulations binding VPN service providers to their clients cannot be invoked against [the plaintiffs] who have demonstrated an infringement of their rights.”

The court stressed that blocking the domains does not require the service to permanently store information on its users. The VPNs simply have to make sure that the sites are blocked from France.

In addition, the court rejected the notion that the blocking measures would constitute a “general monitoring obligation”, which is not allowed under the EU’s DSA, because the measures are limited to specific domains and end after the 2025-2026 football season.

Court Rejects Other Defenses

The VPNs also argued that their services don’t qualify as “technical intermediaries” under Article L. 333-10 of the Sports Code, but that was denied by the Paris court as well. The same applies to the proportionality and effectiveness arguments, which all failed.

The court’s logic throughout the order is that technical neutrality does not equal legal immunity.

By citing the DSA and the Sports Code, the judge effectively argues that VPN services can be key intermediaries in the piracy ecosystem. Therefore, they are legally obligated to act.

“Contrary to the assertions of Surfshark and NordVPN, the mere act of serving as a bridge to enable access to the pirate sites fulfills the function of transmission. Even if an intermediary acts in a passive, automatic, and neutral manner during the connection between internet domains, it nonetheless remains an essential agent in the transmission of data from one domain to another,” the (translated) order reads.

What Happens Next?

The latest ruling confirms that VPN providers can be obligated to block pirate sites, at least in France. However, the final word hasn’t been said.

Speaking with TorrentFreak this week, a NordVPN spokesperson confirms that their appeal is already underway. The company did not directly explain how it complies with the court order but instead said that site-blocking measures are futile.

“While it may address superficial cases, it fails to tackle the root causes of piracy. Pirates can easily circumvent these blocks by using subdomains: blocking does not eliminate the content itself or reduce the incentives for piracy,” NordVPN notes.

“Effective piracy control should focus on eliminating the source of the content, targeting hosting providers, cutting off financing for illegal operations, and increasing the availability of legitimate content.”

In addition, NordVPN notes that, since the French order targets reputable VPNs, users may choose lower-quality free VPNs that will remain a loophole for pirates.

For now, however, the targeted VPN providers have to find a way to implement the blocking order. The court order doesn’t specify any technical measures, so they are free to do as they please, as long as the targeted sites are unavailable.

If the French VPN blockades are ultimately upheld, some providers may choose to leave the country entirely, but none have made this drastic step yet.

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A copy of the order issued by the Tribunal Judiciaire de Paris in favor of LFP is available here (pdf) . A list of all the targeted domain names is available below.

1. miztv.top
2. strikeout.im
3. qatarstreams.me
4. iptvfrancai.com
5. vip.kata17.xyz
6. iptv-france4k.fr
7. front-main.4k-drm.com
8. prosmarterstv.com
9. line.line-dino.com
10. iptvninja.fr
11. cdnhome.pro
12. elitetv.fr
13. smatest.xyz

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

The battle against online piracy takes place on many fronts.

In addition to tackling infringing content at the source, copyright holders are increasingly focused on the platforms where these services are advertised and promoted.

These advertisements increase the exposure of illegal services, including pirate IPTV subscriptions. Additionally, advertisements on mainstream sites and platforms can give the impression that these pirate services are legitimate deals.

A Groupon IPTV Deal?

Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN is one of the organizations that scours the web for these types of pirate ads. This includes monitoring the traditional advertising platforms such as Google, but also indirect promotion hubs such as Groupon.

Groupon offers its users a wide variety of deals, and BREIN recently spotted one for an IPTV service that was too good to be true. BREIN reported its findings to Groupon, which took “almost immediate” action , according to the anti-piracy group.

BREIN does not name the IPTV service, but the only Dutch IPTV-related advertisement we see on Groupon is for OpliTV. This now-removed deal offered a 32% discount on top of an already extremely cheap annual plan.

Needless to say, these types of services have serious drawbacks. They may be linked to criminal activity and can be pulled offline at any minute, for example, which may also make them rather expensive in hindsight.

