When a Virginia jury ordered internet provider Cox to pay $1 billion in damages for failing to take appropriate actions against pirating subscribers, shockwaves rippled through the ISP industry.

The verdict, in favor of major record labels including Sony and Universal, was a catalyst for many other ‘repeat infringer’ lawsuits. This resulted in yet more multi-million dollar claims and awards, with many still in the pipeline today.

Meanwhile, Cox did everything it could to fight the verdict, all the way up to the Supreme Court, which formally heard the case last December. The panel had to decide whether an ISP can be held liable for not taking any action in response to piracy notices, which which the Court answered today with a clear no.

Supreme Court Reverses: Knowledge is Not Intent

In a 7-2 decision handed down this morning, the Court reversed the Fourth Circuit decision, ruling that Cox is not contributorily liable for the infringing actions of its pirating subscribers. The opinion was written by Justice Thomas and is joined by six other justices. Justices Sotomayor and Jackson concurred, but disagreed sharply with the majority’s reasoning.

The opinion states that contributory liability requires proof that the provider intended its service to be used for infringement. That intent can only be shown in one of two ways. Either the provider actively induced infringement, or the service is one that has no substantial non-infringing uses.

In the present case Cox met neither test. It never encouraged its subscribers to pirate anything. And internet access, as the Court noted, is used for countless lawful purposes.

“Under our precedents, a company is not liable as a copyright infringer for merely providing a service to the general public with knowledge that it will be used by some to infringe copyrights. Accordingly, we reverse,” Justice Thomas writes.

The Court also directly countered the Fourth Circuit’s reasoning, which held that supplying a product with “knowledge” of future infringement was enough to establish liability. The Supreme Court called this an improper expansion of copyright law that conflicted with decades of precedent.

This means that Cox may have known about the infringing activity of its subscribers, but that they are not liable for not taking action in response.

The “IP Address” Problem

In a concurring opinion, Justice Sotomayor agreed that Cox shouldn’t be held liable, but for a more practical reason. Under the common-law aiding-and-abetting doctrine, which she argued the majority should have applied, liability requires proof that a defendant intended to help a specific wrongful act succeed.

Sotomayor noted that when the anti-piracy tracking company MarkMonitor flagged an infringing IP address, it only identified a connection, not an individual. Whether the infringer was a specific account holder, a roommate, or a neighbor stealing Wi-Fi remained a mystery.

Without knowing who was actually infringing, Sotomayor argued, it is impossible to prove Cox intended to help that specific person succeed in their “wrongful act”.

Is the DMCA Safe Harbor Now “Obsolete”?

The ruling leaves a massive question mark over the future of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Sony argued that the DMCA’s “safe harbor” provisions, which require ISPs to terminate “repeat infringers”, would be meaningless if ISPs weren’t already liable for serving those infringers in the first place.

Justice Sotomayor went even further, warning that the majority’s new rule “consigns the safe harbor provision to obsolescence”, adding that ISPs now have little incentive to take any action against online pirates.

“The majority’s decision thus permits ISPs to sell an internet connection to every single infringer who wants one without fear of liability and without lifting a finger to prevent infringement,” she notes.

What Happens Next

With today’s opinion, the case is reversed and remanded to the Fourth Circuit for further proceedings. Whether the music labels will pursue further litigation on remand, and what that would look like, remains to be seen.

For rightsholders, the ruling removes the primary legal tool they have used to pressure ISPs to terminate infringers more aggressively. For ISPs, however, it resolves years of uncertainty about how far they have to go in response to copyright infringement notices. Whether that means that they will indeed take less action has yet to be seen.

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A copy of the Supreme Court’s opinion is available here (pdf) . This is a developing story; more quotes, comments, and notes may be added later.

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.

It pioneered the three-strikes “graduated response” system back in 2009 , where the Hadopi agency tracked, warned, and fined online pirates, mostly those using BitTorrent.

