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      Operation 404: USDOJ, PIPCU, ACE, MPA, IFPI, ESA, EPL & More Target Pirate Sites

      news.movim.eu / TorrentFreak · Wednesday, 29 November - 07:40 · 3 minutes

    operacion404-6 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

    404-police 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.

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      UK Police Applaud Five-Year Jail Sentence for ‘Fugitive’ IPTV Reseller

      news.movim.eu / TorrentFreak · Saturday, 6 May, 2023 - 08:22 · 2 minutes

    iptv Offering piracy-related services is a serious offense in the UK for which several vendors have received multi-year prison sentences in recent years.

    These sentences are typically announced by copyright holders or the police, as a deterrent for those who might be tempted to follow in the same footsteps.

    Reporting on these news releases can be tricky, as the information tends to be limited. This is particularly true when court documents are unavailable, something true for another conviction announced today.

    Five-Year Prison Sentence

    City of London Police have just announced that at Liverpool Crown Court today, 54-year-old Mark Brockley was sentenced to five years in prison. Police were alerted to Brockley’s activities in 2018, when BT reported the now-suspended Twitter account @Infinity_IPTV in connection with sales of illegal IPTV subscriptions.

    Brockley reportedly charged £15 per month for a subscription. Between October 24, 2014, and May 8, 2019, the operation made 5,251 sales and generated £237,058. Of these sales, 1,408 directly referenced IPTV and no taxes were paid on the income.

    Police visited Brockley in 2019 and seized his laptop and mobile phone, which linked him to the Infinity IPTV Twitter account. Based on this and other evidence, Liverpool Crown Court found Brockley guilty of supplying articles for use in fraud and the fraudulent evasion of income tax.

    City of London Police are pleased with this outcome. According to Detective Constable Geoffrey Holbrook of the Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit (PIPCU), the IPTV seller continued even after he was interviewed by police.

    “Brockley made tens of thousands of pounds from an illegal activity and used the money to fund his lifestyle. Despite being interviewed by PIPCU officers and knowing that his actions were against the law, he continued to sell IPTV subscriptions..,” Holbrook notes.

    ‘Fugitive’ + Dog

    There is one major unresolved issue in this case, however. The former IPTV seller has disappeared and was sentenced in his absence, current whereabouts unknown.

    “We are now appealing for information on Brockley’s whereabouts, and ask anyone who may be able to help to contact the City of London Police,” Holbrook says.

    The authorities believe that the IPTV seller didn’t flee alone. The man reportedly took his dog with him and presumably set course for France. City of London Police are encouraging anyone with knowledge of Brockley’s whereabouts to come forward. This can also be done anonymously through the Crimestoppers hotline.

    Public records show that, after his involvement with the IPTV business, Brockley got involved in spirits sales through his company Anfield Gin. At the time of writing, the website for this ‘handmade gin’ company no longer appears online.

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

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      Pirate IPTV: Police & Sky Nationwide Crackdown, Four Arrested

      news.movim.eu / TorrentFreak · Wednesday, 1 March, 2023 - 18:39 · 3 minutes

    iptv In an effort to make ends meet, many people in the UK are cutting back on luxuries. Fewer nights out or perhaps none at all. Downgrading Netflix or even dumping it altogether.

    Subscription television is even more expensive and often demands longer-term commitments people simply can’t afford. To some, cheap but illegal streaming services might prove tempting but it appears that Sky TV and police in the UK are working hard to limit supply.

    Police & Sky Conduct Raids

    A statement by the Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit (PIPCU) says that in partnership with Police Scotland and subscription broadcaster Sky, officers have executed a series of raids around the UK as part of an illegal streaming crackdown.

    Officers reportedly searched four premises in London, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Stoke. Four people were arrested on “suspicion of involvement” in the illegal streaming of premium content, including channels belonging to Sky. During these operations, computer equipment, laptops and phones were also seized.

    ‘Disrupted’ Services / 500K Customers

    Given that the names of the services have not been announced by police, it’s impossible to say what effect the raids may have had on the targeted services. That being said, the announcement itself carries enough information to cautiously assess a few things.

    “Officers believe that the illegal streaming services disrupted by the operation had more than 500,000 customers.”