Trusted Flagger

BREIN is pleased with Groupon’s swift action, noting that this is essential to stop promotions for these types of services.

“It is crucial that online infringements are stopped quickly to prevent irreparable damage. This is especially true for well-known, legal platforms where consumers can be confused about the legality of the offering,” BREIN notes.

Interestingly, BREIN suggests that its status as “trusted flagger” under the EU Digital Services Act helps to get intermediaries to act quickly.

“This swift action underscores the importance of the BREIN Foundation’s status as a ‘Trusted Flagger,’ which requires intermediaries to take action as a matter of priority,” the anti-piracy group writes.

BREIN officially received the trusted flagger status last September which raised its profile. According to BREIN Director Bastiaan van Ramshorst, this immediately made a difference.

Speaking with TorrentFreak, Van Ramshorst says that intermediaries such as Groupon now treat BREIN as a trusted party, which typically means that takedown notices are handled with priority, as the IPTV example shows.

The rapid takedown does not prevent similar deals from showing up at Groupon, however. While writing this article, we spotted a deal for another dirt-cheap IPTV service that offers access to 29,000+ channels. According to Groupon, this ‘hot’ deal has been sold more than 1,000 times already.

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

Formerly known as Mindgeek, Aylo is the driving force behind free ‘tube’ sites such as Pornhub, YouPorn, and RedTube. It also owns many adult brands, including Brazzers and Reality Kings, that charge for subscriptions.

The company controls an impressive library of more than 40,000 registered copyrighted works. When this content appears on third-party sites, it doesn’t hesitate to take legal action.

Last summer, for example, Aylo Premium sued the operators of PornXP, who were initially identified as “John Does.” As the case moved forward, Aylo pinpointed the alleged operator, Alex Abdullaev, in Kyrgyzstan. However, when Aylo sent someone to personally serve their suspect in the Central Asian country, no one answered the door.

Without a formal response from the defendant, Aylo eventually requested a default judgment at the U.S. District Court in Tacoma, Washington. According to Aylo, the pirate site network cost them over $172 million per month in potential lost subscriptions, based on PornXP’s 17 million monthly visitors.

In an attempt to recoup part of the damage, the adult entertainment company requested $15,000 in damages for each of the 2,040 infringing works, totaling more than $30 million.

Court Grants $10m and Domain Seizures

In an order issued last month, U.S. District Court Judge Benjamin Settle issued a default judgment in favor of Aylo. While the Kyrgyzstani operator is held liable, the court reduced the requested damages by a third, to a little over $10 million.

“Aylo has demonstrated Abdullaev willfully infringed its copyrighted works and a statutory damages award is warranted and required. However, the Court in its discretion declines to award Aylo the $30.6 million it requests,” Judge Settle writes.

“The Court finds that only a fraction of the visitors would have paid for Aylo’s services. In its discretion and in the interests of justice, the Court will award $5,000 for each of the 2,040 offending works, totaling $10,200,000,” the order adds.

In these types of cases it is highly unlikely that the defendant will pay anything. More important, perhaps, is the domain seizure order that was also granted by Judge Settle. Specifically, the order specifies that registries have to disable and transfer the PornXP domains.

Porkbun Does Not (Have to) Comply

At first glance, it appeared that the order allowed Aylo to seize control of the PornXP domains. However, Aylo’s enforcement arm immediately ran into trouble when it asked the American domain registrar Porkbun to comply.

On December 19, Aylo’s attorney, Ethan Jacobs, asked Porkbun to transfer a dozen domain names, including pornxp.click, pornxp.club, pornxp.download, pornxp.lat, pornxp.one, and pornxp.pics. However, that didn’t go as planned, as Porkbun refused to comply.

In a response to Aylo, the company argued that the court’s order only commanded “registries” (which manage the domains) to disable and transfer the domains, not “registrars”, which are the companies that sell these domain names.

