It’s no secret that the Motion Picture Association (MPA) views site-blocking measures in the United States as the logical next step in their perpetual campaign against piracy.

Working with U.S. Congress members, the plan is to propose judicial site-blocking legislation that will see local ISPs compelled by law to prevent consumer access to pirate sites. A similar but broader effort failed in 2012 but twelve years is a very long time; in the tech and internet world, it’s almost forever.

In the years since the rise and fall of SOPA, the MPA has been the driving force behind site-blocking legislation around the world, modeling dozens of partner countries in the shape of its vision for blocking in the U.S.

At this year’s CinemaCon ‘State of the Industry’ event at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas, MPA Chairman and CEO Charles Rivkin said that the United States now has plenty of catching up to do.

“It’s long past time to bring out laws in line with the rest of the world,” Rivkin said, a reference to the MPA’s substantial body of overseas work it now hopes to replicate back home.

Preparation for the Big Site-Blocking Push

After reliving the high points of 2023 – Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon and the portmanteau of the moment, Barbenheimer – Rivkin turned to the bottom line. The MPA’s top man reported box office revenues in the U.S. and Canada up 20 percent on the previous year, and up nearly 30 percent abroad. An unquestionably great achievement, especially without protection from site-blocking.

But while tradition allows for generous helpings of creative imagery in support of the magical silver screen, financial positives are dwelled upon only fleetingly; the fairy dust is quickly dispersed, bringing reality into sharp focus.

Commentary explaining why the figures aren’t as good as they sound, or will take great effort to maintain, helps to calibrate expectations. After assuring everyone they’re in this together, and whatever needs to be done will be done, because that’s what Hollywood does, the groundwork to support demands for new legislation are carefully laid.

It’s a tried and tested system that really does work; Rocky Balboa’s unbreakable determination in 2021 mid-COVID, a home/mobile entertainment market up 24 percent in 2022 and a billion at the box office in the first quarter. Avatar: The Way of Water surging past $2.3 billion in global ticket sales, Top Gun: Maverick at $1.5 billion and still plenty of jet fuel left in the tank.

Then a short pause as the tension builds for the annual stark reminder; American creators are under attack, just as they were last year, the year before, and every year before that.

We have no illusions about the scope and the severity of the problem……The challenges are as daunting as they are uncertain….. One of the biggest existential threats to our collective future.

Used during the last three CinemaCons, the warnings above won’t be enough this year. Not at a time when Congress is listening.

Piracy is Visible, Behind The Scenes Lies Worse

Piracy rhetoric usually finds itself delivered in a way that counters notions of stability based on reported business successes. When an urgent drive for new legislation is imminent, there’s no room for complacency and at CinemaCon the nature of the threat left nothing to the imagination.

“Remember, these aren’t teenagers playing an elaborate prank. The perpetrators are real-life mobsters, organized crime syndicates, many of whom engage in child pornography, prostitution, drug trafficking, and other societal ills,” Rivkin informed the audience.

And it’s not just big companies facing immediate threat; the entire country is at risk.

“They operate websites that draw in millions of unsuspecting viewers whose personal data can then fall prey to malware and hackers,” Rivkin said. “In short, piracy is clearly not a victimless crime.”

People shouldn’t go about their work in fear, however. They should listen to a story first.

Telling a Compelling Story

Rivkin told CinemaCon that the MPA focuses on two pillars: Protecting content and the people who produce it, which together pave the way for the industry to reach even bigger audiences worldwide.

“To make that happen, we need to keep doing what we do best: telling a compelling story,” the head of the MPA explained.

“When I head to Capitol Hill in DC or State Capitols throughout the country, for example, I paint a picture of the ways our productions bolster communities: how film and television support 2.74 million American jobs; how production comprises 122,000 businesses; and how our incredible industry boasts a trade surplus with nearly every nation on earth.

Today, our job involves another plotline countering a central threat to the security of workers, audiences, and the economy at large: Widespread, digital piracy.

“This problem isn’t new. But piracy operations have only grown more nimble, more advanced, and more elusive. These enterprises are engaged in insidious forms of theft, breaking laws each time they steal and share protected content. These activities are nefarious by any definition, detrimental to our industry by any standard, and dangerous for the rights of creators and consumers by any measure,” Rivkin warnned.

Mobsters, organized crime syndicates, child pornographers, prostitution, drug trafficking, malware and hackers. Hundreds of thousands of jobs stolen from workers and tens of billions of dollars from the U.S. economy, “including more than one billion in theatrical ticket sales.”

As stories go, it’s as compelling as a synopsis accompanying a good film on Netflix which promises and then delivers, exactly as advertised. Or a bad one, where the exciting stuff appears in the synopsis yet somehow never makes it into the movie.

Regardless, the MPA has a plan, one that will protect content, protect creators, return a potential one billion dollars to theaters, and by extension, keep all Americans safe.

Blocking Piracy Websites

As outlined directly to the audience at CinemaCon: The MPA’s Site-Blocking Plan.

So today, here with you at CinemaCon, I’m announcing the next major phase of this effort: the MPA is going to work with Members of Congress to enact judicial site-blocking legislation here in the United States.

For anybody unfamiliar with the term, site-blocking is a targeted, legal tactic to disrupt the connection between digital pirates and their intended audience. It allows all types of creative industries – film and television, music and book publishers, sports leagues and broadcasters – to request, in court, that internet service providers block access to websites dedicated to sharing illegal, stolen content.

Let’s be clear: this approach focuses only on sites featuring stolen materials. There are no gray areas here. Site-blocking does not impact legitimate businesses or ordinary internet users. To the contrary: it protects them, too.

And it does so within the bounds of due process, requiring detailed evidence establishing a target’s illegal activities and allowing alleged perpetrators to appear in a court of law. This is not an untested concept.

Site-blocking is a common tool in almost 60 countries, including leading democracies and many of America’s closest allies.

What key player is missing from that roster? Take a look at the map behind me. It’s us!

There’s no good reason for our glaring absence. No reason beyond a lack of political will, paired with outdated understandings of what site-blocking actually is, how it functions, and who it affects.

Yet experiences worldwide have now answered these concerns and taught us unmistakable lessons: Site-blocking works. It dramatically reduces traffic on piracy sites. It substantially increases visits to legal sites. Simply put, this is a powerful tool to defend what our filmmakers create and what reaches your theaters.

To show what site-blocking could achieve in the United States, Rivkin homed-in on a site that has thus far proved impossible to shut down, one that was highlighted in a House Subcommittee hearing last December .

FMovies Comment Reveals More Than Just Site-Blocking

There’s little doubt that FMovies represents a primary enforcement target for Hollywood, or rather it would be a target if authorities in Vietnam wanted to do something about it, which apparently they do not. While obviously a negative for Hollywood, when advocating for site-blocking legislation, FMovies is a lobbying gift on a golden platter.

“One of the largest illegal streaming sites in the world, FMovies, sees over 160 million visits per month and because other nations already passed site blocking legislation, a third of that traffic still comes from the United States”, Rivkin explained.

The 160 million visits per month estimate seems conservative and may have been measured in February when the site experienced an unexplained dip. In January, FMovies received almost 198 million visits and in March, traffic was returning to normal levels of around 192 million visits per month.