    The word ‘believe’ obviously removes a level of certainty here and use of the word ‘disruption’ could mean that no services were actually shut down. No doubt some media reports will take the ‘500,000 customers’ comment and run with it but nowhere here does it say that 500,000 lost access to one or more services.

    That being said, beginning around February 20/21 until around February 25/26, social media ‘chatter’ showed a significant increase in people from the UK, particularly in the Midlands and further north, complaining about IPTV services going offline.

    Police Delivered Cease and Desist Notices

    In addition to the four arrests, police say that more than 200 ‘cease and desist’ notices were delivered to individuals “suspected of running illegal streaming services around the country.”

    The definitions of ‘running’ and ‘service’ aren’t made clear, but on the basis that 200 physically separate IPTV services are unlikely to exist in the UK alone, this may be a reference to people who act as resellers.

    If that’s the case, 200 is a completely believable number, and depending on how many customers each reseller has, the number of connections at stake if the cease-and-desist notices do their job could be significant.

    Organized Crime, Malware Warnings

    According to Matt Hibbert, Director of Anti-Piracy at Sky, these nationwide actions “made a significant impact against individuals involved in serious organized crime.”

    PIPCU Detective Chief Inspector Gary Robinson says that “organized criminal groups often view the distribution of illegal streaming services as a low-risk, high-reward crime,” that can “expose end users to the risks of data theft, fraud and malware.”

    These types of statements are certainly not unusual and there’s no doubt that, depending on the contact point, IPTV subscription buyers face at least some element of risk. The problem is getting people to believe that the threats are real and not just another deterrent message that only applies to other people.

    Vultures Move In

    What was glaringly obvious to us during the period IPTV downtime was being reported in February, was the number of ‘people’ posting on social media offering IPTV services with a billion channels and billions of movies as a good replacement.

    Just like the people who send bogus delivery or banking alerts by SMS, fraud is the endgame and there is no service. People can try and report them, but that rarely works out.

    Police say that of the four arrested in February, one person has been charged in relation to intellectual property theft and three people have since been released under investigation.

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

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      Pirate Bay Proxy Defeats Police’s GitHub Takedown with DMCA Counternotice

      news.movim.eu / TorrentFreak · Saturday, 4 February, 2023 - 15:21 · 3 minutes

    pirate bay logo Various courts around the world have come to the conclusion that The Pirate Bay is a copyright-infringing website.

    As a result, Internet providers in dozens of countries are required to block access to the site. This works well, but blocking measures are also quite easy to circumvent.

    Some people may resort to VPN services, for example, or replace the default DNS resolver provided by their ISP with independent alternatives. Dedicated ‘proxy’ sites have also become quite popular.

    These proxies act as a copy of The Pirate Bay, making the site accessible through an alternative domain name. These platforms are thorns in the sides of rightsholders, who fight back by adding proxy site domains to existing blocking orders targeting The Pirate Bay.

    This cat-and-mouse game inspired the development of sites that provide an overview of working Pirate Bay proxy sites. ‘The Proxy Bay’ is just one of many similar examples.

    Police Take proxybay.github.io Offline

    The Proxy Bay has been operating in the ‘proxy information’ niche for many years. Aside from its main domain name, it also uses a proxybay.github.io version, which is linked to the Microsoft-owned developer platform GitHub. This variant has also been available for years, but last month found itself abruptly pulled offline.

    The takedown was requested by City of London Police’s Intellectual Property Crime Unit ( PIPCU ). On behalf of music group BPI, PIPCU sent a takedown request to GitHub, alerting it to the alleged criminal activity taking place on its domain.

    “This site is in breach of UK law, namely Copyright, Design & Patents Act 1988, Offences under the Fraud Act 2006 and Conspiracy to Defraud,” PIPCU wrote.

    “Suspension of the domain(s) is intended to prevent further crime. Where possible we request that domain suspension(s) are made within 48 hours of receipt of this Alert,” the notice added.

    DMCA Counternotice

    GitHub honored the takedown request and proxybay.github.io was redirected to a 404 error. However, The Proxy Bay operator clearly disagreed with this decision and responded with a formal DMCA counternotice .

    “The person claiming DMCA doesn’t understand, that there is no content hosted on proxybay.github.com hence why it is wrong to send a DMCA request for it,” the site owner wrote.