This distinction is more than just semantics. In the Internet ecosystem, registries and registrars have different technical capabilities and legal obligations. By specifically naming registries in the permanent injunction, registrars such as Porkbun are not required to comply.

Aylo Requests Amended Court Order

For Aylo, it is key that domain registrars are covered. Many of these companies, such as Porkbun, Namesilo, and GoDaddy, are based in the U.S. and directly subject to the court’s jurisdiction. The same doesn’t automatically apply to foreign domain registries, which may not comply with American court orders.

In response to Porkbun’s refusal, Aylo filed an ex parte motion last Friday, asking the court to amend the order to explicitly include the “registrars”. This would compel Porkbun to disable the PornXP domains. Yesterday, this amended order was signed by Judge Settle.

The updated injunction now outlines a specific technical process and names the registrars and registries. For example, it requires registrars like Porkbun, NameSilo, and Spaceship to change the registrar of record to EuroDNS, which will then move the domains into Aylo’s name.

For now, most of the roughly three-dozen PornXP domains listed in the legal paperwork remain active, either directly or through a redirect. That includes the Porkbun-linked domains, which will likely go offline soon after the registrar processes the amended order.

Interestingly, several domains that are linked to foreign domain registries remain online too. For example, PornXP’s .eu domain is managed by EURid which is linked to the European Commission, while the .me domain is sponsored by the Government of Montenegro. This suggests that these foreign entities
have not complied with the original injunction either. Whether that will change now that they are directly named has yet to be seen.

The American registries Verisign (.com) and the Public Interest Registry (.org) did comply with the injunction, however.

This isn’t Aylo’s first legal go-around. The company followed a nearly identical playbook in its previous battles against Goodporn and Daftsex , securing judgments of $2.1 million and $32 million, respectively. These sites also proved to be rather difficult to shut down, and their remnants can still be found online.

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A copy of the initial court order issued by U.S. District Court Judge Benjamin Settle is available here (pdf) . The amended judgment can be found here (pdf) .

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

Pirate sites and services can be a real challenge for rightsholders to deal with. In India, however, recent court orders have proven to be quite effective.

Indian courts have issued pirate site blocking orders for over a decade. Initially, these orders were relatively basic, requiring local Internet providers to block specific domain names.

Super Dynamic++ Anti-Hydra Injunctions

These regular injunctions were only partially effective. After the High Court granted a blocking injunction, pirate sites would often switch to new domains, requiring rightsholders to return to court to get these blocked as well.

To deal with this problem, the dynamic injunction was invented. These orders were issued to more effectively deny access to content made available on pirate sites. ISPs were not only required to block original domains but also any clones and mirror sites that surfaced after the order was signed.

When dynamic injunctions were no longer sufficient to slay the piracy hydra , rightsholders suggested upgrading the Indian blocking regime with Dynamic ++ injunctions. These orders also protect copyrighted content that has yet to be registered.

In addition, Dynamic++ orders and their ‘ superlative ‘ variant also include domain name registrars as defendants . This includes blocking orders targeted at U.S. domain registrars.

Hollywood Targets U.S. Companies Through India

The ability to target domain name registrants proved to be a game changer. Over the past two years, it allowed rightsholders to disable domains of various prominent pirate sites, some with dozens of millions of visitors. While these sites could simply register new domains, the legal efforts certainly affected their operation.

For this reason, it is no surprise to see that several American movie industry players have ramped up their enforcement actions in India, targeting hundreds of domains at a time. And since these orders effectively suspend domains at various domain name registrars, new requests keep coming in.

As reported by Verdictum a few days ago, the High Court in New Delhi issued a new blocking injunction on December 18, targeting more than 150 pirate site domains , including yflix.to, animesuge.bz, bs.to, and many others.

The complaint is filed by Warner Bros., Apple, Crunchyroll, Disney, and Netflix, which are all connected to the MPA’s anti-piracy arm, ACE. The referenced works include some of the most pirated titles , such as Stranger Things, Squid Game, and Silo.