As piracy shifted to streaming, however, enforcement became more complicated. Unlike BitTorrent, IPTV services don’t broadcast users’ IP addresses publicly, which has made individual subscribers difficult to identify and prosecute.

However, IPTV operators and resellers keep records. When investigators reach those records, subscribers can find themselves exposed.

19 IPTV Subscribers Fined

Last week, the French football league LFP announced that the Arras Public Prosecutor’s Office reached financial settlements with 19 subscribers of a pirate IPTV service. These users signed a criminal settlement that requires them to pay a fine ranging from €300 to €400.

The criminal investigation was started following a complaint from LFP. The prosecutors eventually identified 21 defendants and have now settled with 19 of them. The remaining two defendants are resellers, who are summoned to appear before the Arras criminal court in April, Zataz reports .

This is the first case in France where IPTV users are sanctioned. While the plea agreements are relatively modest, LFP stresses that the law provides for penalties of up to €7,500.

The authorities did not disclose how the subscribers were identified, but IPTV resellers typically hold customer records including email addresses and payment details. If the authorities collected this as evidence, they could effectively expose the subscribers.

Mafia-like Ecosystem

The Arras case is not the first time European IPTV subscribers have faced consequences. In Italy, the Guardia di Finanza identified thousands of subscribers following the dismantling of a pirate network, and rights holders subsequently sent civil damages demands on top of the criminal fines.

Last May, the authorities announced that 2,282 pirate IPTV subscribers had been fined across 80 Italian provinces. Following this action, rightsholders collected additional damages settlements of up to €1,000 from a number of the same people.

France has followed a different path, but the Arras prosecutions suggest the gap may be narrowing. In its official communiqué, the LFP made clear the intent behind the action, while warning that more actions are underway.

“The LFP and LFP Media welcome this strong message to users of piracy services, who mistakenly believe they can act with impunity when in fact they are knowingly contributing to a mafia-like ecosystem that seriously harms the entire sports sector,” the organization writes.

“Many criminal actions targeting resellers of IPTV subscriptions are underway, and their customers may, as such, be questioned and prosecuted,” the league added (TF translated).

Millions of LFP Pirates Remain

While LFP hopes that the prosecutions and the associated fines against 19 IPTV subscribers will send a deterrent message, there is still a long way to go.

At a sports piracy conference held at Roland-Garros on March 23, LFP Media’s Douglas Lowenstein presented survey data showing that around two million people in France watched Ligue 1 via pirate services this season, making it the most pirated competition in the country.

Prosecuting millions of people isn’t very practical, which is why rightsholders are also continuing to push for expanded site-blocking powers.

Arcom , France’s broadcasting regulator, has blocked more than 12,600 domain names since 2022, but rightsholders argue that real-time automated blocking is needed to keep pace with live match piracy. This is particularly important with the 2026 FIFA World Cup in mind.

The French football league is pushing for Article 10 of a pending sports law, which would allow automated blocking without manual approval. Sports Minister Marina Ferrari has indicated the legislation could move before June, ahead of the 2026 World Cup.

If LFP’s warnings are correct, we may also see more prosecutions of IPTV pirates in the near future. In any case, the two resellers in the Arras case will have made their appearance in court by then, which is scheduled for April 7.

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

Earlier this month, HiAnime surprised friends and foes by shutting down its website, which clocked more than 150 million monthly visits.

“It’s time to say goodbye. And thank you for a wonderful journey with great moments,” the operators announced.

The decision was a major setback for anime pirates, including many third-party tools and services that relied on the site, formerly known as Aniwatch . This includes unofficial “API” tools that could be used by other pirate sites to serve anime content.

Anti-Circumvention Takedown

With HiAnime gone, these third-party tools presumably stopped working too. And even if that was not the case, a recent takedown notice sent by Remove Your Media LLC, on behalf of Crunchyroll, VIZ Media, and other anime rightsholders, would have rendered them useless.