However, Rivkin’s follow-up comment to the theater-focused audience at CinemaCon may be an indication that the MPA has more on its mind than just blocking.

“Imagine if those viewers couldn’t find pirated versions of films through a basic internet search . Imagine if they could only watch the latest great movies when they’re released in their intended destinations: your theaters. If we had site-blocking in place, we wouldn’t have to imagine it. We’d have another tool to make that real,” he said.

Memories of SOPA: “Blocking Didn’t Break The Internet”

Rivkin mentions the SOPA defeat in 2012 by citing one of the key claims by the opposition. They warned that eventually, one way or another, blocking would end up “breaking the internet” but a dozen years later, Rivkin noted that the “internet is doing just fine.”

While that is still likely to be a hot topic for debate in the coming months, Rivkin’s search engine comment deserves more attention.

Search engine removals or deindexing by companies such as Google don’t automatically happen just because a site is blocked by ISPs in a particular territory. What we know from blocking in Europe is that Google will remove sites from its results if a blocking order exists against a site, even if Google isn’t named in the order. In the SOPA era, that would never have happened, and certainly not voluntarily.

Times Change, But By How Much?

In today’s environment, there seems to be no obvious obstacle to prevent Google from doing the same, should site-blocking become available in the United States. If that type of cooperation does become the standard, perhaps Google will cooperate when it comes to blocking sites that use its DNS too.

We don’t know what Google is thinking and it could go either way. What we suspect is that a re-run of 2012, with the entire tech world united in opposition to SOPA and blocking in general, seems much less likely today.

The MPA could tip the scales even further in its favor by telling more detailed stories about the real-life mobsters and organized crime syndicates behind pirate sites it will actually name, in public, with supporting evidence.

If not for the sake of Hollywood, bringing the child abuse, prostitution, and drug trafficking to an end might be the biggest PR coup ever seen. As the basis for a box office record-breaker in which Hollywood itself stars, would be all the more tempting, especially in the absence of piracy.

Image credit: Stockcake

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

Anti-piracy organization CODA (Content Overseas Distribution Association) is a permanent fixture on the front lines of Japan’s war against online piracy.

CODA represents the interests of around 30 corporate entities doing business in the publishing, media, movie, music, and wider entertainment industries. Members include publishers Kadokawa, Shueisha, Kodansha, and Shogakukan, through to videogame/publishing giants Square Enix and Bandai Namco. From the broadcasting sector, there’s NHK, Nippon, and Nikkatsu, to name just a few.

While these names represent just a sample of the individual companies represented by CODA, the anti-piracy group also has around ten ‘organizational’ members. These are trade groups in their own right and have members of their own.

They include the Japan Satellite Broadcasting Association, Motion Picture Producers Association of Japan, Japan Video Software Association, Japan Magazine Publishers Association, Association of Japanese Animations, plus several others involved in the videogame, software, and content protection legal sectors.

Popularity of Japanese Content Fuels Massive Levels of Piracy

The scale of the content protection challenge faced by CODA is difficult to overstate. The anti-piracy group is refreshingly open with its research and data, which as an observer makes it easier to connect with and appreciate the big numbers, rather than simply reciting them without relevant context.

Japan’s online piracy issues are a constant, much as they are in any other country, but more recent estimates reveal illicit consumption’s startling growth.

A major problem estimated to be worth less than 500 billion yen (US$3.3bn) back in 2019 took just three years to transform itself into a ~2 trillion yen ($13.2bn) piracy nightmare. Videogame piracy skyrocketed in the period leading to 2022, but it’s the products of the publishing and film industries that attract the lion’s share of all piracy, much of it taking place and directed from overseas.

CODA & MPA Officially Extend 10-Year Anti-Piracy Partnership

On March 20, 2014, CODA and the Motion Picture Association (MPA) signed an agreement to develop new strategies to tackle online copyright infringement worldwide, and to strengthen their joint copyright protection activities. The agreement, renewed another five times since then, has just reached its 10th anniversary and the event was marked with another renewal.

Last week at MPA headquarters in Washington, D.C., CODA and the Motion Picture Association signed an official memorandum of understanding (MOU) to extend the term of their agreement until 2026.

“On the day, MPA’s Karin Temple (Senior Executive Vice President and Global General Counsel) and CODA’s Representative Director Takeo Goto signed the agreement, and at the signing ceremony, each pledged further collaboration,” a CODA statement reads.

“CODA and MPA began a business partnership in 2005 to combat physical piracy in the Asian region, and have since built a strong partnership by signing a 10-year MOU starting in 2014. CODA and MPA’s joint enforcement efforts have achieved great results, including implementing many anti-piracy measures in the Asia-Pacific and beyond, resulting in tens of thousands of crackdowns.”

Joint Success, Massive Budget Disparities

CODA data shows that from January 2005 to March 2023, collaboration with the MPA generated thousands of enforcement cases. In China, 13,820 cases led to the arrest of 304 people, in Hong Kong 1,318 cases led to 1,275 arrests, and in Taiwan, 2,233 people were arrested as part of 2,215 enforcement operations.

From physical piracy operations to more recent actions targeting pirate IPTV in Taiwan, CODA deals with problems wherever it finds them.

A major issue faced by CODA relates to its budget for overseas anti-piracy enforcement. Funding for overseas anti-piracy efforts is allocated as a proportion of overseas sales and CODA’s members simply don’t do enough overseas business to compete with the MPA, CODA explains.

Annual dues for the six major studios for piracy-fighting actions carried out by the MPA total $50m. CODA says that Disney’s sales alone out-volume the combined sales of Toei, Toho, Shochiku, and Kadokawa, at a rate of 16 to 1.

Given the disparity, the opportunity to conduct joint enforcement work with the MPA is clearly a massive boost for CODA’s members. At a time when Japanese content is in demand like never before in overseas markets, it’s especially important. As the market stands right now, however, only a minority of overseas consumers actually pay for it.

Enforcement Challenges Broadly Mimic Those of the MPA

In a presentation slide, CODA highlights how a typical pirate can operate if the operator wishes to remain anonymous. The original slide ‘The dark side of identifying operators of pirated sites’ is entirely in Japanese so here we’ve made best efforts to provide a like-for-like translation.

Some nuance may have been lost, but the common theme is undoubtedly a lack of ‘know your customer’ regimes from domain registration, to server rental, through to use of a CDN such as Cloudflare.

Considered a major irritant, the Njalla domain service is called out alongside Cloudflare.

“Began operations in April 2017. Sells ‘complete anonymity’. Founded by Peter Sunde, co-founder of The Pirate Bay. Users buy the rights to use domains purchased by Njalla. Njalla is the owner of the domain, Njalla does not disclose [user identities],” CODA writes.

“[Cloudflare] operates a distributed server system (user servers are hard to find). When Cloudflare discloses information, the site operator is also notified to that effect. The operator immediately moves the server,” the anti-piracy group contiues, adding:

“If you have basic knowledge of the Internet and can read and write simple English, you can operate a completely anonymous pirate site!”

Takedown Compliance: The Winner is….

In common with many anti-piracy groups, CODA sends large numbers of DMCA-style takedown notices to platforms including YouTube, Facebook, Daily Motion, and sundry local equivalents.