Global Kill Switch Fails

In addition to targeting Indian ISPs, the order also lists various domain name registries and related organizations as defendants. This includes American registrars such as Namecheap and GoDaddy, but also the government of the Kingdom of Tonga, which is linked to .to domains.

By requiring domain name registrars to take action, the Indian court orders have a global impact.

In addition to suspending the domain names within three days days, the domain name registrars are given four weeks to disclose the relevant subscriber information connected to these domains.

“[The registrars] shall lock and suspend Defendant Nos. 1 to 47 websites within 72 hours of being communicated with a copy of this Order and shall file all the Basic Subscriber Information, including the name, address, contact information, email addresses, bank details, IP logs, and any other relevant information […] within four weeks of being communicated with a copy of this Order,” the High Court wrote.

Not All Domain ‘Registrars’ Comply

While the “Dynamic+” injunction is designed to be a global kill switch, its effectiveness depends entirely on the cooperation of the domain name registrars. Since most of these are based outside of India, their compliance is not guaranteed.

By now, the 72-hour deadline to comply has long passed, so we can effectively see which registrars have taken action and which ones haven’t.

According to our analysis, it appears that most domain names have not been suspended. These pirate sites domains continue to be accessible today. Some continue running from their original domains, while others redirect to new ones, suggesting that they remain controlling their original owners.

This includes domains that are linked to Namecheap, Tucows, GoDaddy, NameSilo, Dynadot, OVH and others. The government of the Kingdom of Tonga did not comply with the Indian court order either.

As far as we can see, domains linked to the American registrar Porkbun, the UK-based WHG Hosting services, and the Lithuanian registrar Hostinger were fully suspended. Registrar.eu also put some domains on clientHold, and the one that remains accessible (animesuge.bz) is linked to Namecheap now.

It’s not unprecedented for foreign companies, including American ones, not to comply with Indian court orders. However, in this case, it is worth noting that Namecheap previously appeared to comply with similar orders from the Delhi High Court.

The non-compliance must come as a disappointment to Netflix, Warner Bros. and the others. However, they will likely be back in court for more blocking and suspension orders son enough.

All in all, it is clear that India’s High Court has a streamlined process in place that effectively orders local ISPs to block pirate sites. However, the intended global reach seems to be restricted to a few registrars, for now.

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A copy of the High Court order, issued on December 18, 2025, by Justice Tejas Karia, is available here (pdf) . The court order includes 163 unique domain names, some of which are not linked to a registrar. An overview of the 125 domains that are linked to targeted registrars and related entities is provided below. .

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

YouTube downloaders and other nifty tools are seen as a major piracy threat by the music industry.

To curb this trend, music companies have taken legal action against various stream-ripping services. This includes Yout.com , which is operated by the American developer Johnathan Nader.

Nader is not easily defeated, however. In 2020 he took the RIAA to court in an attempt to have the site declared legal.

Criminal Conviction

The RIAA case is still under appeal, but meanwhile, Nader faced more immediate threats. In 2021, Yout’s owner learned that the Public Prosecutor’s Office of São Paulo, Brazil, had filed a criminal complaint against him.

In 2022, the prosecution offered Yout.com a way out in the form of a deal. In exchange for reaching an agreement on several predetermined terms, the public prosecutor was willing to suspend the criminal prosecution . This would come at a cost, however.

Under the proposed terms, Yout’s operator would have to pay the authorities 1.9 million Brazilian reals, roughly $400,000, which Nader rejected.

Without a deal, the defense tried to get the case dismissed outright. Yout’s attorneys argued, among other things, that the site functions like an Internet DVR; it doesn’t store any infringing material and has sufficient legal uses.

However, the court eventually concluded that the requirements for criminal prosecution had been met, and allowed the prosecution to go ahead .

Yout Operator Found Guilty

In a detailed 21-page ruling issued last Friday, Judge Eva Lobo Chaib Dias Jorge of the 12th Criminal Court of São Paulo, found Yout’s Johnathan Nader guilty of large-scale copyright infringement. The court dismissed the defense’s arguments, concluding that the stream-ripper is a dedicated piracy tool.