The takedown notice, published yesterday , lists several high-profile repositories, including aniwatch and aniwatch API , which offered access to HiAnime streams. These partially worked by using keys from the MegacloudKeys repository, which was also targeted.

The takedown notice targets several repositories, which taken together have more than 900 forks. While it is not clear whether the notice was sent before or after HiAnime’s shutdown, the outcome is the same. After reviewing the allegations, the repos and forks were removed.

Anti-Circumvention Claim Fails

It is important to note that the notice is not a standard DMCA takedown request, but a DMCA anti-circumvention claim. Remove Your Media explicitly suggests that the tools bypass various copyright protections.

According to the takedown notice, these repositories facilitate the “circumvention of technological protection measures implemented by authorized streaming services”. Because they provide access to pirated content, they circumvent “subscription paywalls, digital rights management, and access controls”.

This anti-circumvention claim was rejected by GitHub, potentially because there are no direct rightsholder DRM circumventions involved. However, because the developer platform found other issues, all repositories were removed anyway.

“While GitHub did not find sufficient information to determine a valid anti-circumvention claim, we determined that this takedown notice contains other valid copyright claim(s),” GitHub notes.

Youtube-dl & Notorious Markets

The takedown notice explicitly made a distinction between the anime repositories and youtube-dl, which was reinstated by GitHub after it was targeted by an RIAA circumvention notice in October 2020.

The notice is redacted and doesn’t mention youtube-dl by name, but the context makes it rather clear.

This description did not help with the anti-circumvention claim. However, GitHub did flag copyright issues. This may be in part due to the fact that HiAnime and MegaCloud were both listed as a notorious market by the MPA and the U.S. Trade Representative recently.

The USTR described MegaCloud as a pirate content management system that provides access to a large library of infringing content.

“The network reportedly acts as a backend hosting system delivering infringing video files —including more than 46,000 movies and 16,000 TV series— directly to more than 260 pirate streaming sites around the world,” USTR wrote.

For now, the repositories are gone, and HiAnime remains offline, leaving the third-party tools that depended on both without a clear path forward. However, since we have already seen many rebrands of these services in the past, it would not be a surprise to see a new service pop up in the future.

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

As one of the leading Internet infrastructure companies, Cloudflare finds itself at the center of various copyright disputes.

The American company says it powers nearly 20% of the web. This includes several Fortune 500 companies, but also many pirate sites and services.

For years, rightsholders have urged Cloudflare to do something about these pirate sites. However, the company typically doesn’t take action against customers that use its ‘pass-through’ CDN services. Instead, it simply forwards takedown notices to their respective hosting services.

According to some rightsholders forwarding is not enough. To compel Cloudflare to take action against pirate sites, they requested formal blocking orders in France, Spain, South Korea, and elsewhere.

Cloudflare Adds 2,791 Geoblocked Domain Names

Cloudflare’s latest transparency report, covering the second half of 2025, shows that 2,791 domain names that use its pass-through services were geoblocked. This means that these sites of Cloudflare customers are effectively rendered inaccessible in these countries.

Nearly 2,800 is a significant increase compared to the same period a year earlier, when 308 domain names were geo-blocked.

When Cloudflare geoblocks a domain, the company posts an interstitial page linking to the relevant order so that visitors can see why access has been restricted.

It’s worth noting that not all geo-blocks are equal. In the UK, for example, Cloudflare is taking action voluntarily based on an older High Court order against ISPs, to which it is not a party. This is similar to the voluntary blocking approach Google takes.

In Belgium and France, Cloudflare does respond to orders where it is named. These predominantly cover pirate sites, but in Belgium Cloudflare is also compelled to geo-block several illegal gambling sites.

In Korea, a new law requires CDN providers, including Cloudflare, to implement a government-mandated blocklist. This prohibits the CDNs from facilitating access to these sites through servers in South Korea, which resulted in hundreds of blocks in the second half of 2025.