The data shows that CODA achieves a very high rate of compliance, in many cases above 99%. (Original slide in Japanese, our translations appear inside square brackets [ ])

Whether that’s due to CODA’s high-level accuracy (our knowledge of CODA suggests that they take accuracy very seriously) or adherence to strict local law, or even a combination of both, isn’t immediately clear. However, the stand-out figures here are returned by MEGA; every piece of content CODA asked MEGA to remove, was removed, earning the company a 100% compliance rate.

For reference, CODA’s members and their lines of business are listed below.
(Note: some companies may span more than one category but here they are listed only once)

### Anime and Entertainment Production
1. Aniplex Inc.
2. Cygames, Inc.
3. KADOKAWA CORPORATION
4. King Record Co., Ltd.
5. SHUEISHA Inc.
6. SHOGAKUKAN Inc.
7. Shogakukan-Shueisha Productions Co., Ltd.
8. SQUARE ENIX CO., LTD.
9. STUDIO GHIBLI INC.
10. TOEI ANIMATION CO., LTD.
11. TMS ENTERTAINMENT CO., LTD.

### Publishing and Media
12. ADK Emotions Inc.
13. KODANSHA LTD.
14. Nikkatsu Corporation
15. Nippon Television Network Corporation
16. Japan Broadcasting Corporation (NHK)
17. Shochiku Co., Ltd.
18. TOKYO BROADCASTING SYSTEM TELEVISION, INC.
19. TV Asahi Corporation
20. TV TOKYO Corporation
21. YOMIURI TELECASTING CORPORATION
22. WOWOW Inc.

### Film Production and Distribution
23. Happinet Phantom Studios Corporation
24. TOEI COMPANY, LTD.
25. TOHO CO., LTD.
26. Bandai Namco Filmworks Inc.

### Music and Record Labels
27. Avex Inc.
28. King Record Co., Ltd.
29. PONY CANYON INC.
30. UNIVERSAL MUSIC LLC

### Broadcasting
31. Fuji Television Network, Inc.

### Miscellaneous
32. FWD Inc. (Various services)
33. YOSHIMOTO KOGYO HOLDINGS CO., LTD. (Entertainment management and production)

Organizational members of CODA listed by category

### Media and Entertainment Associations
1. Japan Satellite Broadcasting Association
2. Motion Picture Producers Association of Japan
3. Japan Video Software Association
4. Japan Magazine Publishers Association
5. The Association of Japanese Animations

### Gaming and Software
6. Computer Entertainment Supplier’s Association
7. Association of Copyright for Computer Software
8. Digital Content Association of Japan

### Intellectual Property and Legal
9. Japan Patent Attorneys Association

### Anti-Counterfeiting
10. Anti-Counterfeiting Association

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

The Motion Picture Association’s interest in file-hosting platform DoodStream first came to light in a submission to the USTR in October 2022 .

The MPA described DoodStream as a video hosting service offering free storage and premium services including priority encoding and an ad-free experience. Videos uploaded to the platform were embedded on many other streaming sites, the MPA reported, and as a result, traffic was booming.

The MPA estimated the site received 82.7 million visits in August 2022, while using the services of DDoS-Guard in Russia and OVH in France.

“DoodStream operates a partner program that offers financial remuneration, either per download or stream depending on the country of origin,” the MPA informed the USTR in its ‘notorious markets’ submission.

A year later in a new submission to the USTR, the MPA described DoodStream as a ‘top priority’ for its anti-piracy efforts.

DoodStream in the Spotlight

In its October 2023 submission to the USTR’s notorious markets report, the MPA’s cyberlocker and video streaming category listed DoodStream front and center as the priority problem. The MPA still believed the site was operating from OVH in France but also listed other companies as hosts, including Online S.A.S., Hetzner Online GmbH, and Interkvm Host10 SRL.

The MPA noted that the Delhi High Court had ordered ISPs to block DoodStream in 2023, a measure also handed down by a French court during the same year. The Paris court noted that the site “encouraged the infringement of copyright and related rights by setting up tools specifically designed for the mass and illicit sharing of protected content.”

“The operators are located in India,” the MPA informed the USTR.

Entertainment Giants Team Up Against DoodStream

Two months later, Karyn Temple, Senior Executive Vice President and MPA Global General Counsel referenced DoodStream before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property and the Internet ( pdf ) . DoodStream continued, business as usual, until now.

In a lawsuit being heard at the High Court of Delhi, eight plaintiffs are listed as follows: Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc., Amazon Content Services LLC, Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc., Disney Enterprises, Inc., Netflix US, LLC, Paramount Pictures Corporation, Universal City Studios Productions LLP and Apple Video Programming.

A total of six defendants include the domains doodstream.com, doodstream.co, dood.stream and their underlying websites (defendants 1-3), plus a server (defendant 4) used by defendants 1 to 3 which allegedly facilitates storing and dissemination of illegal content. Defendants 5 and 6, neither of whom have been named, are reportedly site operators.

According to counsel for the plaintiffs, “rogue cyberlocker websites provide an infrastructure specifically designed to incentivize hosting, uploading, storing, sharing, streaming, and authorize the downloading of copyrighted material without obtaining authorization from the plaintiffs.

Claims Against The DoodStream Defendants

The plaintiffs allege that a massive amount of infringing content to which they have exclusive rights, is uploaded by users on the defendants’ websites.

“Counsel for plaintiffs say the studios approached defendants upon noticing this infringing content, first in June, 2023, after they discovered the identity as to who was operating these websites, who happen to be individuals based in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India, arrayed as defendants nos. 5 and 6,” an order from the court reads.

“This, according to plaintiffs’ counsel, was achieved after some effort since the WHOIS details of defendant nos. 1 to 3 were masked.”

The court notes that the plaintiffs continuously pursued the defendants to take the infringing content down. However, despite promises to comply, a mechanism built in to the site simply generated new links whenever content was supposedly removed.

“Further, uploaded content would also generate a link which could be disseminated by the uploader and therefore, potentially could be disseminated through parallel websites. Thus, as per counsel for plaintiffs, the takedown itself was elusive and of no effect, since the system immediately permitted generation of a new link.”

The court notes that through this mechanism, DoodStream becomes a “hydra-headed monster” that is difficult to police through takedowns alone.

Plaintiffs Want DoodStream Shut Down

The plaintiffs submit that DoodStream should either be comprehensively blocked or a Local Commissioner should be appointed to take over the administration of the sites. However, counsel for the defendants told the court that their clients are prepared to “exhaustively and completely” remove the plaintiffs’ content from the platform.

Due to the link generation mechanism in operation on the site, the plaintiffs expressed concern that content taken down would nnot stay down. The defendants offered assurances that they would “change the features on their websites’ architecture” to ensure that once the process of takedown is complete, regeneration would not be allowed.

In view of this undertaking, the court ordered ( pdf ) all content belonging to the plaintiffs to be taken down within 24 hours, and ordered the defendants to hire a chartered accountant to disclose all revenue generated by the sites since their launch.

The case is listed for hearing on April 8, 2014.

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

The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment regularly announces site closures following enforcement action. Over the past seven years, hundreds of sites have fallen, but the supply of new threats currently seems inexhaustible.