The finding was based on technical evidence provided by the court-appointed expert, Ricardo Andrian Capozzi, who concluded that Yout wasn’t merely a “neutral” recording tool. Instead, Yout is specifically created to bypass the security measures implemented by sites like YouTube.

The Judge was not swayed by the defense’s argument that Yout.com can be used in plenty of “fair use” situations too.

“Ultimately, it is evident that the service operated by the defendant directly contravenes the constitutional protection of copyright, misappropriating the works of others and causing both financial and moral harm to the legitimate rights holders. For this reason, holding the defendant accountable is not only legitimate but necessary for the preservation of the legal order and the integrity of the cultural market itself,” the verdict reads (translated).

“Given the evidence contained in the records, it is understood that there is substantial proof of a violation of the Copyright Law (Law No. 9,610/1998), and the service offered by Yout.com constitutes an illegal practice, directly infringing upon copyrights.”

Substituted Prison Sentence

The court determined that, with millions of Brazilian visits to Yout.com, copyright infringement was committed millions of times. As the responsible party, Nader was technically sentenced to a prison term of three years and four months, but for now his immediate future won’t be inside a Brazilian cell.

Because Nader is a first-time offender, the judge substituted the prison term with two “alternative” restrictive penalties under Article 44 of the Penal Code. Instead of serving a prison sentence, Nader is required to pay a total of 200 monthly minimum wages to a Public Security Incentive Fund (FISP).

The verdict doesn’t mention what the applied daily minimum wage rate is. Online searches suggest that the 2025 monthly minimum in Brazil is R$1,518.00 , which would put the total penalty at R$303,600 (~USD$55,000). We want to stress, however, the verdict doesn’t list any amount.

The prison sentence is not completely off the radar either, as a failure to pay the fine or comply with the court’s conditions could eventually bring it back into play.

Brazil’s Jurisdiction over a U.S. Operation

One of the most significant aspects of the ruling is the judge’s rejection of Nader’s jurisdictional defense. Nader argued that, as a Connecticut-based operator of a U.S. company, he should not be subject to Brazilian criminal law.

The judge ruled that, since the site was visited millions of times by Brazilians, the stream-ripper has a real impact within national borders. As a result, the court concluded that Brazilian law applies regardless of where Yout.com’s servers or its developer are located.

“The fact that the defendant’s conduct was not considered punishable in its country of origin in no way undermines its illegality when the results are reflected in our National Territory,” the verdict reads.

The ruling comes as a significant setback for Yout.com’s operator, who is expected to appeal the verdict. Yout.com, meanwhile, remains blocked by Brazilian Internet providers.

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A copy of the verdict, issued by Judge Eva Lobo Chaib Dias Jorge of the 12th Criminal Court of São Paulo, is available in Portuguese here .

Update: Apparently, Yout remains accessible from some ISPs in Brazil. We could not verify this independently.

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

The legal battle between X Corp. and the music industry has just escalated from a straightforward copyright lawsuit into a full-blown antitrust war.

The dispute started in 2023, with various music publishers accusing X of ‘breeding’ mass copyright infringement, and appeared to steer toward a settlement last summer.

X Sues Music Publishers

That settlement never came. Instead, the legal battle motivated X to gather sufficient evidence for a counterstrike, where many key industry companies and music publishers are accused of a conspiracy to weaponize the DMCA.

In a scathing 53-page complaint filed in the Northern District of Texas today, X Corp. is suing the National Music Publishers’ Association ( NMPA ) and a coalition of major music publishers, including Sony, Universal, and Warner Chappell, for alleged violations of the Sherman Antitrust Act.

The lawsuit essentially argues that the NMPA didn’t send thousands of DMCA takedown notices to protect artist rights. Instead, X claims the notices were used as an “extortionate campaign” to motivate X into paying “supracompetitive” licensing fees.