Cloudflare clarifies that these South Korean sites are not “blocked” in the traditional sense. Instead, they are restricted from being served through equipment located physically in South Korea.

DNS Blocking

Interestingly, these geo-blocking measures are sometimes also used by Cloudflare to comply with DNS (1.1.1.1) blocking orders. If the sites are geo-blocked, Cloudflare doesn’t have to block these through its DNS.

“Cloudflare has sometimes taken action to geoblock access to websites through Cloudflare’s pass-through CDN and security services, in response to orders directing Cloudflare to block through its public DNS resolver,” the transparency report reads.

As in previous transparency reports, Cloudflare separately confirms that it “has not blocked content through the 1.1.1.1 Public DNS Resolver.”

Automated Hosting Takedowns

In addition to blocking domains for which Cloudflare acts as a CDN or pass-through, the company also takes more direct action if it is hosting sites. In the second half of 2025, rightsholders sent 121,681 copyright infringement reports, with Cloudflare taking action in 67,941 instances.

Notably, these removals are mostly the result of automatic processes, which were put in place last year.

“In H2 2025, Cloudflare used automated means to action 64,161 of the 67,941 copyright infringement reports actioned,” the company reports in a footnote, adding that it also terminated 59,843 accounts of R2 storage services.

Italy’s €14 Million Fine

The transparency report makes no mention of the recently appealed €14,247,698 fine that was imposed on Cloudflare in January by Italy’s communications regulator, AGCOM. Cloudflare received this fine as it refused to implement blocking measures through its 1.1.1.1 DNS resolver under Italy’s Piracy Shield measures.

AGCOM concluded 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.

In response to the fine, Cloudflare’s CEO Matthew Prince considered pulling out of Italy entirely. While that hasn’t happened yet, Cloudflare firmly draws a line at their public DNS resolver, and it recently appealed AGCOM’s fine in court.

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A copy of Cloudflare’s H2 2025 Transparency Report (Abuse Processes) is available here (pdf) .

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

Earlier this month, a California federal court dismissed the copyright infringement lawsuit DISH had filed against UK hosting provider Innetra.

DISH has accused the company of providing its services to pirate IPTV operations , including Lemo TV and Kemo IPTV, but it failed to establish jurisdiction.

The dismissal was a clear setback for the American pay TV provider and its anti-piracy partner IBCAP. However, at a federal court in Florida, DISH Network still has a separate lawsuit pending that could impact the IPTV operations in a more direct manner.

DISH vs. Lemo, Kemo, and IPTV Reseller

Last October, DISH filed a copyright infringement complaint against the alleged operators of the Lemo TV and Kemo IPTV pirate services, as well as one of their U.S.-based resellers: ‘1 Dollar IPTV’.

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

The identities of these defendants were presumably obtained through subpoenas that were obtained in a previously filed lawsuit in Texas that has since been dismissed.

In addition to the foreign defendants, DISH also names a Florida-based reseller; 1 Dollar IPTV. This is allegedly operated by Artistry Group LLC, from St. Petersburg, Florida. This company was voluntarily dissolved on February 27, 2025, but DISH notes that the company or its successors continue to run 1 Dollar IPTV.

DISH Seeks $28.65 Million Default

Because the defendants failed to respond to DISH’s complaint, while continuing their infringing activity, DISH successfully requested a default, which it now hopes to convert into a formal judgment.

In a motion filed at the Florida federal court, DISH seeks $150,000 in damages against Lemo and Kemo for each of the 181 registered works listed in the complaint. For the American reseller operating under Artistry Group, it seeks the maximum available damages for 10 works.

These damages amount to $27.15 million for the IPTV services and $1.5 million for the reseller. That is substantial, but according to DISH, it is needed to send a deterrent message.