    “There are no content/media of any kind hosted on proxybay.github.com, if there is – again ask mister DMCA robot to provide with exact links of media files which were infringed and I will be glad to remove them from repository.”

    dmca bay

    That ‘mister DMCA robot’ was none other than the UK police didn’t seem to impress The Proxy Bay operator. Since there are no links to copyrighted content, the domain should be reinstated, they argued.

    The legality of these sites can be debated. In the UK, thepirateproxybay.com and similar sites have been added to court-sanctioned blocklists in the past, making this a tricky situation when blended with DMCA notices relevant under United States law.

    GitHub Restores The Proxy Bay

    Despite the sensitivities, the DMCA counternotice was successful and this week GitHub decided to restore the domain and the site. As a result, proxybay.github.io is available once again to the public at large.

    proxy bay back on GitHub

    The reinstatement doesn’t mean that GitHub has taken sides. The DMCA simply dictates that disputed content has to be restored between 10 and 14 business days , unless the rightsholder takes legal action.

    Apparently, no legal action was taken in this case, so the logical response was to reenable the domain name.

    Interestingly, GitHub had an easy out if it wanted to keep The Proxy Bay offline. The counternotice listed the wrong domain name, as it referred to proxybay.github.com instead of proxybay.github.io. This .com domain doesn’t exist, which could render the DMCA takedown protest moot.

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

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      Pirate Bay Proxy Site Challenges Police DMCA Takedown at GitHub

      news.movim.eu / TorrentFreak · Thursday, 19 January, 2023 - 17:17 · 2 minutes

    pirate bay logo As one of the most notorious torrent sites, The Pirate Bay has been blocked by ISPs around the world.

    The UK was one of the first countries to do so more than a decade ago when the High Court ordered local ISPs to prevent users from accessing the site.

    These ISP blockades have ignited a cat-and-mouse game, with pirates actively looking for alternative routes to access the site. A popular option is ‘proxy’ sites, which allow access to The Pirate Bay through alternative URLs.

    ‘The Proxy Bay’ is a site that helps people to find these alternatives. The site doesn’t act as a proxy service directly but does provide an overview of available options elsewhere on the web.

    The legality of the service is up for debate but in the UK, thepirateproxybay.com and similar sites have been added to court-sanctioned blocklists.

    Police Alert GitHub

    Backed by this knowledge, City of London Police’s Intellectual Property Crime Unit (PIPCU) reached out to GitHub a few days ago. On behalf of music group BPI, PIPCU sent a takedown request to the Microsoft-owned company, alerting it to the alleged criminal activity taking place on its domain.

    As it turns out, one of the Proxy Bay sites used a GitHub subdomain at proxybay.github.com. According to the DMCA notice, this meant that GitHub could potentially be aiding criminal activity.

    “This site is in breach of UK law, namely Copyright, Design & Patents Act 1988, Offences under the Fraud Act 2006 and Conspiracy to Defraud,” PIPCU wrote.

    In response to the DMCA notice, GitHub swiftly disabled the domain, which now returns a 404 error instead. In most cases, that would effectively end the matter, but the Proxy Bay operator isn’t giving up just yet.

    Proxy Bay Files Counternotice

    A few hours ago, the operator of the site sent a DMCA counternotice to GitHub, arguing that PIPCU’s takedown request is wrong because there isn’t any copyright infringing content hosted on the site.

    “The person claiming DMCA doesn’t understand, that there is no content hosted on proxybay.github.com hence why it is wrong to send a DMCA request for it,” the site owner notes.

    “This is why companies like [private] and other reputable Domains Registrators like [private] ignore those fake DMCA claims submitted by bots which are just automatic submissions triggered by keywords.”

    dmca bay

    The counternotice doesn’t refer to the police directly but uses the term ‘mister DMCA robot’ instead. The notice asks for further clarification on the claimed infringements and notes that the operator is happy to remove content if needed.

    “There are no content/media of any kind hosted on proxybay.github.com, if there is – again ask mister DMCA robot to provide with exact links of media files which were infringed and I will be glad to remove them from repository.”

    Reinstated?