“As part of this conspiracy, Defendants weaponized the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (the “DMCA”) against X, using the DMCA as a pretext for their extortionate campaign,” the complaint reads.

Weaponize the DMCA

The core of X’s argument is that the NMPA and many its members allegedly agreed not to make individual deals with the platform. Instead of negotiating separate licenses, X alleges the industry colluded to get a much better price.

According to the complaint, NMPA President David Israelite emailed X in October 2021 (when it was still Twitter), threatening a “massive program” of DMCA notices on a scale “larger than any previous effort in DMCA history” if X did not agree to a partnership.

When X refused to sign a deal, the floodgates opened. X claims that starting in December 2021, the NMPA began sending weekly notices identifying thousands of posts. In the first year alone, these notices targeted over 200,000 posts. Since the scheme began, the campaign has resulted in the suspension of more than 50,000 users.

X describes this as a “weaponization” of the DMCA, aimed not at curbing piracy, but at hurting X’s business by targeting its “most popular users”.

Allegations of Hypocrisy

Perhaps the most colorful allegations in the new complaint focus on the NMPA’s supposed hypocrisy. X argues that, while the NMPA was demanding the removal of fan-made content, its own executives were posting the exact same material.

The complaint cites an instance where an NMPA Senior Vice President reposted a “remix” video by a user known as “KylePlantEmoji,” which featured copyrighted songs by Nelly and Papa Roach.

“The NMPA lawyer did not report this post as infringing a copyright. Quite the opposite: the lawyer supported the video by reposting it on her own feed,” the complaint notes.

In another example, X points to a takedown notice issued for a video of a high school sports award ceremony. The video was flagged because of brief background music played while a student walked on stage to accept an award.

“Although there is no reasonable basis for censoring this video focused on a high school athlete’s achievement based on the de minimis, non-commercial use of background music in the video, X had to take it down because of Defendants’ scheme,” the complaint notes.

The Majors Joined the “Conspiracy”

X’s lawsuit also explains how the major music publishers, Universal, Sony, and Warner Chappell, allegedly joined the conspiracy later. Initially, these labels were not part of the NMPA’s takedown blitz.

However, X claims that the publishers eventually joined when their desired licensing deals did not come to fruition.

With this antitrust action, X is seeking damages and a permanent injunction to stop the alleged anticompetitive conduct. With claims for civil conspiracy, unfair competition, and attempted monopolization, among others, this is a high-stakes case.

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The full complaint filed today by X Corp. at a federal court in the Northern District of Texas is available here (pdf) .

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

Launched in 2024, Italy’s elaborate ‘ Piracy Shield ‘ blocking scheme was billed as the future of anti-piracy efforts.

To effectively tackle live sports piracy, its broad blocking powers aim to block piracy-related domain names and IP addresses within 30 minutes.

While many pirate sources have indeed been blocked, the Piracy Shield is not without controversy. There have been multiple reports of overblocking, where the anti-piracy system blocked access to legitimate sites and services .

Many of these overblocking instances involved the American Internet infrastructure company Cloudflare, which has been particularly critical of Italy’s Piracy Shield. In addition to protesting the measures in public, Cloudflare allegedly refused to filter pirate sites through its public 1.1.1.1 DNS.

1.1.1.1: Too Big to Block?

This refusal prompted an investigation by AGCOM, which now concluded that Cloudflare openly violated its legal requirements in the country. Following an amendment, the Piracy Shield also requires DNS providers and VPNs to block websites.

The dispute centers specifically on the refusal to comply with AGCOM Order 49/25/CONS , which was issued in February 2025. The order required Cloudflare to block DNS resolution and traffic to a list of domains and IP addresses linked to copyright infringement.

Cloudflare reportedly refused to enforce these blocking requirements through its public DNS resolver. Among other things, Cloudflare countered that filtering its DNS would be unreasonable and disproportionate.

The company warned that doing so would affect billions of daily queries and have an “extremely negative impact on latency,” slowing down the service for legitimate users worldwide.

AGCOM was unmoved by this “too big to block” argument.