“Defendants’ clear willfulness and the strong need for deterrence, as shown by their ongoing infringement in the face of numerous infringement notices and Defendants’ intent to operate their business on the basis of stealing the intellectual property of others, justifies an award of $150,000 for each of the registered Works,” the motion reads.

Servers Targeted Across Three Countries

Because the defendants have been unresponsive thus far, recouping the damages is not straightforward. Therefore, DISH believes that it is vital that the court issues a broad permanent injunction.

In this case, the proposed injunction has unusually specific infrastructure demands.

DISH’s enforcement partner NagraStar traced the IPTV services to three hosting providers: IPv4 Superhub Limited in Hong Kong, 24 Shells Inc. in New Jersey, and INTERKVM HOST SRL, operating as ZetServers, in Romania. DISH asks the court to order all three to disable the relevant IP addresses.

In addition, the proposed injunction also lists 19 domain names, requiring registries and registrars to transfer these to DISH. The list includes Kemoiptv.com, Lemotv.com, 1DollarIPTV.com, and 1DollarIPTV.net, along with a range of reseller and marketing storefronts.

Notably, the proposed injunction is designed to be “evergreen”. It includes a provision that would require registries and registrars to automatically disable any future domain names used by the defendants, provided that DISH submits a declaration confirming the new domains are being used for infringing purposes.

At the time of writing, court has not yet ruled on the motion. However, the chances of a favorable outcome in this case are higher for the pay TV company, as the defendants all failed to appear.

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A copy of DISH’s motion for default judgment, filed at the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida, is available here (pdf) .

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

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 .

€14,247,698 ‘Piracy Shield’ Fine

Cloudflare was caught up in several of those incidents and became one of Piracy Shield’s most prominent critics. Following an amendment that extended the scheme’s reach to DNS providers and VPNs, the American Internet infrastructure company refused to filter pirate sites through its public 1.1.1.1 resolver, arguing that it was unreasonable and disproportionate.

In response to the refusal, Italy’s communications regulator AGCOM launched a formal investigation. In January, the regulator concluded that Cloudflare has all the technological expertise and resources to implement the blocking measures. AGCOM argued that the company is known for its complex traffic management, and rejected the suggestion that complying with the blocking order would break its service.

After weighing all arguments, AGCOM imposed a €14,247,698 (USD $16.4m) fine against Cloudflare for failing to comply with the required anti-piracy measures. The regulator added that this fine represents 1% of the company’s global revenue, adding that the law allows for a maximum of 2%.

Cloudflare Formally Appeals

This week, Cloudflare explained in a blog post why it formally appealed the fine on March 8. According to the company, this case is about more than money, as it believes that the Piracy Shield blocking regime puts the open Internet at risk .

The company stresses that the controversial pirate site blocking system essentially operates as a “black box”.

“This case isn’t just about a single penalty; it’s about whether a handful of private entities can prioritize their own economic interests over those of Internet users by forcing global infrastructure providers to block large swaths of the Internet without oversight, transparency, or due process,” Cloudflare notes.

Cloudflare further stresses that the Piracy Shield’s flaws and shortcomings are no accident. In its blog post, the company points out that Piracy Shield was “donated” to the Italian government by SP Tech, an arm of the law firm that represents several of the scheme’s direct beneficiaries, including the Serie A, Italy’s top soccer league.

Failures and Flaws

Cloudflare once again reiterates that the Piracy Shield scheme is a blunt instrument that created an unavoidable risk of overblocking. This includes many innovative sites and services, including Government websites, educational resources, and access to Google Drive, which were all blocked at some point.

This massive overblocking and collateral damage was also confirmed in a study by researchers from the University of Twente last September. They concluded that Piracy Shield is linked to “significant collateral damage to legitimate infrastructure” and may pose a “potential threat to national security.”

AGCOM has been aware of the critique, including the European Commission’s concerns , but it continues to stay the course. Instead of limiting the impact, it broadened the scheme to include DNS resolvers and VPNs.