    The counternotice puts the ball back into PIPCU’s court. The police or the rightsholders they represent now have two weeks to file a lawsuit against The Proxy Bay operator. If that doesn’t happen, the DMCA prescribes that GitHub should restore the domain.

    In the past, we have seen that counternotice can indeed be effective. Three years ago, Popcorn Time challenged a DMCA takedown request from the Motion Picture Association. And indeed, two weeks later, GitHub restored the repository .

    Whatever the outcome, the counternotice clearly shows that The Proxy Bay isn’t giving up without a fight.

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

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      The W Pattern Forex Trading Guide For Beginner

      Alla Traders · Wednesday, 28 December, 2022 - 15:46 edit · 1 minute

    The double bottom or W pattern is the most prevalent chart pattern used in trading. In fact, this pattern is so common that it may be taken as irrefutable evidence by itself that price action is not as totally random as many say. The double bottom pattern is one of the very few that perfectly depicts the market’s direction changing. At the bottom of a downtrend, the double bottom forms itself, offering potential long entries for buyers.

    What Is A Double Bottom (W Pattern)?

    The double bottom pattern is a technical pattern that can be used to identify a likely reversal in the Forex market. The double bottom emerges after an extended move down and can be utilized to discover purchasing opportunities on the way up. Because of the two-touched low and the change in trend direction from downtrend to uptrend, the pattern resembles the letter “W.”

    see the complete blog here Alla Traders

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      “Pro Camcorder Pirate” Arrested in Govt, Police & UK Cinema Chain Operation

      news.movim.eu / TorrentFreak · Wednesday, 30 November, 2022 - 17:39 · 5 minutes

    liverpool cammer pipcu After two decades of perpetual battles with pirates, rightsholders and their anti-piracy partners are showing momentum.

    There’s no victory on the horizon, but a recent surge in collaborative efforts shows that pooled resources and combined skillsets are much more effective than costly lone missions.

    When law enforcement agencies support these initiatives thanks to direct government backing, opportunities for action can open up signficantly.

    Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit

    Significant rightsholders facing challenges in the UK can seek help from the fraud specialists at the Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit. Subsequent actions such as raids, arrests and investigations, are publicized to boost deterrent messaging.

    Other announcements carry too little information to warrant an article.

    Unlike PIPCU’s press releases, the tweet doesn’t offer an instant story on a plate. However, any mention of the Film Content Protection Agency (FCPA) is significant and all but confirms the arrest of a specific and important type of movie pirate.

    Cammers vs. Film Content Protection Agency

    By recording the latest movies directly from the silver screen using concealed devices, ‘cammers’ fuel the illicit piracy market that thrives during the first few days of a film’s initial release. Hollywood believes that these ‘cam’ copies cause significant damage to the cinema industry, an opinion shared by the UK’s Film Distributors’ Association .

    The Film Content Protection Agency (FCPA) mentioned by PIPCU is the FDA’s big-screen anti-piracy unit. It works hard to prevent UK camming incidents, but with over 4,500 screens nationwide, it’s impossible to monitor them all, all of the time. Events during the summer seem to have taken everyone by surprise

    An industry report seen by TorrentFreak reveals that in a three-month period starting in June, at least four movies were recorded in the UK during their theatrical release windows. We cannot confirm the titles of these movies but where they were recorded is more straightforward.

    Sources confirm that the copies were traced back to two multi-screen cinemas, both of them in Liverpool, the location mentioned by PIPCU.

    Movies Were Shared on TorrentGalaxy

    TorrentGalaxy (TGx) is among the top 10 most-visited torrent sites online today. TGx is an open platform with an active and lively community, a relative rarity in today’s streaming-dominated market. Competition among uploaders ensures that most content is uploaded quickly and since TGx is easy to navigate, many users consider it their online home.

    The issue facing the site today concerns the movies recorded in Liverpool. Whether every film recorded in those cinemas appeared on TGx first is unknown, but the site is clearly named as a key source for the cammed movies. Considering the potential for even more movies to appear, identifying the cammer was always the top priority.

    FDA & FCPA Call For Backup

    To assist anti-piracy groups, movies shown in cinemas are protected by forensic watermarks that persist in pirate copies. They can identify the cinema’s location, the screen where the recording took place, and a specific time.