The regulator countered that Cloudflare has all the technological expertise and resources to implement the blocking measures. AGCOM argued the company is known for its complex traffic management and rejected the suggestion that complying with the blocking order would break its service.

€14,247,698 Fine

After weighing all arguments, AGCOM imposed a €14,247,698 (USD $16.7m) fine against Cloudflare, concluding that the company failed to comply with the required anti-piracy measures. The fine represents 1% of the company’s global revenue, where the law allows for a maximum of 2%.

According to AGCOM, this is the first fine of this type, both in scope and size. This is fitting, as the regulator argued that Cloudflare plays a central role.

“The measure, in addition to being one of the first financial penalties imposed in the copyright sector, is particularly significant given the role played by Cloudflare” AGCOM notes, adding that Cloudflare is linked to roughly 70% of the pirate sites targeted under its regime.

In its detailed analysis, the regulator further highlighted that Cloudflare’s cooperation is “essential” for the enforcement of Italian anti-piracy laws, as its services allow pirate sites to evade standard blocking measures.

What’s Next?

Cloudflare has strongly contested the accusations throughout AGCOM’s proceedings and previously criticized the Piracy Shield system for lacking transparency and due process.

While the company did not immediately respond to our request for comment, it will almost certainly appeal the fine. This appeal may also draw the interest of other public DNS resolvers, such as Google and OpenDNS.

AGCOM, meanwhile, says that it remains fully committed to enforcing the local piracy law. The regulator notes that since the Piracy Shield started in February 2024, 65,000 domain names and 14,000 IP addresses were blocked.

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A copy of AGCOM’s detailed analysis and the associated order (N. 333/25/CONS) available here (pdf) .

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

The frontline of online piracy liability keeps moving, and core internet infrastructure providers are increasingly finding themselves in the crosshairs.

Since 2024, the Paris Judicial Court has ordered Cloudflare, Google and other intermediaries to actively block access to pirate sites through their DNS resolvers , confirming that third-party intermediaries can be required to take responsibility.

These blockades are requested by sports rights holders, covering Formula 1, football, and MotoGP, among others. They argue that public DNS resolvers help users to bypass existing ISP blockades, so these intermediaries should be ordered to block domains too.

Google DNS Blocks Expand

These blocking efforts didn’t stop. After the first blocking requests were granted, the Paris Court issued various additional blocking orders. Most recently, Google was compelled to take action following a complaint from French broadcaster Canal+ and its subsidiaries regarding Champions League piracy..

Like previous blocking cases, the request is grounded in Article L. 333-10 of the French Sports Code, which enables rightsholders to seek court orders against any entity that can help to stop ‘serious and repeated’ sports piracy.

After reviewing the evidence and hearing arguments from both sides, the Paris Court granted the blocking request, ordering Google to block nineteen domain names , including antenashop.site, daddylive3.com, livetv860.me, streamysport.org and vavoo.to.

The latest blocking order covers the entire 2025/2026 Champions League series, which ends on May 30, 2026. It’s a dynamic order too, which means that if these sites switch to new domains, as verified by ARCOM, these have to be blocked as well.

Cloudflare-First Defense Fails

Google objected to the blocking request. Among other things, it argued that several domains were linked to Cloudflare’s CDN. Therefore, suspending the sites on the CDN level would be more effective, as that would render them inaccessible.

Based on the subsidiarity principle , Google argued that blocking measures should only be ordered if attempts to block the pirate sites through more direct means have failed.

The court dismissed these arguments, noting that intermediaries cannot dictate the enforcement strategy or blocking order. Intermediaries cannot require “prior steps” against other technical intermediaries, especially given the “irremediable” character of live sports piracy.

The judge found the block proportional because Google remains free to choose the technical method, even if the result is mandated. Internet providers, search engines, CDNs, and DNS resolvers can all be required to block, irrespective of what other measures were taken previously.

Proportional

Google further argued that the blocking measures were disproportionate because they were complex, costly, easily bypassed, and had effects beyond the borders of France.

