For a long time, pirate site blocking was regarded as a topic most U.S. politicians would rather avoid.

This remnant of the SOPA defeat drove copyright holders to focus on blocking efforts in other countries instead.

Those challenging times are now more than a decade old, and momentum is shifting. After more than forty countries around the world instituted site-blocking measures, U.S. lawmakers may be more receptive to revisiting the topic.

This week, MPA Chairman and CEO Charles Rivkin announced that the movie industry group is going to work with Members of Congress to enact judicial site-blocking legislation in the United States. The RIAA will likely join this effort, as music industry groups have joined similar blocking efforts in other countries too.

The site-blocking quest is undoubtedly going to fill plenty of headlines in the U.S. media, as it remains a hot topic. That’s quite a contrast to what we see in other countries, including the UK, where similar measures have been in place for many years.

UK Site Blocking Lull

Following requests from movie studios, record labels, publishers, sports leagues and broadcasters, hundreds of websites are blocked in the UK today. This translates to many thousands of domain names, as proxy sites and backup domains are also included. The precise number of websites and associated domains, including their variants and IP addresses, is difficult to report accurately due to a lack of official documentation; certainly, the shifting nature of dynamic blocking doesn’t make reporting any easier.

The UK mainstream press hasn’t shown much interest in the topic in recent years. When the MPA obtained the first-ever blocking order against a cyberlocker two years ago, the BBC didn’t even mention it .

Meanwhile, UK blocking efforts have expanded considerably, not just by numbers, but also in scope. Without any public announcement, search engine Google joined the effort and since 2022, the company has voluntarily removed domain names from UK search results if these are covered by existing ISP blocking orders.

We uncovered these Google delistings by accident and the involved parties subsequently confirmed this blocking expansion. However, Google itself remained quiet for a long time, perhaps due to its previous anti-blocking stance .

17,317 Flagged URLs

Google’s delisting of pirate sites in the UK remains ongoing today. There are no official announcements on this front, but the search engine’s transparency reports published by Lumen provide some insight into this activity.

For example, we can see that music industry group BPI reported 1,470 pirate site URLs to Google this month, asking the company to delist them entirely. The BPI added the relevant court orders to all requests and Google complied by removing most domains from its UK search results.

Looking further back, we can see that BPI has asked Google to delist 17,317 URLs from its search engine over the past two years. These requests are separate from regular takedown notices, as the full domains are completely removed from search results.

Inflated Numbers

The 17,317 figure is significant but requires nuance. It includes various proxy subdomains as well as subdomains of stream-ripping services. The latter are used to actively evade Google removals and site-blocking itself.

In addition, the BPI has a habit of occasionally double-listing domain names in their requests, or submitting identical domain names in multiple requests. This further inflates the totals.

Caveats aside, it’s probably safe to say that thousands of domain names have been delisted by Google in response to site-blocking orders. These domains provide, or at least used to provide, access to hundreds of pirate sites. This includes The Pirate Bay and many of its proxies, which have been completely stripped from Google’s top results in the UK.

Needless to say; if site-blocking legislation eventually makes its way to the United States, we can expect to see similar efforts there. However, we don’t think that will happen so quietly.

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

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.

Three years ago, Canada’s Federal Court of Appeal upheld the first pirate site-blocking order in the country.

The landmark decision opened the door to additional and more advanced blocking requests. Indeed, it didn’t take long before NHL broadcasters asked the court for a pirate streaming blocking order of their own.

This NHL blocking action was followed by a FIFA World Cup blocking order , which was also granted without further hassle. Following up on these successes, sports rightsholders added MLB among their targets.

These blocking injunctions were not filed in isolation. Instead, the interlocutory orders are part of lawsuits against the operators of the pirate streaming servers. On paper, the goal of the lawsuits is to pursue claims against these defendants and the blockades are a temporary measure to limit the damage these services cause.

This approach made sense, as filing a lawsuit simply for blocking purposes wasn’t common. However, after several injunctions were granted over the past three years, change is on the horizon.

NHL, NBA and Premier League Piracy Blockade

Last Friday, rightsholders including Bell, Fubo TV, Rogers, and The Sports Network, filed a notice of application at Canada’s Federal Court. This time, they seek an order requiring Internet providers to block live streams of NHL, NBA, and Premier League games.

This is a notable change compared to earlier blocking requests, which all focused on single sports. Combining multiple sports leagues and events makes sense, the rightsholders argue, as the targeted piracy servers typically offer a broad selection of sports as well.