    Some specifications claim to calculate recording distance and angle to identify where the camming pirate was sitting, but matching the recording time with CCTV footage or matching online booking records with pre-booked seats can also be effective.

    We’re informed that the suspected pirate in Liverpool was caught on security cameras with support from evidence obtained from ticketing/payment records. The FDA/FCPA investigation received support from PIPCU/City of London Police, the UK Government’s Intellectual Property Office, and unidentified cinema operators. The suspect never stood a chance.

    PIPCU & Organized Crime Unit Make Arrest

    The PIPCU tweet announcing the arrest was dated October 5, 2022, but we believe it occurred weeks earlier, around September 7th/8th/9th. Officers from PIPCU and the North West Regional Organised Crime Unit (NWROCU) arrested a man in his mid-twenties at an address just a few miles from Liverpool city center.

    How long the man has been in the UK isn’t clear but we’re informed that he was born in Eastern Europe. The suspect is further described as a professional videographer, an obvious eye-catcher under the circumstances, but other details are even more curious.

    We’re unable to go into specifics but we understand that a piece of recording hardware with wireless functionality raised suspicions of a connection to rogue online casino 1XBET. At this early stage, any allegations are no more than that, and no evidence is available to us to show any 1XBET links to the suspect, direct or otherwise.

    What can be easily verified is the huge number of 1XBET-branded releases indexed on TorrentGalaxy, the site identified as offering the movies recorded in Liverpool cinemas. To put things mildly, 1XBET is an extremely controversial brand in piracy circles but that’s just a small part of a much bigger story.

    1XBET’s Links to Piracy

    Over the past few years, 1XBET has become the star of its very own Netflix-worthy thriller. Russian authorities identified one of its operators as a former head of the Internal Affairs Directorate, a government department with responsibility for preventing cybercrime.

    Today, 1XBET remains synonymous with movie piracy. Advertising for 1XBET has appeared in thousands of pirate releases, most of them first-run movies. In one six month period alone, 1XBET ads appeared on 1,200 pirate sites and in 2019 the company was identified as having the third-largest advertising spend in Russia.

    The achievement was carefully noted by Hollywood and considering the MPA’s direct links to the UK’s FDA, yet more reports to the US Government seem likely.

    A 1XBET Office Pictured During a Raid 1xbet-office

    Three men connected to 1XBET remain international fugitives with Russian authorities still keen to discuss an estimated 63 billion rubles, more than US$1.1 billion at today’s rates, generated between October 2014 and May 2019 without appropriate licensing.

    High-Quality Cams Surprise Pirates

    The names of the movies allegedly recorded in Liverpool are currently unknown, so further research into their quality is impossible. What we can confirm is a relatively recent and surprising upturn in cammed copies with exceptional image quality. Some say these could be the best copies that have appeared, not just in years, but since camming began.

    Opinions are inherently subjective but there’s little doubt that Hollywood panic is directly linked to the quality of first-run pirate copies, and that quality is directly linked to the scale of any response.

    In the meantime we understand that the camming suspect has already appeared in court and is currently out on bail. Until he’s informed otherwise, he must stay away from every cinema in the country.

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

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      Pirate TV Box & Kodi Wizard Seller Who Made £2.3m Gets 30 Months in Prison

      news.movim.eu / TorrentFreak · Monday, 14 November, 2022 - 08:13 · 4 minutes

    kodi Starting in the early part of the last decade, large numbers of technically-minded individuals began selling piracy-configured set-top boxes to the public.

    Unlike many of their cohorts running torrent and streaming websites, many pirate box sellers conducted business in person and in broad daylight. With few measures in place to reduce the chances of arrest, the most brazen were always likely to be the most vulnerable.

    So-called ‘fully-loaded’ Android boxes were openly sold on eBay, Amazon, and other online platforms, while local markets, car boot sales, and dedicated retail units offered a same-day service. By mid-2015 it was common knowledge that the UK’s Police Intellectual Property Unit, Trading Standards, and Sky were teaming up to take sellers down yet a surprising number of sellers carried on regardless.

    New Marketing Strategy Changed Nothing

    AndroidSticks Ltd was incorporated in November 2013, with sole director Halton Powell describing his occupation as ‘Electronic Technician’. Almost immediately Powell was tackling his first intellectual property-related problem and in August 2014, AndroidSticks Ltd was sensibly renamed DroidSticks Ltd instead.