The level of detail ACE makes available to the public varies, but it appears to be affected by several variables. Details of settlements are rare, as one might expect. Names of site operators even more so. In many cases, even the domain names of shuttered platforms receive no specific mention, at least beyond recognizable branding.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of information that ACE doesn’t officially release is the scale of presumably successful enforcement actions that receive no mention at all. The reasons for that are open for speculation but, since the complexity of the piracy landscape has grown out of all proportion in the last few years, there’s no shortage of options.

Yet Another New Batch Arrives

If ACE maintained a single public list of domains directly taken over, redirected, or otherwise commandeered, tracking them would be straightforward. As things stand the whole process is fragmented and, at any one point, the full picture isn’t always available from DNS, WHOIS, or similar records.

For example, a series of domains that recently began redirecting to the ACE portal don’t currently list the MPA as the domain owner. They include watchgameofthrones.co, watchfriendshd.com, watchhowimetyourmother.co, watchthesimpsons.co, and watchparksandrecreation.co.

At the time of writing, none of these domains use the MPA’s DNS servers either, which may (or may not) change in the days and weeks ahead. Indeed, it’s not unheard of for sites to redirect themselves to ACE for no obvious reason. In any event, visitors to these domains are currently redirected to the ACE portal, with an interesting anti-piracy side effect observed elsewhere.

People who visit Google hoping to ‘watch parks and recreation’ or ‘watch how I met your mother’ find themselves overwhelmed with former pirate links, all leading to ACE. In some cases, the links even outrank legal platforms like Amazon.

Other domains provably taken over in the past few days include typhoonlabs.tv and typhoonlabs.net. Both list the MPA as owner and both use the movie industry group’s DNS servers. However, back in November, the MPA was listed as the new owner of the domains when they were still assigned to the former owner’s DNS servers.

We can’t explain why that was the case and we don’t know why there hasn’t been an announcement regarding these seizures. One possibility is the existence of around 30 typhoonlabs and typhoonlabsiptv-branded domains still in rotation which may (or indeed may not) be connected to a similar service.

Since announcing the demise of one platform risks driving traffic to another with a similar name. In some cases, making no announcement at all may be the best option. Situations like this can’t be uncommon when attempting to tackle piracy on a global scale and may explain why so many cases go unreported.

MPA’s Domain Collection

Thanks to record numbers of domains being handed over to the MPA, the Hollywood group’s domain portfolio is larger today than ever before. The prospect of the collection growing exponentially isn’t off the table either.

While many pirate sites previously operated without issues from a single domain, today it’s not unusual for sites to have dozens, for reasons that include redundancy, obfuscation, and circumvention of measures such as ISP blocking and search engine downranking.

In contrast, some of the most iconic domains under MPA control, such as isohunt.com and hotfile.com, stand out in their own right, each with their own place in history. Spotting them among the other 3,100+ domains, reported by a Whoxy reverse WHOIS search, is still relatively easy. It’s unlikely to remain that way for long.

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

Over the past several years and especially over the past several months, major rightsholders’ interest in India appears to have risen.

India’s piracy rates provide the most obvious explanation but seemingly sudden and escalating use of India-based anti-piracy outfits is more difficult to quantify. Maybe they’re simply cheaper than the alternatives, or perhaps the jurisdiction has benefits. Certainly, Indian courts might already be providing access to one of the most powerful anti-piracy tools seen in years.

Cautious Approach Disappears Into History

Last May, the High Court in Delhi issued an injunction that among other things, required ISPs to block domain names that hadn’t even been registered. That was just another example of what can be obtained relatively easily from an Indian court today that would’ve been unthinkable just a few years ago.

Guided by the experience of courts in other jurisdictions, in April 2019 the High Court of Delhi issued the country’s first dynamic injunction , carefully crafted to deal with pirate site countermeasures such as domain hopping and mirror sites.

The Court acknowledged the “wide ramifications” of permanent site-wide blocking orders, the need to mitigate risk of over-blocking, and the corresponding need for judicial scrutiny. Justice Manmohan’s order also considered the importance of balancing the interests of rightsholders, ISPs, and the public, with a strictly proportionate response to online piracy.

Supercharging Site-Blocking

Having brought India right up to date, courts seemed happy to press ahead. Within months, a court ordered the preemptive blocking of over 1,100 websites , to protect a movie that hadn’t been released yet, while injunctions issued previously were updated to tackle the hydras .

In September 2022, the High Court of Delhi issued a site-blocking injunction that required domain registrars in the United States to immediately suspend a list of site domain names. The stated aim was to prevent an unreleased movie from appearing on those domains, at an unknown date sometime in the future. A month later another court handed down an order to block over 13,400 sites to protect another unreleased movie.

Major U.S. rightsholders could ask a court in the United States for something similar but for obvious reasons, have not. However, Indian courts are much more predictable and, when it comes to site-blocking injunctions, now seem receptive to new mechanisms being included to ensure compliance.

Suspending Domains Under Dynamic+ Injunctions

What we’re able to show today is that at least one domain registrar in the United States has suspended domain names under the instructions of the High Court of Delhi. The suspensions are part of a dynamic+ injunction issued in India last year, to protect the rights of several Hollywood studios and Netflix, ostensibly in India.

There are more than 70 domains in the injunction and orders for domain registrars to suspend them all have already been issued.

The most striking domain in the list is Aniwave.to, a site dedicated to anime that currently receives 317 million visits per month; roughly 40% from the U.S., 9% from the United Kingdom, 8% from Canada, 3.5% Australia, and 2.5% Philippines.

Whatever percentage visit from India, it’s less than 2.5% of the site’s traffic according to SimilarWeb stats. A domain suspension, meanwhile, has global repercussions.

MPA Requests Blocking Injunction

“In a continued effort to curb dissemination of pirated content and its availability on internet, the Plaintiffs who are well established Hollywood Studios have approached this Court seeking blocking and removal of their copyrighted content, from the internet, accessed through rogue websites,” an order handed down by the High Court of Delhi explains.

“The suit is filed against a number of rogue websites who are unlawfully disseminating and communicating a large quantum of copyrighted content of the Plaintiffs,” the order continues, adding that the content “can be accessed and viewed on a variety of devices including Televisions, Personal Computers, Laptops, Tablets, Mobile Phones, etc.”

The order notes that the “rogue websites” offer “illegal viewing almost on a real-time basis” of the studios’ content including Stranger Things, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Batman, Spider Man: No Way Home, Top Gun: Maverick, and The Jungle Book.

Court Issues Dynamic+ Injnction

In light of the claims, the Court says it’s necessary to restrain the sites from streaming, reproducing, distributing, making available to the public and/or communicating to the public, in any manner, any copyrighted content owned by the Plaintiffs including any content they may own in the future.

The scope of the injunction includes all domains listed above, plus any mirror/redirect websites or alphanumeric websites or any variations thereof. At this point the scope of the injunction starts to become apparent.

“….websites identified in the present suit or any mirror/redirect websites or alphanumeric websites, or any variations thereof including those websites which are associated with the Defendants’ websites either based on the name, branding, identity of its operator, or discovered to provide additional means of accessing the Defendant’s website, and other domains/ domain along with their sub-domains and sub-directories, owners, website operators/ entities or even sources of content.”

