Plex is a multifunctional media software and service that allows users to easily access all of their entertainment in one place.

The company was founded in 2009 and today boasts more than 25 million users globally, making Plex a serious player in the streaming market.

Plex Pirates

Most people use the service to access streaming content legitimately. On the fringes, however, some users abuse the software to share pirate libraries publicly, a considerable thorn in the side for rightsholders.

Plex is not oblivious to the ‘piracy’ threat. The company is actively working with rightsholders to offer legal entertainment and abuse of its platform only stands in the way. To address this problem, it’s taking countermeasures.

Last summer Plex surprised users by actively blocking media servers hosted at the large German company Hetzner. These were, purportedly, often used to share pirated material and an outright ban would end this unauthorized activity.

Plex Takes Down “Plex-reshare” Repo

This week, Plex took another step to deter potential copyright infringement. The Swiss company, which is headquartered in the U.S., asked GitHub to remove a “ Plex Reshare ” repository, alleging that it may contribute to its piracy problem.

“Plex Reshare” doesn’t host any copyright-infringing material and, as far as we’ve seen, it doesn’t reference any either. Its main purpose is to allow Plex users to make shared Plex directories browsable on the web, which allows people to “reshare” them without being the original owner.

“The reason behind this project is to make available your PLEX shares to other friends unrelated to the person who owns the original library,” Plex Reshare developer Peter explains.

While the repository doesn’t host or link to copyright-infringing material, Plex argues that it can be used to ‘grow’ piracy.

“We have found infringing material in your website which indeed is OTHER ‘Plex Server’. The material that is claimed to be infringing is to be removed or access to which is to be disabled immediately and avoid the growth of piracy,” the takedown notice reads.

The first part of the sentence is somewhat confusing. Plex-reshare is not a Plex server but the company may use “OTHER Plex Server” as an internal classification category. In any case, Plex alleges that the repository can contribute to the growth of piracy on its platform.

Liability for?

Citing the Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act, Plex urges GitHub to take immediate action, or else it may be held liable. It’s not clear what this liability claim rests on, as there are no actual copyright infringements mentioned in the takedown notice.

Despite the broad nature of this claim, GitHub has indeed taken the repository offline, replacing it with a DMCA takedown reference . This likely wasn’t a straightforward decision as GitHub is known to put developers first with these types of issues.

In this case, it took more than three weeks before GitHub took action, which is much longer than usual. This suggests that GitHub allowed the developer to respond and may have sought legal advice from in-house lawyers, to ensure that the rights of all parties are properly considered.

GitHub doesn’t provide any context on its takedown decision, so it remains guesswork as to what grounds GitHub complied. The end result, however, is the removal of the repository from GitHub.

Plex might not be done yet though. The Plex-reshare code isn’t just available on GitHub, the same project is listed on Docker Hub as well, where it remains available at the time of writing.

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

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On January 1, 2024, TorrentFreak published a review of the wrongful DMCA notices filed against us in 2023, either directly via email or at Google demanding deindexing of our articles.

Our small request for 2024 was not unreasonable: stop sending us bogus copyright notices. At the start of 2023, anti-piracy outfits managed to leave us alone for almost three weeks but this year couldn’t manage 24 hours. On January 2, we received another bogus complaint from DigiGuardians, followed by a second on January 3, and four more in the space of one minute on Thursday.

In total the notices demand the removal of 206 URLs that allegedly link to pirated movies. We can’t help in any way; none of the links have anything to do with us, they’re not even on our domain. South American news site Hollogram TV informs TF that their copyright complaint problems relate to just two URLs, but the consequences for them could be much more severe.

Streaming News and Reviews

Reaching out to a South American audience, Hollogram TV launched in 2019 and today covers all aspects of the streaming market. Today’s front page has articles about Roku, Amazon Music, Crunchyroll, PlutoTV, and HBO Max, among others, plus a handful of piracy-related stories that inevitably play a role in the sector.

On January 2, the administrator of Hollogram found that access to various functions on Facebook had been limited due to a copyright complaint. Filed by India-based anti-piracy outfit Markscan, the complaint listed two posts on Facebook claiming they both infringe IP rights owned by Plex GmBH, one of the companies behind the client/server media system of the same name.

Both posts, allegedly Facebook shares of articles previously published on the main Hollogram site, were deleted by Facebook, pushing Hollogram towards repeat infringer status and potentially even a ban.

Stories like these are all too common, but several factors convinced us to take a much closer look; Markscan involvement in yet another controversial takedown, infringement allegations against news reports, the possibility that Plex targeted the articles for non-copyright reasons, and if we don’t dig into these things, who will?