    The name change meant that Powell’s shop in London needed a new sign but online sales continued to grow, on eBay especially. In the summer of 2015, businesses operating in the same growing niche as DroidSticks were raided by PIPCU and Trading Standards . This prompted a marketing review at DroidSticks.

    droidsticks

    After deciding against closure, DroidSticks sent out a message on Twitter, hoping it would take the heat off the company. Piracy discussion would be banned in future, unless it took place elsewhere else. Xbmckodiaddons.com was specifically mentioned as a completely independent forum when DroidSticks advertised its June 2015 launch on Twitter. It was too little, and already too late.

    eBay Reported DroidSticks’ Sales

    Concerned by the number of pre-configured pirate boxes being sold on its platform, eBay had already drawn investigators’ attention to a seller account operated by DroidSticks. An investigation was launched in March 2015 and a month later, an undercover Sky investigator purchased a device from a shop owned by Powell in Chingford, Essex.

    DroidSticks boxes were sold with Kodi software pre-installed, which in itself is entirely legal. However, they also contained the ‘Droidsticks Wizard’, a configuration tool that installed add-ons enabling access to pirated streams of premium TV channels, including those owned by Sky.

    Meanwhile, BestforKodi.com – a site that DroidSticks promoted but denied any connection to – offered all the best tips and tricks while heavily promoting DroidSticks products.

    Powell Was Raided in June 2016

    A Crown Prosecution Report published on November 11, 2022, reveals that police searches in June 2016 uncovered 1,300 devices in a lock-up storage unit and 121 devices in Powell’s shop. PIPCI says that when Powell was interviewed, he answered “no comment” to all questions. That can be seen as a strategy to avoid self-incrimination but evidence elsewhere was not in short supply.

    When police reviewed Powell’s bank account it revealed that sales of 24,515 devices on eBay had generated £2,344,949. When Sky presented its assessment of losses due to Powell’s activities, the broadcaster pointed to potential losses of £13,826,460. When DroidSticks decided not to shut down and switched piracy discussions to the private forum instead, that was seen as a move to continue the fraud against Sky.

    Guilty Plea and a 30-Month Prison Sentence

    On November 11, 2022, at Southwark Crown Court, Powell (44) pleaded guilty to supplying articles for use in a fraud.

    According to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), he was sentenced to two years and four-and-a-half months imprisonment. PIPCI says he received a slightly longer sentence of two years and six months but both agree that Powell knew exactly what he was doing.

    “Powell attempted to hide the illegitimate nature of his business by concealing evidence that he was selling products pre-configured to stream Sky Sports and Sky Cinema. However, PIPCU officers were able to prove he was aware the set-top boxes were being used for this purpose by thousands of customers,” says Detective Sergeant Peter Gartland from PIPCU.

    CPS Specialist Prosecutor Sarah Place says that Powell was “ruthless in exploiting new emerging technology and software” and that he later helped customers to commit fraud with devices he’d configured for exactly that purpose.

    “He was devious in his subsequent efforts in providing instructions to customers to show how to set up the boxes and to provide answers to questions about this fraudulent activity,” Place says.

    Sky Welcomes Sentence, CPS Goes After The Money

    Thanking PIPCU for their work, Matt Hibbert, Sky’s Director of Anti-Piracy, says the length of Powell’s sentence shows that fraud is a significant crime, especially at this scale.

    “The financial sums involved and the length of the sentence handed down today underline the seriousness of this type of criminality. We’ll continue to work with law enforcement and our industry partners to protect consumers and take action against those organizations intent on stealing our content,” Hibbert says.

    Whether or not assets relating to Powell’s crimes still exist is unclear but the Crown Prosecution Service says it will commence proceedings for confiscation orders against any available assets.

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

    • chevron_right

      GitHub Domain Listed on Police Piracy Blacklist For The Last Four Months

      news.movim.eu / TorrentFreak · Saturday, 12 November, 2022 - 18:52 · 8 minutes

    github The ‘Infringing Website List’ (IWL) is operated by the Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit (PIPCU) in the UK under the banner ‘Operation Creative’.

