When users of popular IPTV provider SmoothStreams.tv began reporting issues with the service mid-July, few could’ve predicted events to follow.

Our previous report covers events in finer detail, but essentially SmoothStreams had been under investigation since 2018 and the time had arrived to take it down.

With permission from the court and everything planned down to the finest detail, on July 16, 2022, plaintiffs’ representatives, independent court-appointed supervising solicitors, private investigators, and sundry others set out to secure vital evidence .

Since SmoothStreams’ alleged operator lives in Canada, local companies Bell Media and Rogers Media naturally lead the list of plaintiffs in the underlying lawsuit. Beyond that, it’s the familiar cascade of MPA/MPA-Canada members Columbia, Disney, Paramount, Universal, and Warner. Netflix is a notable absentee and all except Rogers Media are MPA and/or ACE members.

Execution of Interim Order

On June 17, 2022, around a month before alleged SmoothStreams operators Marshall Macciacchera and Antonio Macciacchera were targeted in person, the plaintiffs filed a statement of claim detailing their copyright infringement allegations.

Following an ex parte motion at the Federal Court, on June 28 Justice Vanessa Rochester granted an Interim Order consisting of an interim injunction against the defendants, an Anton Piller order authorizing zero-warning searches and evidence seizures, plus other ancillary orders.

Since Anton Piller orders and controversy are rarely far apart, the plaintiffs were required to pay a deposit of CAD$100,000 (US$73,100), recoverable once lawful execution of the Interim Order had been confirmed.

Plaintiffs Demand More

The Interim Order was served on the defendants on July 14 and on July 19, the plaintiffs sought a declaration that their execution was lawful and filed a request for the return of their deposit.

Since execution was allegedly complicated by the defendants, the plaintiffs sought additional relief, including an order charging Marshall with contempt of court and an order compelling the defendants to reveal the identity of a mysterious third-party involved in SmoothStreams’ operations.

The defendants’ motion in opposition was supported by video footage documenting the execution of the order. It was taken by the plaintiffs’ videographer who works as a private detective. Further support came from a transcript of the defendants’ cross-examination of Daniel Drapeau, a court-appointed supervising solicitor.

Drapeau is a leading authority on Anton Piller orders, he was involved in the TVAddons case and has pressed Canada’s government on numerous piracy-related issues , including statutory damages and anti-camming legislation. He’s certainly no stranger to cases like these.

Based on all available evidence, Federal Court Judge Roger R. Lafreniѐre had to decide whether to grant or deny the entertainment industry giants’ motion.

More Shutdown Operation Details Emerge

On the day of the raid, Drapeau was accompanied by a computer forensics expert and yet another private investigator.

Execution at one of the locations began at 08:00 on July 14 and ended 34 hours later at 00:47 on July 16. Hardware found at one of the addresses (below) was allegedly used to supply IPTV content to SmoothStreams (SSTV) users.

Court documents reveal that their purpose was confirmed when Marshall shut down two servers. An investigator viewing SmoothStreams from a remote location noticed that channels including Fight Network and WWE Network behaved differently compared to the night before the operation. As a result, the hardware was seized.

Marshall also had his PC mirrored after Drapeau “observed that it contained financial documents” but SmoothStreams’ alleged operator refused to supply the password. Four hard drives were also seized when Marshall could not provide the passwords to those either.

Whether they held anything vitally important is unclear, but taking them back to base would have been straightforward using the most compact of cars. When the interim order was executed at a second address during the evening of July 14, it wasn’t a question of whether a truck should be called in, but how many.

Second Address, Massive Haul

Court documents reveal that the execution of the order involved the following:

a. The disconnection and removal of multiple television receivers that were receiving (or “capturing”) television content that was being redistributed on the SSTV Services;
b. The disconnection and removal of multiple servers that were connected to those receivers and responsible for transferring the content received by the television receivers to the SSTV Services;
c. The removal of additional receivers, encoders and servers located on the premises but not connected at the time of the execution;
d. The identification, review and copying of documents found on the premises;
e. Requesting information from Marshall on topics listed in the Interim Order.