“This process is also more efficient for the parties and the Court than initiating separate proceedings for each professional sports league and every time new content is broadcast…,” the rightsholders write in their application.

This isn’t the only change in this blocking proceeding. The defendants, the protected content, and the procedural blocking approach are also subject to change.

Defendants Unlimited?

None of the blocking targets listed in the application includes a name. Instead, it targets three “John Doe” defendants who are identified by their IP addresses. These addresses were offering pirated sports streams in the past.

The IP addresses are not linked to a single service. They appear to be used by several piracy operations, including publicly available pirate streaming site ‘epllive.net’ and paid subscription platforms including ‘TVSmarters’ which are mentioned by name.

Before requesting this blockade, the rightsholders identified thousands of illicit streaming instances. They subsequently alerted the associated hosting providers, asking them to forward the notices to their customers, but that didn’t yield the desired response.

With seemingly no other viable option to target the problem, the rightsholders believe that a blocking order is warranted. Notably, this applies to the three “John Doe” defendants, but also “Other John Doe Respondents” who are linked to streaming servers for which the IP addresses are not mentioned.

“The other John Doe Respondents are other unidentified persons unknown to the Applicants who operate Unauthorized Streaming Servers providing unauthorized access in Canada to Protected Live Content, and that are located at a large number of IP addresses that change continuously,” the rightsholders write.

This means that there could, in theory, be thousands of IP addresses that are subject to the request. Not just that, the list can change over time because rightsholders are seeking a “dynamic” injunction.

New ‘Streamlined’ Blocking Approach

Thus far, all Canadian site-blocking measures have come in the form of interlocutory injunctions as part of ongoing legal procedures against the alleged pirate operators. That’s about to change as well, if the recent request is granted.

The court previously noted that the lawsuits against the operators lingered on while the blocking orders were in place. To address this, and streamline the blocking procedure, the rightsholders now request a permanent and final injunction.

“The Applicants seek a permanent injunction in order to bring finality to the proceedings and propose to proceed by way of application instead of by action, as it is a more streamlined process,” they write.

‘Flexible’ Blockades Covering ‘Future’ Content

This procedural “streamlining” and the fact that multiple sports leagues are covered in the application are clear deviations from earlier blocking requests. However, it doesn’t end there. Other tweaks could have broad implications too.

For example, the proposed order doesn’t only apply to content that’s listed in the application. If the rightsholders acquire new content in the future, that may be added in as well, expanding the blocking scope.

A broad injunction would make it possible to add new seasons for existing sports leagues, but also completely new sports, or other content for which they obtain the rights in the coming two years.

“This process is also more efficient for the parties and the Court than initiating separate proceedings for each professional sports league and every time new content is broadcast and/or when the Applicants secure new rights,” the rightsholders add.

One Universal IP-address Blocklist

If granted, the blockades will only be active for specified time windows surrounding the live sports events. This is similar to earlier injunctions and in part put in place to prevent overblocking.

However, another key change is that the rightsholders now ask for a single IP-address blocklist during all ‘live’ windows, regardless of whether that server was previously used to stream pirated broadcasts of the specific event.

“Given that the same IP addresses are associated with the infringement of multiple sporting leagues and events, the use of a common IP address list for blocking would be more efficient in implementing the Order sought,” they write.

The above logically means that an IP address that streamed pirated copies of an NBA game will also be blocked during Premier League matches.

Overall, it is clear that the rightsholders are trying to make the blocking process more streamlined and efficient, while also expanding the scope of the process.

The application has yet to be approved by the Federal Court. The rightsholders hope that, by abridging the deadlines, an order will be issued before the current sports seasons end. Several ISPs have indicated that they don’t plan to object, but others still have room to do so, which could slow down the proceeding.

—

A copy of the Application filed at the Federal Court by Rogers, Bell, Fubo, et al. is available here (pdf)

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

Since its official launch at the start of February 1, 2024, much has been said and written about Italy’s ‘Piracy Shield’ IPTV blocking system.

Yet, by volume, telecoms regulator AGCOM and key beneficiary Serie A, Italy’s top-tier football league, haven’t said very much at all.

In separate articles published in Italian media last weekend, a reason for the lack of participation is made clear; few articles published online offer credible information and most don’t focus on the right issues.

In a piece written by AGCOM commissioner Massimiliano Capitanio himself, we learn that articles published about Piracy Shield demonstrate “very little discernment” and prefer to use ‘anonymous web users’ as sources rather than information provided officially.

It’s the “classic reasoning that fuels fake news,” Capitanio explains.