“Even when faced with clear evidence that Piracy Shield has caused significant and repeated overblocking, AGCOM did not change course. Rather, it chose to expand Piracy Shield to apply to global DNS providers and VPNs, services which are closely associated with privacy and free expression,” Cloudflare writes.

Challenging Piracy Shield’s Legality

In addition to overblocking concerns, Cloudflare also stresses that the Piracy Shield lacks transparency. These and other issues will likely be brought up during the appeal, which will also question the amount of the fine.

AGCOM previously noted that the €14 million fine is less than the legally permitted 2% of Cloudflare’s global revenue. However, Cloudflare counters that Italian non-compliance fines are capped at 2% of a company’s revenue within the relevant jurisdiction, which would be approximately €140,000, not 100 times that.

All in all, the company says that it will continue to challenge the controversial piracy blocking scheme to the best of its ability.

“We are not backing down. Cloudflare is appealing the €14 million fine, pushing for full access to AGCOM’s Piracy Shield records, and will continue to challenge the underlying legality of the Piracy Shield blocking orders in the Italian administrative courts,” Cloudflare notes.

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

In 2024, the video rental and streaming company Redbox shut down its service and filed for bankruptcy.

The service, owned by Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment (now CSS Entertainment), was running hundreds of millions in losses per year and no longer saw a path to profitability.

With hundreds of filings, the bankruptcy case is a complex one. While these types of proceedings typically don’t have much news value, a rather intriguing piracy-related filing caught our eye last fall.

Court Clears Path for $100 Million Piracy Litigation Deal

Last October, it was reported that a company called Grove Street Partners was offering at least $100 million for the copyright litigation rights of Redbox ‘ bankrupt parent company.

However, before any deal could be signed and executed, the Delaware bankruptcy court first had to approve the sharing agreement that dictates how the proceeds of an eventual sale are shared. This happened earlier this month, when the agreement was formally approved by Judge Mary F. Walrath.

With the paperwork sorted, the rights to pursue copyright infringement claims of media titles once owned or controlled by CSS Entertainment and its subsidiaries, including Screen Media Ventures, can now be sold.

Grove Street remains the key candidate to take over the rights, which would allow the company to file lawsuits against Internet providers for turning a blind eye to piracy. This can potentially lead to hundreds of millions of dollars in damages, which would provide a decent return on investment.

Piracy lawsuits are familiar territory for Grove Street. In 2023, before Redbox went bankrupt, it announced a partnership with American Films and its subsidiary FACTERRA, to “provide data monitoring and record evidence” supporting copyright infringement cases.

Future ISP Piracy Lawsuits & the Supreme Court

During a hearing at the bankruptcy court a few days ago, the trustee confirmed that while they have reached an “agreement in principle” with Grove Street, the formal purchase agreement is still being drafted and has not been executed. This means that there is no final price tag, although $100 million has been cited as the minimum.

$100 million is a substantial amount, especially considering that these litigation rights don’t guarantee success in court. In fact, the value of those rights largely depends on a case currently before the U.S. Supreme Court.

This case, Cox Communications v. Sony Music Entertainment , asks the Court to define when an ISP can be held liable for the infringement of its subscribers.

Cox was previously hit with a $1 billion jury verdict for failing to terminate repeat infringers despite receiving millions of DMCA notices. This led to several appeals and eventually ended up at the Supreme Court, where the Internet provider found the U.S. government on its side.

The Supreme Court heard oral arguments in December 2025, and a final decision is expected to come in later this year. That decision could either cement the value of the rights at stake here, or make it much more challenging to recoup the investment.

Private Lenders Get Most Money

The approved sharing agreement governs how proceeds will be divided between the trustee, George L. Miller, and HPS Investment Partners, the primary secured lender owed at least $500 million in principal alone.