Trademark Infringement

Markscan is currently filing seemingly endless requests on behalf of Plex against huge numbers of URLs, requesting deindexing from Google search under trademark law . Whether sites offer clean downloads of Plex, modified versions, or simply use the Plex logo for other reasons, takedowns like these are the end result ( 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 ) .

A cursory review of these complaints does indeed reveal clear instances of trademark infringement due to the presence of Plex marks in scenarios where that’s likely to cause consumer confusion. However, there’s also no shortage of takedowns that make little sense under any IP law.

For example, GitHub user ‘axlecrusher’ maintains a repo containing links to old installers for Plex Media Server. Every URL links to the official software installers hosted on the official Plex.tv domain, but the repo was reported for infringement nonetheless.

So, copyright infringement against Hollogram TV, potential trademark infringement, or something else?

Let’s Talk About Plex

In an article published on the main site this week, Hollogram explained that the articles taken down from Facebook were actually news reports featuring Plex. TorrentFreak took a closer look and found that to be quite the understatement. Both articles reported positive news related to Plex, based on information released to the media by Plex itself.

Around the dates the articles were published, in November 2021 and August 2022 respectively, dozens of substantially similar articles on a similar number of sites were reporting exactly the same news.

Indeed, both of the articles published by Hollogram (originals in Spanish, translated below) cite other publications as the source; Plex adds CiNDiE Lite and adds 200 channels worldwide ( Cord Cutters News ) and Plex News: New Music Channels and Spanish Channel for the United States ( Fierce Video )

At this point we were fairly confident that the articles as they appear on Hollogram do not infringe copyright and the likelihood of a successful trademark claim would be a) vanishingly small and b) convince news sites to write about almost anything else in future.

Plex definitely wouldn’t want that yet the articles were still taken down by MarkScan.

Plex: Articles on Hollogram ‘Seem Fine’

While seeking several pieces of additional information directly from Plex on Thursday, we took the opportunity to share the original articles published on Hollogram. In advance of an official statement, a provisional brief comment indicated that the articles “seem fine.” Interesting.

However, we were further informed that the actual Facebook posts “were flagged for a reason” but one that couldn’t be immediately confirmed because the posts had been taken down from Facebook. Plex suggested that MarkScan might have the relevant information, but that could take 24 hours to arrive, i.e late on Friday, just before this article was published.

Since stories have a tendency to die when waiting for comments late on Fridays, we needed to obtain at least two more things; evidence of the posts showing how they appeared on Facebook and something official to show why the posts were deleted.

Using the Google Search cache ( archive copy ) we managed to recover one of the Facebook posts, minus the image. Using Google Image’s cache we were able to recover the missing image and prove it appeared in the Facebook post. We also obtained the takedown notification from Facebook which clearly states that a copyright claim was the culprit.

When Plex obtains the information from MarkScan on the second article, we’ll post an update here. In any event, it seems unlikely that a copyright claim would be the suitable mechanism for these takedowns.

Live update: No response from Plex but we have now obtained the Facebook notifications related to the takedown of the second article. Once again, the article was removed for allegedly infringing Plex copyrights.

At this point one begins to question whether a different dispute fueled these takedowns. Strangely, there’s a suggestion that may even be the case.

Hollogram informs TF that in a message on Facebook, MarkScan suggested that the site was targeted because it “promotes copyright infringing services.” Hollogram vehemently denies that allegation but even if that was true, DMCA takedown notices need to be very specific in respect of the content allegedly infringed, and the location of the allegedly infringing content.

We’ll reserve judgment for now but these posts/articles show no signs of copyright infringement and that’s a real concern.

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

Plex is a multifunctional media software and service that allows users to easily access all of their entertainment in one place.

The company was founded in 2009 and today boasts 16 million active monthly streaming users, making Plex a serious market player.

Most people use the service for perfectly legitimate purposes. On the fringes, however, some users abuse the software to share pirate libraries publicly, a considerable thorn in the side for rightsholders.

A few weeks ago Plex announced that it would take action against abusive practices. In an apparent attempt to stop widespread copyright infringement, the service announced that it would ban servers hosted at Hetzner, as these are frequently linked to terms of service violations.

Plex never confirmed that copyright infringement concerns were behind this decision, but that would be the most logical explanation. The company is focusing more and more on offering legal streaming media and would like to shake off copyright infringement associations.

ZUMA Press Sues Plex

Although Plex hasn’t been sued by any major Hollywood players, the company is currently involved in a peculiar copyright infringement lawsuit.

A few weeks ago, ZUMA Press filed a complaint at a federal court in California, accusing Plex of using a photo of actress Cuca Escribano on its website, without permission. The photo was shot by Jose Perez Gegundez who typically licenses it to third parties for a fee.

Plex allegedly used the photo without permission, which the photographer’s licensing partner ZUMA Press discovered in April of last year.