Assumed association due to “sources of content” could be significant. The vast majority of movie and TV show piracy sites use the same pool of movie and TV show content by default. Arguing these sources of content are effectively the same wouldn’t be difficult in this type of court procedure, especially when arguing otherwise would require a pirate site operator to explain to the contrary.

Block Domains But Also Suspend Them

The order instructs local ISPs to block the domains listed above and as explained, any and all domains (plus “associated” domains) that subsequently appear to facilitate access to them, in perpetuity. However, it also goes further still by ordering domain name registrars to “lock and suspend” all affected domains while handing over domain owners’ details to the Hollywood studios.

“The Domain Name Registrars (DNRs) of the rogue websites’ domain names, upon being intimated by the Plaintiffs shall lock and suspend the said domain names. In addition, any details relating to the registrants of the said domain names including KYC, credit card, mobile number, etc. be also provided to the Plaintiffs,” the order reads.

Whether all registrars will comply remains to be seen but if they want to continue doing business in India, they appear to have little choice . Non-compliance could mean that registrars themselves will be blocked by ISPs.

TorrentFreak can confirm that at least two domains were suspended recently due to this action; fztvseries.mobi and mobiletvshows.net

“In the month of December, Namecheap suspended our domains based on the order from an Indian court,” the former owner of the domains informed us this week.

“The suspension was done without any warning or any sort of communication from either Namecheap or the plaintiff. It was only after noticing the suspension that we reached out to Namecheap. It took approximately five days for Namecheap to reply with an explanation for the suspension.”

Communication between the domain owner and Namecheap is included below.

“Indian courts have a reputation of issuing broad orders that encompass thousands of websites in a single directive, often without thorough verification. Such practices could potentially cause significant global disruption, especially if domain registrars begin to comply with orders from various countries,” the former domain owner concludes.

The sites in question have moved to new domains (fztvseries.live and mobiletvshows.site) and claim that traffic levels have returned to 80% of the levels seen before the suspensions.

Given the nature of the injunction, those domains are vulnerable to being blocked at bare minimum or even seized again. The bigger question is whether Indian courts are now being viewed as the preferred option for enforcement moving forward.

The order issued by the High Court of Delhi can be found here ( pdf )

The domains affected by the initial order are listed below but according to the Court’s instructions, any domains that can be linked to these sites or their operators in future must also be blocked and suspended

fztvseries.mobi
mobiletvshows.net
www.stagatv.com
vexmovies.uno
coolmoviez.cloud
coolmoviez.com.de
coolmoviez.com.co
fztvseries.mobi
mobiletvshows.net
www.stagatv.com
vexmovies.uno
www.coolmoviez.cloud
www.coolmoviez.com.de
www.coolmoviez.com.co
aniwave.to
aniwave.bz
aniwave.ws
aniwave.tv
www.animehana.in
www.animesenpai4u.com
gogoanime.is
w7.123animes.mobi
anix.to
freemovies2021.com
freemovieswatch.tv
freemovieswatch.net
medeberiyaa.com
medeberiyaa.com
kinogo.biz
ridomovies.pw
lmoviestv.com
moviehax.me
ripcrabbyanime.in
moviehunt.us
mlwbd.rent
mlwbd.digital
mlwbd.love
mlwbd.me
mlwbdofficial.com
mlwbd.photos
www.mov.onl
nyafilmer.gg
02tvseries2.com
projectfreetv.one
raretoons.me
raretoonsindia.in.net
uflix.cc
waatchmoviess.top
waatchmovies.top
watchmoviiess.top
yifymovies.xyz
kickassanime.am
kaas.am
kickass.onl
wwI.kickass.help
hindimoviesonline.to
www.hindimovies.to
freedrivemovie.lol
freeseries.watch
hdmp4mania2.com
hdmp4mania I .net
genvideos.org
hdflixtor.com
www.24-hd.com
123serieshd.ru
anihdplay.com
nocensor.cloud
nocensor.click
www2.showbox-movies.net
moviestowatch.tv
moviestowatch.cc
torrentbay.net

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

During the past few hours, users of streaming site ahaseries.com hoping to access their favorite site would’ve met with disappointment.

The same also goes for those who attempted to access uhuseries.com and owlserieshd.com.

All three domains are now under the control of the Motion Picture Association, which in turn is directing visitors to the web portal of the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE). There they will be greeted by a message from ACE on behalf of the anti-piracy coalition’s members.

“WATCH LEGALLY,” the message reads. “There are more than 140 content providers/platforms around the world that offer legal access to your favorite movies and TV shows across a wide variety of devices.”

How much choice there is in Thailand may have influenced the choices made by visitors to the three sites mentioned above, but no matter where pirate sites are located, ACE is likely to be aware of their existence.

At a California district court last week, the signature of MPA and ACE content protection chief Jan van Voorn could be found on several DMCA subpoena applications. When signed off, they will compel third-party companies to hand over whatever information they hold on around 40 pirate sites. One of those listed, a popular multi-content site in South America, says that after a 13-year run online, it has already thrown in the towel.

How the rest will respond is unknown but as their traffic data suggests, the platforms in the spotlight are servicing dozens of millions of visits every month. There’s little doubt that ACE wants to turn that around.

The tables below show the domains listed in the MPA’s DMCA subpoenas and the allegedly infringing content. Also included is a general category (such as streaming or torrent) for the sites targeted, their traffic data for the most recent available month, and the third-party platform instructed to hand over user data to the MPA/ACE.

Domain	Content	Platform	Traffic*	Provider	Provider Type
MPA DMCA Subpoena Application ( 2:23-mc-00182 )			*SimilarWeb Traffic Data (Visits per Month)
filmize.tv	Fast & Furious 9	Streaming	4.3m	Cloudflare	CDN/Proxy
hinatasoul.com	Tokyo Revengers	Streaming	1.9m	Cloudflare	CDN/Proxy
anitube.vip	Tokyo Revengers	Streaming	3.0m	Cloudflare	CDN/Proxy

Total Traffic Per Month: 9.2 million visits

Domain	Content	Platform	Traffic*	Provider	Provider Type
MPA DMCA Subpoena Application ( 2:23-mc-00184 )			*SimilarWeb Traffic Data (Visits per Month)
mixdrop.lol	Fast & Furious 9	Streaming	713K	Cloudflare	CDN/Proxy
mixdrop.club	Fast & Furious 9	Streaming	3.4m	Cloudflare	CDN/Proxy
uqload.com	Minions 2	Streaming	275.6K	Cloudflare	CDN/Proxy
uqload.io	Minions 2	Streaming	2.5m	Cloudflare	CDN/Proxy
uupbom.com	Cruella	Streaming	2.4m	Cloudflare	CDN/Proxy
upbam.org	Cruella	Streaming	210.5K	Cloudflare	CDN/Proxy