The main server room at the second location contained nine large server cabinets with at least 65 television receivers connected to 23 servers. Over the years many images of IPTV server rooms have been published by the authorities but none like this.

A further 23 television receivers, five additional servers, and 29 encoders were also seized. Some of the servers were running WMS Panel for source/stream management and on one a user was logged in. ‘Sam’ is the mystery person the plaintiffs are still trying to identify.

Third Address: Access Denied

Even with an Anton Piller order in hand, execution excludes the use of force. Instead, defendants are advised that failing to comply could be considered contempt of court, with potentially serious consequences.

Antonio Macciacchera’s approach to cooperation failed to meet the court’s expectations. He answered the door when the team arrived and was apparently served, but that’s where progress ended.

When another independent solicitor tried to explain the situation to him, Antonio refused to read or even look at the paperwork, and then repeatedly interrupted the solicitor before calling a lawyer, court documents state.

When he returned, everyone was told to leave his property, which they did. Subsequent telephone conversations came to nothing and execution was aborted.

Defendants’ Objections Rejected

Judge Roger R. Lafreniѐre’s analysis is both detailed and lengthy, but in summary, the defendants failed to convince him that the execution of the order was unlawful.

Claims that health and safety precautions were not adhered to were dismissed, despite the general chaos of the pandemic. Those executing the order (or attempting to) passed antigen tests the previous day, wore N95 masks, and maintained physical distancing. Other allegations failed to match recorded evidence or were dismissed by the Judge for various reasons.

“Based on the evidence before me, which is not challenged by the Defendants, I find that the execution of the Interim Order directly corroborates and bolsters the evidence presented at the ex parte motion before Justice Rochester,” the Judge’s order reads.

Declaring the execution of the Interim Order as “lawfully conducted”, the movie and TV company plaintiffs were granted leave to withdraw their deposit. The defendants were reminded that running any similar service is prohibited by court order, and were told to hand over information related to various accounts, domains and servers.

The Judge’s order also requires full disclosure of all assets, no matter where in the world they’re located, related to the running of SSTV and/or similar platforms. Bank accounts, safety deposit boxes, investment accounts, cryptocurrency, and other “financial instruments” must all be declared.

The defendants cannot sell their homes, dispose of any other assets, exchange any assets for foreign currency, or convert them into cryptocurrency.

The Federal Court’s order can be found here ( pdf )

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

In November, billions of people from all over the world will tune in to watch the FIFA World Cup in Qatar.

Most viewers will do so through authorized services but events like this draw massive pirate audiences as well. In anticipation, several Canadian media companies are taking legal action.

Blocking FIFA World Cup Pirates

A few days ago, media giant Bell Media requested an injunction against two “John Doe” operators of sports streaming services that are expected to broadcast the FIFA World Cup. The operators are only identified by the IP addresses through which they publish these streams.

Bell’s TSN4 network has the right to the FIFA broadcasts and with this lawsuit, the company wants to take preemptive action.

The services of the John Doe defendants previously streamed Major League Soccer games without permission. And since they rebroadcast the plaintiffs’ stations, it is likely that they will also stream the World Cup to their visitors.

“The Defendants are operators of Unauthorized Streaming Servers providing unauthorized access in Canada to Plaintiffs’ Stations that will broadcast FIFA World Cup Live Matches for the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022,” the plaintiffs write.

Two Sports Streaming Operators

The first defendant makes pirated content available through servers located in the British Virgin Islands, Russia, and the United Kingdom. These are hosted by providers incorporated in the British Virgin Islands and Ukraine.

The pirated streams appeared on various public sports piracy sites including bingsport.xyz and papahd.club, and through link aggregator sites such as soccerstreamlinks.com, redditsoccerstream.org, and soccerstream.net.