    Launched in 2014 , its purpose is to disrupt pirate sites’ ability to make money when takedown notices and other efforts by the “private sector have had limited success.”

    The IWL is considered a proportionate response to rampant online piracy, and given the nature of most domains currently on the list, it would be foolish to argue otherwise. That said, the IWL is a completely closed system and as such there is close to zero public transparency.

    Pirate site domains are nominated for inclusion by rightsholder/anti-piracy groups such as the MPA, BPI, IFPI, Publishers Association, and FACT. Once the police have conducted their own investigations, any domain added to the IWL finds itself blacklisted by the advertising industry and then shared as part of the full list with other stakeholders, rightsholders, and anti-piracy groups.

    As the UK government noted in its 2020-2021 IP Crime Report ( pdf ) , “such sites are accepted for disruption,” meaning that for owners of domains on the list, which is integrated into numerous other databases for automated processing, nothing good lies ahead.

    The not-for-profit Internet Advertising Bureau , the industry body for digital advertising in the UK, advises its members that the IWL contains confirmed illegal domains. It is the responsibility of IAB UK members to ensure that no one does any business with any domain on the list – or else.

    “The IWL works as an inappropriate schedule and allows you to exclude known illegal sites from your ad buying, selling or trading,” IAB UK says. Similar advice is provided by the Gambling Commission, the official regulator for most types of gambling activities across Great Britain.

    “You must ensure that you do not place digital advertisements on websites providing unauthorized access to copyrighted content and must take all reasonable steps to ensure that third parties with whom you contract do similar,” the regulator warns .

    The suggestion here is that advertising entities not only have to ensure that their own conduct is impeccable but must also shoulder some responsibility for the conduct of others. This chaining of responsibility is not uncommon in business but the climate around the Infringing Website List is more loaded than others.

    Linking >>> Linking >>> Linking >>>

    The messaging is clear: if a domain appears on the IWL it is confirmed as illegal and most likely engaged in criminality. By extension, the operator of the domain is a suspected criminal. The police make this clear when they write to the owners of listed domains, warning of offenses under the Fraud Act 2006, Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988, and even the Serious Crimes Act 2007.

    At this point we’d like to make it absolutely clear that, as far as we can determine, most of the domains on the list do seem linked to infringing activity. And, in most cases, the listed domains appear to have no real purpose than to infringe copyright. That’s exactly the type of domain the IWL was intended to accomodate.

    That raises the question of why the Microsoft-owned domain Github.io was added to the Infringing Website List on June 28, 2022, and has remained there ever since. Importantly the culprit is not Microsoft or GitHub, but a user of the latter. It appears the Github user created a repository on Github pages containing information on how to gain access to The Pirate Bay and that was determined to be a crime.

    The page, published in the usual username.github.io format, doesn’t contain any infringing content and doesn’t link to any infringing content. It does link to other domains that in turn provide proxy access to the front page of The Pirate Bay, but that doesn’t carry links to any infringing content either.

    Elsewhere on The Pirate Bay, embedded magnet links do link to IP addresses offering infringing content, but users still have to fire up a torrent client to find out.

    But the IWL Entry Also Adds a Github.io Subdomain?

    The individual who discovered Github.io on the “never do business” list is responsible for implementing the list in their line of work. They think that the IWL is a good idea and had previously blacklisted all main domains plus their extensions and subdomains for the sake of simplicity.

    That approach was prompted by a) some domains on the list having multiple infringing subdomains and b) sites operating a mobile version on a subdomain but not having their main domain listed on the IWL, despite carrying exactly the same content. Some decisions are easier than others but blacklisting the entire Github.io domain was an entirely different proposal.

    Perceived Threats to Business and Livelihoods

    The underlying problem is a genuine concern that under-blocking could lead to severe consequences for people in the advertising chain. A report published in 2021 by French anti-piracy agency Hadopi reveals why some in the industry are apprehensive.

    “A PIPCU contractor (Pathmatics) monitors [sites on the IWL], using dedicated software (AdRoutes) to trace the chain of advertisers that place ads on the site. It informs any non-partner advertisers that they may be regarded as accomplices in the infringement of intellectual property law,” Hadopi’s report reads ( pdf ) .