Total Traffic Per Month: 9.5 million visits

Domain	Content	Platform	Traffic*	Provider	Provider Type
MPA DMCA Subpoena Application ( 2:23-mc-00185 )			*SimilarWeb Traffic Data (Visits per Month) ** Denotes ‘back-end’ domains
futemax.la sathoshinamoto.com**	It Chapter Two	Streaming	5.3m	Cloudflare	CDN/Proxy
futemax.re sinalpublico.com**	Supernatural	Streaming	12.2m	Cloudflare	CDN/Proxy
futemax.ink playertv.net**	Justice League	Streaming	874K	Cloudflare	CDN/Proxy
canales.online	Big Bang Theory	Streaming	5.5m	Cloudflare	CDN/Proxy
uupbom.com	Cruella	Streaming	2.4m	Cloudflare	CDN/Proxy
upbam.org	Cruella	Streaming	210.5K	Cloudflare	CDN/Proxy

Total Traffic Per Month: 26.5 million visits

Domain	Content	Platform	Traffic*	Provider	Provider Type
MPA DMCA Subpoena Application ( 2:23-mc-00186) MPA DMCA Subpoena Application ( 2:23-mc-00188			*SimilarWeb Traffic Data (Visits per Month) ** Denotes ‘back-end’ domains
iptv-sharing.org ipfr.tv (M3U)**	The Lion King	IPTV	No Data	Cloudflare	CDN/Proxy
autoembed.to	A Quiet Place	Video Host	24.3K (N/A)	Tonic.to	Registry
animension.to	Spirited Away	Streaming	8.5m	Tonic.to	Registry
adjaranet.to	Frozen II	Streaming	3.7m	Tonic.to	Registry

Total Traffic Per Month: 12.2 million visits (accounted for in other subpoenas)

Domain	Content	Platform	Traffic*	Provider	Provider Type
MPA DMCA Subpoena Application ( 2:23-mc-00187 )			*SimilarWeb Traffic Data (Visits per Month) ** Denotes ‘back-end’ domains
comando.la	The Batman	Torrent/Index	2.1m	Cloudflare	CDN/Proxy
filmesmega.co	The Batman	Index/DDL	1.6m	Cloudflare	CDN/Proxy
filmeviatorrents.org	The Batman	Torrent/Index	692K	Cloudflare	CDN/Proxy
autoembed.to	A Quiet Place	Video Host	24.3K (N/A)	Cloudflare	CDN/Proxy
bombuj.si	A Quiet Place	Streaming	7.1m	Cloudflare	CDN/Proxy
watchgameofthrones.co	Game of Thrones	Streaming	NoData	Cloudflare	CDN/Proxy
animefire.vip	Food Wars!	Streaming	6.8m	Cloudflare	CDN/Proxy
gdrivelatino.net	The Batman	Index/Pay	301.8K	Cloudflare	CDN/Proxy
animesonline.in	Tokyo Revengers	Streaming	258.4K	Cloudflare	CDN/Proxy
cuevana-3.id	The Batman	Streaming	6.5m	Cloudflare	CDN/Proxy
compucalitv.org	Elvis	Multi-Content	3.9m	Cloudflare	CDN/Proxy
cinecalidad.com.mx	Encanto	Streaming	5.3m	Cloudflare	CDN/Proxy
redecanais.zip	Encanto	Streaming	22.4m	Cloudflare	CDN/Proxy
megatorrentsx.com.br	Encanto	Torrent/Index	348.9K	Cloudflare	CDN/Proxy
megatorrentsx.com	Encanto	Torrent/Index	#visits	Cloudflare	CDN/Proxy
limontorrents.com limontorrent.com**	Encanto	Torrent/Index	92.8K	Cloudflare	CDN/Proxy
mmfilmes.me	Encanto	Streaming/Pay	682.3K	Cloudflare	CDN/Proxy
gogoanime2.org	Romantic Killer	Streaming	19.3M	Cloudflare	CDN/Proxy
9anime2.com	Romantic Killer/small>	Streaming	314.4K	Cloudflare	CDN/Proxy
animepahe.ru	Batman Ninja	Streaming	21.9m	Cloudflare	CDN/Proxy
animeflix.live	Yasuke	Streaming	6.1m	Cloudflare	CDN/Proxy
bstsrs.one	Big Bang Theory	Streaming	9.6m	Cloudflare	CDN/Proxy
kickassanime.am	JoJo Advent.	Streaming	#visits	Cloudflare	CDN/Proxy
gozofinder.com	The Batman	Search Engine	9.9m	Cloudflare	CDN/Proxy
adjaranet.to	Frozen II	Streaming	3.7m	Cloudflare	CDN/Proxy

Total Traffic Per Month: 51.5 million visits

CompucaliTV.org has already informed its users that after a 13-year run online, it has thrown in the towel. According to a report from La Republica , a since-removed message on the homepage read, “This is not a goodbye, but a thank you. We regret to inform that the CompucaliTV site has closed.”

Former users have been saying their goodbyes on social media, with one perfectly encapsulating why the site was great – and why it was under pressure to shut down – in the same sentence .

“I downloaded Disney and Dreamworks movies in 1080p quality and with dual audio for the last 2 years, I’m going to miss this one, guys. RIP.”

On the back of reports that some users can still access the site depending on region, it’s worth noting that at least four Compucalitv look-a-like domains were registered in December, on top of another dozen or so already in existence.

Domain-Hopping, Compliance

This is just one small example of the complications faced by ACE on a daily basis. So-called domain-hopping has escalated to become almost an artform in some parts of the world, with a report from Japan earlier this year noting that some sites operated from Vietnam actually grow their traffic when jumping to new domains. That’s hardly the kind of news coalitions like ACE want to hear.

There are also signs that some platforms contacted by ACE are indicating some level of compliance and then acting in a way that suggests the complete opposite. If that’s indeed the case, history says there will be a price to pay for that at some point; maybe not this year, maybe not next, but it will come.

Eventually, all site operators get tired, sick, start a family, find other things more exciting or simply get bored. When it comes to piracy, the MPA never, ever get bored, and never get tired of setting an example when one is required.

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

Over the past four years, anti-piracy campaign Operation 404 has become a permanent fixture in the enforcement calendar with the results of new phases announced every few months.

The results of the fifth wave of Operation 404 were released in March 2023 ; around 200 illegal streaming and gaming sites, 128 domains and 63 music apps were reported blocked, with raids on locations across Brazil leading to 11 arrests.

While Brazil has been the focus of Operation 404 from the very beginning, the campaign has received considerable support from international rightsholders, government bodies and law enforcement agencies. The latest results relating to the sixth wave (Operation 404.6) released this week reveal progress and continued support from a laundry list of international contributors.

They include: City of London Police, United States Department of Justice, UK Intellectual Property Office, Peruvian anti-piracy group Indecopi, Argentina’s Public Ministry, a dozen Civil Police forces in Brazil, Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment, MPA Latin America, International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, US Patents and Trademarks Office, Brazilian Pay TV / Telecom Association, Latin American anti-piracy group Alianza, Premier League, Brazil’s National Council for Combating Piracy and Crimes Against Intellectual Property, the Entertainment Software Alliance, and Brazilian anti-piracy body APDIF.

Sixth Wave of Operation 404

A statement from IFPI notes that Operation 404 remains one of the largest campaigns of its type. Thus far the operation has resulted in the suspension of nearly 1,500 domains, the removal of 780 infringing music apps, and delivery of more than 100 search warrants, IFPI says.