Defendant number two has servers that are physically located in Belize and hosted by a company from the same country. These streams are available through sportsway.me and various linking aggregators, including redditsoccerstreams.org and reddit1.soccerstreams.net.

Injunction Wanted

In addition to Bell Media, the list of plaintiffs includes The Sports Network, CTV Specialty Television, and Réseau des sports. Together, the media companies ask the Federal Court in Montreal for damages and an injunction to stop the infringing activity.

Specifically, they want the operators to cease “providing access to Unauthorized Streaming Servers providing or facilitating access to live streams of FIFA World Cup Live Matches in Canada.”

Whether this injunction, if granted, will be sufficient to deter pirates is questionable. Then again, if the John Does don’t respond in court, this might very well be the setup for a new site blocking request from rightsholders.

Previous blocking injunctions in Canada were also issued as part of lawsuits against operators, which is a similar setup to the one here.

World Cup Pirate Site Blocking?

Canada’s Federal Court approved the country’s first pirate site-blocking order four years ago. Most ISPs didn’t contest the blocking request but TekSavvy fought it tooth and nail, arguing that it threatened the open Internet.

TekSavvy’s appeals stranded earlier this year after the Supreme Court declined to hear the case. This was a major setback according to vice-president of regulatory affairs, Andy Kaplan-Myrth, who prophetically said it would lead to more blocking requests from major media companies.

“Now armed with GoldTV-style orders, […] what’s to stop Canada’s media giants from having courts force ever more ISPs to block ever more copyrighted content? Nothing; expect it to happen,” Kaplan-Myrth said at the time.

Indeed, the first new blocking order was issued shortly after. Following a complaint from several rightsholders, Canada’s Federal Court handed down a ‘dynamic’ blocking order in June. That injunction aims to prevent live NHL games from being viewed via pirate IPTV services.

With this recent push to deter FIFA World Cup piracy, another site blocking order is now in the making.

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A copy of the statement of claim, filed by Bell, The Sports Network, CTV Specialty Television, and Réseau des sports, is available here (pdf)

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

With illegal streaming of live sporting events still causing headaches for leagues and broadcasters alike, rightsholders continue to demand more flexible tools to prevent infringement, especially via pirate IPTV services.

ISP blocking is one of the preferred anti-piracy tools and in 2019, following a complaint from major media companies including Rogers, Bell and TVA, Canada’s Federal Court approved the country’s first blocking injunction targeting IPTV service GoldTV .

While local ISPs complied with the injunction, not all were completely happy to do so. TekSavvy complained that granting one blocking injunction would likely lead to requests for many more, costing ISPs time and money. The ISP also noted that blocking was unlikely to be effective and within days, that prediction proved correct .

TekSavvy’s official appeal was unsuccessful and a hearing was later rejected by the Supreme Court. However, another of the ISP’s predictions, that more injunctions would be demanded by rightsholders, was 100% correct.

Broadcasters Demand ‘Dynamic’ Injunction

After putting the first foot on the blocking ladder with their success in the GoldTV case, companies including Rogers Media, Rogers Communications, BCE, Bell Media, CTV Specialty Television, The Sports Network, Le Reseau Des Sports, and Groupe TVA, returned with a new injunction application at the Federal Court last summer.

It targeted John Doe 1 and John Doe 2, plus countless unknown additional entities offering NHL games via pirate IPTV streams in Canada. Several local ISPs including TekSavvy, Eastlink, Cogeco, Rogers, Shaw, and Videotron were named as third-party respondents.

The plaintiffs, all NHL live game rightsholders, told the Federal Court that their earlier efforts to prevent piracy had proven inadequate. Since pirate IPTV operators use every possible technique to go undetected and often operate abroad, cutting off illegal streams at the source isn’t possible. As a result, forcing local ISPs to implement blocking to prevent subscriber access would be the most realistic alternative.

Building on their experience of how a static order (targeting static domains and specific IP addresses) in the GoldTV case underperformed, the plaintiffs asked the Court for a dynamic order, i.e one that could be updated on the fly with new online locations as games are being broadcast, mimicking the system in place to protect Premier League football games in the UK.