Under the terms of the deal, the buyer of the rights will pay at least $100 million in five annual installments of $20 million each. After the trustee’s administrative costs are covered, the first $100 million in net proceeds splits 80% to the lenders and 20% to the estate. Above $100 million, the lenders’ share increases to 85%, with the estate receiving 15%

During the proceedings, a secondary lender, MidCap Financial Trust, was added as a party by the court order, and it will receive a pro-rata share of the lender share, alongside HPS.

The court also specifically preserved the rights of unions, including DGA, SAG-AFTRA, and WGA West, to ensure their outstanding payment claims remain active. However, with various parties seeking hundreds of millions in secured debt, it seems unlikely that everyone is made whole.

A Web of Legal Troubles

Speaking with TorrentFreak, Grove Street CEO Thomas Murphy confirmed that the external funds to acquire the rights are still in place, without mentioning any financial partners by name. First, however, a purchase agreement must be finalized.

This agreement is also key for a separate lawsuit that was filed against the company by a former executive. As highlighted last October, Jamie Warren, the former CFO of both American Films and Grove Street Funding (which is linked to Grove Street Partners), sued both companies over unpaid salary in 2024.

In May, 2025, a Texas federal court entered a final judgment in favor of the former employee, granting her $525,000, plus attorneys fees and costs. Thus far, the judgment has not been paid, but that could change soon.

A day after the bankruptcy court approved the sale of litigation rights, Murphy informed the Texas court that a first payment toward the outstanding judgment will follow shortly, adding that the CSS deal is ‘the only way that reasonably happens.’

Whether the sale will eventually go through has yet to be seen, but it is clear that a lot is riding on it: for Grove Street, its former CFO, Internet providers, lawyers, movie producers, and all the claim holders in the bankruptcy proceeding.

And even if the sale goes through, the profitability of the deal will depend, in no small part, on what the Supreme Court decides in the Cox case in the months ahead.

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A copy of the order of the Delaware Bankruptcy Court, approving the sharing agreement (pdf) that effectively greenlights the deal, is available here (pdf) .

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

Anti-piracy reporting tools have existed for years, but generally speaking, there is little interest from the public to expose pirates.

The Business Software Alliance previously offered people hard cash in exchange for tips, which helped , but there are other potential reward options too.

Online Pirate Hunters

The Czech anti-piracy company Warezio , which works for various international rightsholders, believes that it can motivate people to report pirate streaming links through a gamified experience. The company recently launched a new platform, inviting the public to help spot links to pirated content.

The ‘Online Hunter’ portal effectively turns people into pirate ‘hunters.’ As the name suggests, users of the site can report pirate links on various platforms and earn points when these are reviewed and approved.

There’s a wide variety of content that users can report, ranging from blockbuster movies to current live streaming events.

Newly discovered live streaming links have the most value, while previously reported content doesn’t bring in many points. With sufficient points, users can then buy vouchers for online streaming services such as Netflix, HBO, or Oktagon MMA , which is an official partner.

The new portal has not been widely promoted because Warezio prefers a soft launch. However, the first links have already been submitted. This is in part due to targeted promotion, which showed a banner to a select group of Oktagon streamers during the last event.

‘Online Hunter’ is currently targeted at countries in Eastern and Central Europe, but Warezio’s Jakub Hájek informs TorrentFreak that he hopes to expand it to Western Europe in the near future. That might also open the door to more rightsholders, he says, as “reporting to the authorities” is generally frowned upon in Eastern Europe.

Pirates Knock Out?

At the moment, Oktagon MMA is the only named partner. The MMA organization operates based on a pay-per-view model, which makes it more vulnerable to piracy than traditional VOD platforms.

“The financial damages caused by piracy are noticeable,” Oktagon’s Martin Šteso tells TorrentFreak

Šteso explains that the company previously relied on its social media team to track down infringing streams. However, that approach had significant limits in scale and reach, especially when dealing with a range of semi-private communities on services such as Discord.

By crowdsourcing detection of piracy threats that automated tools typically miss, Oktagon hopes to fight back against pirate streaming.