Action against 12 major stream ripping and MP3 download apps supported the music industry in wave six, with IFPI reporting that collectively the apps received over 4.3 million downloads in Brazil alone. While the apps go unnamed, the global music industry group says that they were removed from major app stores and other sites offering them for download.

Reports By Authorities in Brazil

Information obtained from government and law enforcement resources reveals the execution of 24 search and seizure warrants; 22 in Brazil, and one each in Argentina and the United States. Reports indicate a total of 606 websites and applications blocked or suspended for illegal content streaming; 238 in Brazil, 328 in Peru and 40 in the United Kingdom. In some cases sites were deindexed from search engines and their accounts removed from social media by court order.

How many of the affected domains are currently redirecting to the latest seizure banner is unclear. We can confirm the banner is hosted on a subdomain of gov.br, the Brazilian government’s website, and we include it below for reference and for being perhaps the most comprehensive notice of its type ever seen online.

Local law enforcement agencies provide additional detail on operations carried out in their regions, some of which are summarized below.

Premier League Piracy, IPTV Operator Raided

Civil Police forces in several states are reported to have targeted the operators of websites and IPTV services offering illegal streams of Premier League matches.

In Mato Grosso, a large state in west-central Brazil, police targeted what appears to be an illicit IPTV provider. Authorities say that the service’s records show it had more than 60,000 customers; its operators face potential prosecution for intellectual property crimes, money laundering, and criminal association.

The Civil Police of Paraná ( PCPR ) report two search and seizure warrants executed against individuals suspected of ‘digital piracy’ offenses in the municipalities of Londrina and Assis Chateaubriand. Electronic equipment including cell phones and computers (image below) were seized as evidence.

Police also carried out a search-and-seize operation at an apartment in Ponta Verde, Maceió. Their targets were a couple from Brazil’s smallest state, Sergipe, said to have been living locally for the past several months. Police believe the pair are guilty of copyright infringement offenses but at the time of the raid, only a 26-year-old woman, her daughters, and their nanny, were at home.

According to his wife, the man was visiting the capital, Aracaju. That’s likely to have come as a disappointment to the Premier League, which had been reportedly working with police to target a pirate IPTV service and its operator at the Ponta Verde address. Nobody was arrested.

Other targets reported locally include the VidMate stream-ripping app said to have been downloaded 870 million times worldwide with over 1.1 million active users in Brazil.

Finally, reports indicate that the Peruvian government body Indecopi took action to block 157 domains dedicated to music piracy and stream ripping. There doesn’t appear to be any recent official reports of that nature but Indecopi has previously published lists of domains subject to blocking ( 1 ) including as part of Operation 404 ( 2 ).

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

During the summer the UK government announced a new inquiry to investigate what needs to be done to “maintain and enhance” the UK’s position as a global destination for film and television production.

Conducted by the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, the inquiry invited submissions from stakeholders on numerous topics, including the identification of barriers to maintaining and increasing overseas investment. The UK currently encourages production in the UK through the provision of a generous tax relief framework which has paid out billions to companies ultimately owned by overseas entities.

The Committee sought input on what more could be done to further incentivize production in the UK. In their submissions, companies and their industry groups appear very keen for these financial incentives to continue, but many other areas are highlighted as either problematic or in need of attention.

For the major Hollywood studios of the MPA, IP protection and piracy remain key issues.

Motion Picture Association

The MPA’s submission notes that the UK’s film and television sector has enjoyed record levels of investment. However, if the country’s position as a “creative and economic powerhouse” in audiovisual content is to be sustained, the government and entertainment industries must work closely together.

The UK receives praise for its intellectual property framework, with the MPA describing it as a “gold standard internationally.” For balance, the MPA notes that the government should avoid steps that might undermine IP protections, in response to the challenges presented by AI, for example .

“The good reputation of the UK’s treatment of copyright exceptions was threatened in 2022, when the Government proposed, as part of its national AI strategy, to introduce the new exception to copyright to include the training of AI models for ‘any purpose’,” the MPA writes.

“Companies and organizations, across the creative sector, joined by Parliamentarians, were united in their concerns about these proposals. Thankfully, the Government listened, and decided in February 2023 not to ‘proceed with the original proposals’.”

Well Done, Please Do More

Submissions by the MPA and member studios Warner and Paramount individually, praise the UK for its work fighting online piracy.

For example, the availability of no-fault injunctions under section 97A of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act has allowed Paramount to mitigate the threats presented by pirate sites. Once again, the term ‘gold standard’ is used. The studios also appreciate the work undertaken by the Police Intellectual Property Unit (PIPCU) in tackling pirate sites and services.

Warner highlights the Intellectual Property Office’s work in bringing together the creative industries and digital platforms to better understand online infringement, and then take action. For example, the IPO helped broker a Voluntary Code of Practice that saw links to infringing content removed from the first page of search results. It also facilitated roundtables leading to preventative measures, including the removal of piracy tutorials from YouTube.

Inevitably, however, more can always be done.

MPA: Enforcement “Increasingly Difficult” in UK

While the same problems exist all around the world, the MPA’s submission to the Committee could be mistaken for highlighting problems specific to the UK.

“The MPA’s experience (and that of other rightholders) of dealing with online infringement in the UK has shown that the growing complexity of investigating and tracing sources of illegal and infringing activity online is making the enforcement of IP rights increasingly difficult,” the MPA reports.

“While there are a range of industry and law enforcement-led initiatives to tackle digital piracy, one of the greatest challenges remains the absence of reliable information on those commercial-scale pirates who are freely using legitimate business infrastructures – such as online hosting, advertising, payment processing and e-commerce platforms – to deliver illegal film and TV services.”

The problem is highlighted by the MPA, and separately by members Warner and Paramount. The former’s summary appears below:

Despite extensive use of the tools already available in UK law to try to trace the operators of illegal services, experience shows these efforts are being thwarted by the ability of criminals to provide commercial services online under a cloak of anonymity, from anywhere in the world.

Often online intermediaries (who provide the infrastructure that enables the illicit services) cannot supply any information that leads to the verification of the illegal service provider. That, or the information they can provide has clearly been stolen, falsified, is incomplete or otherwise misleading. The ease with which bad actors can remain anonymous in their business transactions facilitates digital piracy and potentially other crimes perpetrated online, including acts of digital fraud.

The submissions are united in identifying the same solution to this problem: the UK must implement a ‘Know Your Business Customer’ regime to compel commercial entities (including online intermediaries) to establish the true identity of their business customers as a precondition for selling, and receiving payment for, digital services.

In-Theater ‘Camming’ is a Threat to UK Exhibition Sector

When people record movies directly from cinema screens and then distribute copies online, the damage that does to the exhibition sector’s period of exclusivity has been reported for decades. As Warner’s submission explains;

“Films continue to be recorded in cinemas, both in the UK and other territories, and those illegal copies are distributed online for free via pirate sites and services during the films’ theatrical window. This illegal competition harms the ability of exhibitors to generate revenues, as well as harming the distributors and producers of those films. It is important that this threat is addressed via robust and effective enforcement actions,” the company notes.

The statement doesn’t break any obviously new ground but seems to skew the UK’s position towards the negative, which given recent performance isn’t entirely fair.