Serie A CEO Luigi De Siervo believes that the overblocking of Cloudflare was blown out of all proportion; an event that, according to official sources of information, didn’t happen at all but then, after reconsideration weeks later, did happen, but on such a small scale it was hardly worth mentioning.

“Journalists Have Overlooked a Fundamental Fact”

Something on which Capitanio and De Siervo both agree is the importance of reporting the numbers. Not those related to increased interest in subscription TV packages available from local broadcasters, but those related to the number of domains and IP addresses blocked by Piracy Shield.

“No pirate can sleep peacefully,” De Siervo told Corriere.it.

“In just sixty days, more than ten thousand illegal sites have already been blocked. The system works: we frequent Telegram chats where pirates exchange information and we know that there is excitement after the advent of the platform.”

Capitanio believes this important “fundamental fact” regarding the scale of blocking has been overlooked by journalists; “a monstrous number that should deserve eight column headlines” because it proves the platform actually works. “Maybe for some it works too well,” he adds.

SCOOP: THE BIG BLOCKING NUMBERS

It’s important to note that Piracy Shield advocates use different, shifting terminology than their critics. So, before looking at the BIG NUMBERS everyone has overlooked, a quick reminder that comparing like-for-like is extremely important.

De Siervo’s claim, that 10,000 illegal sites have been blocked, is as close to official information as it gets. Unfortunately, it’s completely untrue. There is a world of difference between an illegal site being blocked and an IP address or domain/subdomain being blocked.

Here, De Siervo took the number of domains/subdomains blocked by Piracy Shield, which are counted individually even if they relate to the same main domain, and then added them to the number of IP addresses blocked, even though many relate to domains/subdomains, so have already been counted.

These figures can be reported separately as domains and/or IP addresses blocked, but they can’t be added together, scrubbed of their identity, and then be relabeled as “illegal sites.” In a news article for public consumption, most people will believe that 10,000 sites have been blocked; here’s why that is a dangerous assumption.

Dynamically Generated Sub-Domains

The ‘ticket’ below represents a rightsholder blocking request filed at Piracy Shield. It targets subdomains of the partially redacted main domain names megahxxxxxxx, leadcxxxxxxx, mexxxxxxxx, and mexxxxxxxx.

These subdomains, such as pdvsvvp, yzzazup and zwjntqj, are generated by IPTV services at will. A unique subdomain could be generated for each subscriber of the service, or 1,000 subdomains, 100,000, or even a million subdomains, could be generated for other reasons linked to blocking circumvention.

As reported in January, Sky TV in the UK faces the same issue. After obtaining a court order that targeted around half a dozen IPTV providers, subdomains/domains like those shown below became a target for blocking.

In the Piracy Shield blocking ticket, the URLs contain a main domain and one subdomain. In the sample relating to Sky blocking, one main domain and two subdomains. These subdomains are almost infinitely variable and can be generated, disappeared, and regenerated at will, at zero cost to the provider.

More Subdomains Coming Up

By January, the number of subdomains blocked by the Premier League, relating to roughly six IPTV providers per the court order, exceeded 4,500. As far as we’re able to determine, since then, another 4,600+ have been blocked, leading to a grand total of ~9,100 domain/subdomains (FQDN) blocked for roughly six IPTV providers.

In Serie A success-story parlance, this would amount to the blocking of 9,100 illegal sites and a gross misrepresentation of events on the ground. Domain terminology can’t be dismissed as unimportant or talk simply for geeks, it’s the basis for a sensible discussion.

That being said, the number of domains and IP addresses blocked proves almost nothing. A 2021 report published by the EUIPO estimated there were 5,000 sites offering live sports in Europe alone.

If that number doubled since then, and it probably has, Piracy Shield would’ve blocked them all in two months. But blocking an illegal site is not the same as blocking IP addresses and subdomains, regardless of what official information sources claim.

Not Cloned or Hacked Although AGCOM Was Hacked a Bit

As noted by AGCOM, journalists have been relying on their own sources to report on Piracy Shield since February. The regulator paints these sources as unreliable and anonymous but, in the absence of official information for almost that entire period, most journalists reported to the best of their ability.

The articles featuring official information from Capitanio and De Siervo both touch on a story broken here at TF ; the unexpected appearance of alleged Piracy Shield source code and confidential documentation on GitHub.

In comments to Corriere, De Siervo is extremely clear: “It is not true that the source code of the platform was cloned.”

In his article published by Agendadigitale.eu, Capitanio writes that “some confidential information was only released on Github, a site used mainly by developers, which, in any case, did not affect [Piracy Shield’s] functioning at all.”