“The main goal is to uncover piracy groups, particularly those operating on platforms like Discord, that are otherwise incredibly difficult to detect. Because many of these communities are private and restricted to smaller circles, manual detection is nearly impossible,” Šteso notes.

Points, Levels and Leaderboards

‘Online Hunter’ currently supports reporting links on nine platforms: Discord, Telegram, Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, TikTok, Twitter/X, YouTube, and ok.ru. As users report more links, they can reach new levels and climb the public leaderboard as their approved points increase.

Whether this gamified approach will appeal to the public at large has yet to be seen. Currently, there are just a few active flaggers on the platform, according to the leaderboard.

Warezio certainly believes in the project, and the company informs us that more rightsholders are welcome to get in touch if they actively would like to participate.

Oktagon MMA hopes that ‘Online Hunter’ will ultimately become a household tool to identify hidden pirate communities. Thus far, the MMA organization has promoted ‘Online Hunter’ to a select group of users, but a broader promotion is also being considered.

Whether crowdsourced human intelligence is a durable addition to automated anti-piracy tools remains to be seen, but a project like Online Hunters will certainly get people talking.

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

In March of 2024, the Dallas-based IPTV operator William Freemon was sued for copyright infringement by Amazon, Netflix, and several major Hollywood studios.

Freemon defended himself but failed to hire a lawyer for his company, Freemon Technology Industries (FTI). Instead, he responded by filing various motions while refusing to formally answer the copyright infringement complaint.

With the case not moving forward, the movie companies eventually had enough and requested a default judgment of $18,750,000 in copyright damages.

Last month, a Texas magistrate judge recommended granting this in full, and this week, the order was formally adopted by U.S. District Judge Sam A. Lindsay.

Judge Grants $18,750,000 Judgment

As detailed in our earlier coverage , Freemon allegedly operated four unauthorized streaming services: Streaming TV Now, TV Nitro, Instant IPTV, and Cash App IPTV. In addition, he was accused of running a pirate IPTV reseller operation called Live TV Resellers.

‘Streaming TV Now’ was the most popular IPTV service, according to the legal paperwork. It first appeared online in 2020 and offers access to 11,000 live channels, as well as on-demand access to over 27,000 movies and 9,000 TV series.

The studios identified a sample of 125 copyrighted works that were available through the IPTV services, including Universal’s Oppenheimer. As damages compensation, the court granted the recommended statutory maximum of $150,000 per work for willful infringement, for a total of $18,750,000.

This judgment amount will continue to grow, as the court approved a 3.51% annual post-judgment interest rate until the amount is paid in full. In addition, the attorneys’ fee award has yet to be determined and will also add to the total.

In addition to the damages, Judge Lindsay also entered a permanent injunction, which bars Freemon and FTI from reproducing, distributing, or publicly performing any of the plaintiffs’ copyrighted works, and from assisting others in doing so.

Injunction Targets Domain Names

The signed injunction also requires the eight domain names to be transferred immeidately to the studios’ control: instantiptv.net, streamingtvnow.com, streamingtvnow.net, tvnitro.net, cashappiptv.com, livetvresellers.com, stncloud.ltd, and stnlive.ltd.

The associated domain registrars have five days to facilitate theese transfers. If they fail to do so, the TLD registries can be ordered to either transfer the domains to a registrar of the studios’ choosing, or place them on registry hold, which would make them inaccessible too.

To address a potential whack-a-mole scenario, the studios can also return to court to add further domains to the injunction, as long as evidence shows Freemon operates them.

All in all, the court order is a clear victory for the movie companies. Whether the defendant will be able to pay over $18 million in damages is another matter. The domain seizure order does not have an immediate effect either, as all the mentioned domains have been offline for a while already.

That said, if Freemon ever attempts to relaunch the services, the movie companies will come prepared.

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A copy of the default judgment, signed March 11, at the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, is available here (pdf) .

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