Opposition to the Dynamic Injunction

While some ISPs were happy to consent to the injunction due to connections with the plaintiffs, objections were put forward by other ISPs and case intervener, Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC).

There was a general sense that the plaintiffs had acted unfairly, in that they had prepared their application over many months but then demanded an urgent hearing, putting the ISPs at a disadvantage. Some of the respondents felt that the plaintiffs had failed to prove their case and that any injunction handed down would impose undue risks, practical difficulties, and additional costs on ISPs.

CIPPIC voiced concerns ( pdf ) that the blocking regime as requested would be operated primarily by a private anti-piracy company with minimal court supervision, raising questions over freedom of expression and the potential for over-blocking.

Federal Court Grants Interlocutory Injunction

Late last month, Federal Court Judge Mr Justice Pentney handed down a mandatory interlocutory injunction that attempts to balance the rights of the plaintiffs with those of the ISPs and other internet users.

Running to 119 pages, the order recognizes that the plaintiffs would suffer “irreparable harm” without a blocking order but notes that measures need to be taken to ensure that burdens imposed on ISPs are minimized along with the potential for over-blocking of legitimate content.

First, the injunction is time-limited and at least in the first instance will time out after the final of the Stanley Cup, unless the Court orders otherwise. Second, the ISPs will be compensated for costs they incur complying with the order and third, the plaintiffs must retain an independent expert to ensure that blocking is carried out in line with the Court’s orders.

The Blocking Measures

Justice Pentney’s order does not reveal the methods used by the plaintiffs to identify piracy and determine that blocking is feasible to avoid “commercially sensitive information” being made public, especially to those who might use the information to facilitate illegal streams. However, it does reveal the anti-piracy company in charge of the operation.

The plaintiffs will be partnering with Friend MTS, the anti-piracy company that handles the Premier League’s blocking measures in the UK and Ireland . The company’s methods are tightly guarded but some information has leaked out over the years.

The ISPs will be provided with lists of IP addresses during each of the ‘NHL Live Game Windows’ detailed in the order. The times are redacted in the public copy but IP addresses received in these windows must be immediately blocked by Canadian ISPs, if they are able to do so.

The IP addresses must have been used previously during an ‘NHL Live Game Window’ to illegally broadcast an NHL live game but other sensitive safeguarding measures are not being made public. ISPs do not have to verify if the IP addresses are indeed carrying infringing content and can use manual or automatic IP address blocking/rerouting or equivalent technical means.

When an ‘NHL Live Game Window’ closes, an order will be sent to ISPs to unblock all of the blocked IP addresses as soon as “reasonably practical”. ISPs will not be in breach of the order if they need to suspend blocking to investigate cases of over-blocking or to maintain their systems.

Reporting Back to the Court

To maintain oversight, Justice Pentney instructs the plaintiffs, with input from the ISPs, to retain an independent expert (or up to three) to review the application of the Court’s criteria for the identification of IP addresses for blocking.

A report must be sent to the Court containing all IP addresses, the dates and times when they were required to be blocked, and the criteria applied that resulted in their blocking. The expert(s) are required to report on the implementation of blocking at the ISPs and to report on compliance with the Court’s order in respect of all parties.

The expert will also be required to assess and report on the effectiveness of the Order, including the criteria for measuring success, why these were selected, and the results of the assessment. CIPPIC notes that data acquired as a result of this process will be useful when the plaintiffs request an extension to the injunction.

“Specifically, if Rogers, Bell, and the other media companies who applied for this order wish to extend its application beyond the 2022 playoff season, the independent audit will need to establish that collateral blocking of legitimate content was minimal and that the blocking was effective in actually increasing legitimate subscriptions rather than simply driving customers to other forms of infringement or adoption of VPN services,” CIPPIC writes .

The Federal Court’s order can be found here (pdf)

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