    “PIPCU has contacted the authority responsible for issuing gambling and betting licences (the Gambling Commission). The latter has informed licensees that their licence could be revoked if they advertise on illegal websites.”

    The IWL is Considered Secret, Police Refuse to Comment

    Over the years, reporters and other interested parties have filed Freedom of Information Act requests to learn more about the IWL, but with few results.

    “All sites on IWL are identified and evidenced as infringing by rights holders and then verified by PIPCU. We are not making the IWL public. The List will be ever changing as new sites appear and older sites comply,” one response reads.

    Another, which asked PIPCU to supply evidence to back up claims that the IWL is “successful”, received the response: “No information held.”

    In 2021, however, the College of Policing requested information and received the following in return;

    Criteria For Blacklisting Are ‘Confidential’

    It would be useful to know what prompted police to add Github.io’s subdomain and domain to the IWL when it’s obvious that less aggressive options exist. We’ll never know because as Hadopi’s report notes, “the criteria used by the police are confidential.”

    We could speculate that since several domains with ‘proxybay’ in their URLs are already blocked by UK ISPs due to a court order concerning The Pirate Bay, proxybay.github.io may have been considered a legitimate target.

    Other domains with ‘proxybay’ in their URLs – proxy-bay.dev, proxy-bay.co and proxybay.center – are also listed on the IWL but a) none of them currently link to pirate sites and b) proxybay.github.io is not blocked in the UK.

    Given that high standards need to be met for a domain to be blocked in the UK, there is zero chance that the High Court would knowingly authorize a GitHub domain to be blocked by ISPs, unless other options had been exhausted first. The IWL blacklist seems more straightforward but according to Hadopi’s report, it shouldn’t be.

    To be included on the IWL, domains reported by rightsholders must be “massively infringing” to the extent that 50% of their content must be illegal. That doesn’t apply to Github. And here’s more ‘fun’ for the “massively infringing” dev platform:

    “When a website is added to the list, a letter is also sent to the relevant registrar or to the organization that manages the extension under which the domain name is registered, requesting that the domain name be suspended,” the report notes.

    Perhaps for obvious legal reasons, that hasn’t happened in GitHub’s case, but voluntary agreements that go beyond normal legal requirements can make things harder to predict.

    The Uncertainty of ‘Soft Law’

    Other matters involving proxybay.github.io include this Australian court order sent to Google. It does not order Google to do anything, it simply prompts Google to remove GitHub’s subdomain/domain from its search results based on an earlier agreement.

    In 2019, Google reached a voluntary agreement with local ISPs and rightsholders to deindex domains from google.com.au if they have been blocked under Australian law. Similar voluntary arrangements exist in Europe too. Their existence had to be discovered, they were not publicly announced.

    Voluntary Agreements Gain Momentum

    In GitHub’s case, the company complies with actual legal requests under U.S. law, in this case the DMCA. As far as we can determine, from the full list of complaints that Github always makes public, the platform was not even sent a basic DMCA notice before a domain it owns was placed on the blacklist.

    GitHub probably won’t be too alarmed about advertising issues on GitHub.io but being branded potentially criminal, over a page they didn’t create, that links to other sites, which in turn link to another site, which is freely available in the U.S., probably isn’t ideal. Not knowing that your domain is even on the list brings a whole new set of problems.

    Whether The Pirate Bay or facilitating proxies should actually be available in the U.S. is another matter but, should that ever be contested in court, trust-building transparency will feature in all legal proceedings, meaning that at a bare minimum, people will know where they stand.

    Infringing Website Lists are gaining momentum all around the world and they are a black hole as far as public information is concerned. Countries including the UK, Italy, Germany, Spain, Indonesia, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Vietnam, and Taiwan, either have them already or are currently building them.

    We’d certainly be interested in hearing more about their operations moving forward because copyright holders view these as the future. They may have good intentions but more often than not, the public simply isn’t allowed in.

    Additional note: The IWL also includes subdomains/domains of other companies and organizations that are known to respond to straightforward takedown requests, if their users breach copyright law:

    Sapo.pt: Search engine and portal operated by the University of Aveiro in Portugal
    Free.fr: The website of French Internet service provider Free
    Blogspot.com: Google blogging platform
    Blogspot.pt: As above (Portugal)
    Blogspot.it: As above (Italy)

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