“Without permission or authorization from Plaintiff, Defendant volitionally copied and/or displayed Plaintiff’s copyright protected Photograph on the Website,” the complaint reads.

Photo Removed

At the time of writing the photo is no longer hosted on Plex’s website or server but an exhibit shared by the plaintiffs shows that this was the case previously. The same photo is still in use by The Movie DB, one of Plex’s data suppliers.

ZUMA Press alerted Plex to the alleged copyright infringement on March 2 this year. Whether that was a simple takedown notice or whether there were further demands attached isn’t clear, but the press agency wasn’t happy.

“Plaintiff, via counsel, served a letter by electronic mail to Defendant seeking to address the complaints contained herein concerning Defendant’s infringement of Plaintiff’s rights-protected works, to no avail,” the complaint reads.

Plex has yet to respond to the complaint but it seems likely that the company would like to resolve this matter without much fanfare. As the Hetzner ban shows, the company has little interest in copyright controversies.

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A copy of the complaint is available here (pdf) . Plex is expected to file a response later this month. There is just one photo mentioned in the lawsuit, which means that the potential damages are limited

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

Plex is a multifunctional media software and service that allows users to easily access all their entertainment in one place.

Whether it’s movies, music, TV-shows, or photos, Plex can organize and index, making the content ready to stream on a wide variety of supported devices.

The technology itself is content-neutral and can be used for good, such as curating home videos or enriching purchased media with metadata. The not so good can include building an archive of entirely copyright-infringing content and then sharing via a Plex server with other people, sometimes for a fee.

Rightsholders are aware of this abuse and have taken action in response. Many shared servers have been shut down as a result and, in at least one instance, the owner was tracked down. Despite these enforcement efforts, the problem persists.

Plex is not happy with this abuse. The company is actively working with rightsholders to offer legal entertainment and abuse of its platform only stands in the way. It appears that yesterday Plex decided to take action.

Plex Bans Problematic Host

In an email to customers who run Plex servers at the large German hosting company Hetzner, Plex said that access will be blocked next month. It’s not clear if Hetzner is the only hosting company this applies to, but several customers confirmed that they received the same email.

Plex’s notice doesn’t mention Hetzner by name, nor is piracy cited as the reason. The email simply refers to violations of its Terms of Service.

“You’re receiving this notice because the IP address associated with a Plex Media Server on your account appears to come from a service provider that hosts a significant number of Plex Media Servers that violate our Terms of Service,” the Plex email reads.

“Due to the large-scale violations occurring from that hosting provider, we will be taking action soon to block access and activity from Plex Media Servers hosted by that provider.”

Plex’s blanket hosting provider ban could also affect legitimate customers. Apparently, such a drastic measure is warranted to address the ongoing violations.

TorrentFreak reached out to Plex for more details but the company didn’t immediately reply. The most logical explanation is that this is an effort to deter piracy, by banning one or more hosting providers where this type of abuse is prevalent.

Hetzner can’t comment in detail on the issue but the hosting company is clearly disappointed.

“We can’t say much about this, except that we very much regret the action taken by Plex,” Hetzner’s spokesperson Christian Fitz says.

Sledgehammer Approach

In the Plex forums, many users report that they use Hetzner’s servers for non-infringing uses, including storing their legitimate personal media collections.

“I received this notice, presumably because I have a server on Hetzner. It contains my music library. It has no pirated material. And I don’t share the server with anyone else, I’m the only user,” one commenter writes .

Another Plex user describes it as an “incredibly poor solution”. It essentially punishes a large group of legitimate customers with a “sledgehammer approach” that will lead to a perpetual whack-a-mole.

“Those that are abusing the service will simply move somewhere else and Plex will just end up playing whack-a-mole blocking access to more hosting companies,” the Plex user writes .

VPN Proxy

Interestingly, there are also people say that they don’t use Hetzner to host a Plex server at all. Instead, they use its services as a VPN to shield the location of their actual Plex server. However, that won’t prevent these VPN proxies from being targeted.

While we’re not privy to the exact actions Plex will take, it will likely ban the hosting company’s IP addresses. This means that customers can switch to another provider and use that as a VPN gateway instead.

These and other workarounds are actively being shared on Reddit . This includes the use of a third-party VPN to hide that a server is actually being hosted at Hetzner.

In recent years, copyright holders have repeatedly requested Plex to take more action against piracy. This recent change appears to be yet another step in that direction and, workarounds or not, it likely won’t be the last.

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

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Plex demande à ses utilisateurs de modifier leur mot de passe après une éventuelle violation de données. Une entité tierce a pu accéder aux adresses e-mail, aux noms d'utilisateur et aux mots de passe chiffrés des utilisateurs.

Plex : pourquoi vous devez changer de mot de passe maintenant ?

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