By noting that films are still illegally pirated in cinemas “in the UK and other territories” that discounts the achievements reported just last month by the UK’s Film Content Protection Agency, a group that both Warner and Paramount help to finance.

“90% of films pirated worldwide are sourced from cinemas, yet the UK and Ireland has not had a cammed film (a film illegally recorded in a cinema) traced back to its shores for over a year,” the FCPA reported.

Source submissions: Warner Bros. Discovery ( link ) , MPA ( link ) , Paramount ( link )

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

In the unlikely event people haven’t noticed, the internet isn’t what it used to be. In so many ways it has already surpassed our wildest dreams but in common with the physical world, threats to personal safety are inevitable and significant.

Online security is the headline theme of the StreamSafely anti-piracy campaign and this week the U.S. Government’s Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center (IPRCenter) and Hollywood’s Motion Picture Association (MPA) revealed two new PSAs to boost the campaign’s visibility.

“There are piracy sites that appear legitimate and safe, but most are operated by global crime syndicates,” said Jan van Voorn, MPA’s Chief of Global Content Protection and head of ACE.

While that’s a fairly dramatic claim, at the highest level it appears to be true; it’s also entirely in keeping with the current drive to convince pirate site users there are much safer options elsewhere. That’s the foundation on which StreamSafely is built to ensure it meets its overarching goals. So what are those goals?

Through the prism and messaging of StreamSafely, the chief concern is to protect the financial welfare of consuming pirates and their families. Put much more bluntly, entertainment companies want to make sure that the people ‘stealing’ their content are kept safe and don’t have their private information unnecessarily exposed.

The most cynical might conclude that a) the campaign isn’t really concerned about pirates having their bank accounts emptied because b) its key aim is to demonize piracy through scare tactics and then c) wait for the signups to legal subscription services.

StreamSafely may have a straightforward message but the oversimplification above, convenient as it is, undersells the complexity of a campaign that is so much more.

StreamSafely: How it All Began

The people who came up with the StreamSafely campaign and still run it today are collectively known as Ctam Cable Marketing Association Inc. , or CTAM for short. As the current member list shows, cable marketing has considerable scope.

Around 2018/19, CTAM approached IE Network, a company that describes itself as “part intelligence agency, part newsroom.”

IE Network says that by compiling the best data, insights and information, it’s able to “transform research and strategy into precise messaging with the right voice and tone, driving powerful storytelling that inspires, educates and persuades.”

Under the heading The Cable Industry v. Content Piracy the story CTAM wanted to tell is detailed on IE Network’s website .

CTAM wanted to combat an escalating content piracy industry that was robbing legitimate content creators of their intellectual property and risking the privacy and safety of content users. The members of CTAM turned to i.e. network to educate themselves about the bad actors in content piracy—and its end-users—to determine how best to educate the public about the implications of unauthorized entertainment content and to discourage people from consuming it.

“What followed was StreamSafely.com, a website sponsored by CTAM with content developed by IEN. Launching in late 2019, StreamSafely.com has already achieved its primary goal: to help visitors get smart about piracy and how to avoid illegal content consumption,” the website reads .

StreamSafely: Four Years Later

In November 2023, the same story is still being told. Piracy volumes remain massive and as highlighted earlier, risks are increasing. These threats disproportionately affect casual pirates who are less likely to know that adblocking software like uBlock doesn’t just block unwanted advertising.

When correctly configured, uBlock restricts the ability of the most cynical sites to offload malicious code onto the machines of unwitting site users. As a result, their ability to make money is massively undermined and if that’s taken to its logical conclusion, time spent running a site for profit is better spent elsewhere.

Before we explore what else uBlock is good for, CTAM’s tax filings (designated as a 501(c)6 nonprofit) for 2021 make for a fairly interesting read: $4.93 million in revenue vs. $4.56 million expenses, $1.1 million in compensation for the top three executives alone, and then a key mission revealing action to mitigate piracy and password sharing.

That leads us to CTAM’s business priorities for 2023, including: “Protect revenue by neutralizing content piracy through consumer education site StreamSafely.com” ( pdf ) .

Can’t Study Pirates Properly Without Data

The CTAM website as a whole is an intriguing read but somewhat unfortunately, sections marked ‘Audience Intelligence Reports’ relating to the audience of StreamSafely.com are unavailable to the public . Nevertheless, it’s safe to conclude that visitors to the StreamSafely site are a useful source of data.

According to CTAM’s most recently published tax filing, in the last reporting period the marketing group spent $432,000 with IEN, the company it worked with to conceive StreamSafely back in 2019. The nature of the work carried out is unclear but since the company was previously asked to provide information on “bad actors” and their “end-users”, refreshed information may still be coming through.

That theory might make more sense if the MPA wasn’t involved in StreamSafely, and by default, anti-piracy coalition ACE, which has access to the best intelligence, globally.

Since CTAM also mentions an alignment of tactics with Digital Citizens Alliance, whose reporting is aligned with the MPA’s, not to mention many of CTAM’s own members, the entire project is surrounded by pools of piracy data, although the extent of any sharing is impossible to say.

Campaign Data, Measuring Success or Otherwise

That leads to the question of how CTAM is able to measure the performance of the StreamSafely campaign, i.e whether visitors to the StreamSafely website (mostly consumers of pirated content, if the targeting is right) find value and that leads to positive changes in behavior.

From the very first visit to StreamSafely.com it’s clear that a number of technologies deployed on the site can provide the campaign with significant insight, providing those visitors aren’t running uBlock, which blocks most if not all of them.

With help from tools offered by The Markup, which describes itself as a “nonprofit newsroom that investigates how powerful institutions are using technology to change our society”, the nature and abilities of those technologies can be presented in no-nonsense terms.

The Blacklight Privacy Inspector had a look at StreamSafely.com and reported back with its findings.

StreamSafely has ‘only’ five ad trackers, less than the average seven found on popular sites. But while popular sites usually get by with three third-party cookies on average, Blacklight’s Privacy Inspector found almost four times that on StreamSafely.

“These are commonly used by advertising tracking companies to profile you based on your internet usage. Blacklight detected 11 third-party cookies on this site. Blacklight detected cookies for Alphabet, Inc. and Microsoft Corporation,” Blacklight’s report reads.

Other technologies on the anti-piracy campaign site include behavior analytics system, Hotjar. By recording website visitors’ keystrokes, clicks, mouse and trackpad movements, Hotjar allows website operators to view visitors’ journeys through their websites using heatmaps and videos.

Combined with Google Analytics, Hotjar is a very powerful tool and sensitive too, especially when considering StreamSafely’s target audience.

The target audience of the StreamSafely campaign consists of people who visit pirate sites, who are unaware of the potential dangers. The aim of the site is to inform those people of the risks and make them aware of legal alternatives. At some point, success can be measured by the transformation of at-risk free-loading pirates into consumers of safe, legal alternatives.

That may be why StreamSafely uses tools provided by TK Interactive because, after all, stopping pirates from consuming pirated content is only the first step in their rehabilitation journey. And now that the risk of their bank accounts being emptied has been eliminated, they can put some of that hard-earned cash to good use.

Welcome aboard and stay safe.

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