The Paris court rejected these claims. It argued that Google failed to demonstrate that implementing these blocking measures would result in “important costs” or technical impossibilities.

Additionally, the court recognized that there would still be options for people to bypass these blocking measures. However, the blocks are a necessary step to “completely cease” the infringing activities.

The ruling further solidifies France’s position as a pioneer in aggressive, real-time anti-piracy enforcement. Over the past two years, the court has systematically rejected defenses from Google and other DNS resolvers. While further appeals may be underway, the Paris Judicial Court clearly sees an anti-piracy role for all intermediaries.

—

A copy of the order issued by the Tribunal Judiciaire de Paris (RG nº 25/11816) is available here (pdf) . The order specifically excludes New Caledonia, Wallis and Futuna, and French Polynesia due to specific local legal frameworks.

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

First released in February 2003, Multi Theft Auto ( MTA ) is an unofficial multiplayer mod for several popular Grand Theft Auto games, starting with GTA III.

MTA does not rely on copyright-infringing code, the developers stress, as it works by code injection that hooks into an officially purchased copy of GTA.

The GitHub Takedown

With this setup, MTA managed to avoid any serious backlash from the GTA creator Take-Two Interactive . That is, until the game company purportedly sent a DMCA takedown notice to developer platform GitHub, where MTA’s main repository, ‘ mtasa-blue ‘ is hosted.

The DMCA notice alleged that the MTA repository included leaked source code and requested it to be removed in full.

“We are writing to submit a takedown request regarding a leaked source code hosted on GitHub that infringes on our copyrights. The infringer is sharing the leaked source code, on the [mtasa-blue] repository,” the notice read.

GitHub received the DMCA takedown request in early December, and, soon after, the MTA repository was indeed made inaccessible on the platform.

The notice took MTA’s developers by surprise. In their Discord channel, they suggested that it might be fake, especially since the entire repository was targeted, without pointing out any concrete leaked or infringing code. Additionally, the sender also ‘forgot’ to target the repo’s forks, which is unusual.

GTA Files Counternotice

The MTA developers didn’t sit idly by. On December 22, they filed their formal counter-notice requesting GitHub to reinstate their repository, denying any copyright infringement claims. Instead, they explain that their mod hooks into the official GTA game.

“The repository referenced contains only original, independently developed source code and supporting materials created by contributors to the project. It does not include, reproduce, or distribute any copyrighted assets, source code, or proprietary files from the original game or its publisher.”

“The software operates by interacting at runtime with a lawfully installed, user-supplied copy of the original game. No copyrighted game content is extracted, copied, redistributed, or included within this repository,” the counternotice adds.

Filing a formal counternotice is a serious step. Under the DMCA, this requires GitHub to restore the repository within a window of 10 to 14 business days, unless the takedown sender files a formal court action. In other words, it was an invitation for Take-Two to take legal action if they indeed wanted the repository offline.

MTA Repository Restored

Apparently, Take-Two did not feel the need to follow-up on and earlier this week, the repository was fully restored .

The comeback doesn’t mean that GitHub made a legal determination. Without a court order from Take-Two to keep the content offline, GitHub had to respond as its hands were legally tied by the DMCA.

When we reached out to GitHub, they declined to comment on the specific decision, including the authenticity of the original takedown. Instead, GitHub stated that they “reviewed and processed the notices in accordance with our DMCA Takedown Policy.”

In the hopes of getting additional information and commentary, TorrentFreak also reached out to Take-Two Interactive and a MTA developer. Unfortunately, however, neither responded before our deadline.

What’s Next?

While the restoration can be seen as a ‘win’ for MTA, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the result is final. If Take-Two was indeed behind the DMCA notice, it could still choose to take legal action later. This is also what happened to the ‘re3’ and ‘reVC’ repositories previously.

These reverse-engineered GTA mods were restored following a counternotice . However, they eventually were taken down again a few months later, when Take-Two sued the developers in U.S. court.

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