In case the message isn’t clear, Capitanio is unequivocal: “Piracy Shield was absolutely not hacked.”

De Siervo, however, suggests there might have been a bit of hacking, but not really that much, and in any event, use of the word AGCOM and Piracy Shield may (or may not) be interchangeable

“The hackers only breached the first level of protection of the AGCOM website. The security of the platform is not compromised at all,” he told Corriere.

In fact, Piracy Shield is so good, De Siervo says foreign countries want to buy it.
(Note: this statement is from an official source)

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

From the moment Italian authorities announced they would build the most ambitious anti-piracy blocking system ever seen, it was clear that only controversy lay ahead. All that remained to be seen was when, at what scale, and how any chaos would be managed.

Predictably, overblocking was an immediate problem, with blunders against Zenlayer and Cloudflare sounding alarm bells early on.

Arguably of greater concern was the dramatic shift in behavior displayed by telecoms regulator AGCOM and the sports rightsholders set to benefit most from the system. Constant media appearances that bemoaned piracy and boasted the prowess of the incoming Piracy Shield system leading up to its launch, gave way to almost complete radio silence when everything began to go south.

From that low point, further deterioration ensued. Attacks on the press for telling the truth , public statements that everything was running to plan, and a refusal to commit to a level of transparency that would allow those wrongfully affected to exercise their right to complain. More recently AGCOM has been rejecting legitimate complaints concerning Cloudflare overblocking; in some cases the reasons for rejection are directly linked to AGCOM’s own failure to publish relevant information.

ASSOProvider’s Stand and Subsequent Reward

ASSOProvider is an association representing the interests of more than 200 small to medium-sized companies and ISPs in the Italian internet and telecoms sector. It’s perhaps the most vocal critic of Piracy Shield and the law that supports it, including the requirement that ISPs implement systems and commit workers to the program at their own expense .

That led to ASSOProvider mounting a legal challenge in 2023, one that failed in its bid to prevent Piracy Shield getting off the ground.

When the specter of overblocking raised its head in February, ASSOProvider called on AGCOM to grant access to information that might help to explain why it was allowed to happen. Information requested included domains and IP addresses blocked, reports and documents received from rightsholders, plus copies of the blocking tickets filed on the days when overblocking occurred.

While no communication appears to have been received from the communications regulator on that topic, AGCOM has managed to find time to fine ASSOProvider for obstructing AGCOM’s supervisory activities.

More Piracy Shield Controversy

The news that AGCOM has sanctioned ASSOProvider first appeared on the ISP association’s website.

“Assoprovider, which actively participated in the working group set up by the Authority to combat illegal activities, for as long as it was allowed to participate, requested clarification from the Authority as to why, without any valid reason, it should provide a list of Italian ISPs [members of ASSOProvider] at a certain point,” the announcement reads.

“However, these data are already in AGCOM’s possession, as it manages the public communications registry (ROC) , and, as stated in its memorandum defending against [ASSOProvider’s legal challenge], it knows, just like everyone else, the identification details of all network operators and communication services.”

Life Suddenly and Coincidentally Becomes More Difficult

Speaking with TorrentFreak, Fulvio Sarzana di S.Ippolito, lawyer and legal consultant of ASSOProvider, says the fine “coincidentally” arrived after ASSOProvider appealed against the recent decision of the local court and requested documents related to Piracy Shield.

“ASSOProvider is an Association and not an operator [ISP], and it is not clear what supervision can be done and what obstacle it may have posed by exercising the constitutional rights to appeal to the Court and to submit a FOIA,” Sarzana says.

“AGCOM without any reason requested the list of Associates [ISPs] but the data of all the Italian operators are in its possession, as AGCOM itself clarified in its briefs before the Regional Administrative Court. Furthermore, AGCOM itself sent a notice to all Italian providers asking them to participate in the working table.”

Fine of 1,032 Euros Triggers New Resolve

Exactly how much ASSOProvider has been fined isn’t revealed in its announcement, but Sarzana confirms a figure of 1,032 euros. Not a huge amount in the bigger picture but significant enough to introduce yet another irritant into the Piracy Shield mix and by targeting its most vocal critic, enough to lead some to conclude that a message has been sent.

Even if that was the case, ASSOProvider says it won’t back down. Sarzana says the association will challenge the fine in all courts and “will not retreat an inch in fighting injustices and for legality.”

Indeed, ASSOProvider seems more motivated than ever.

“For almost twenty-five years, ASSOProvider has always been at the forefront in the defense of civil rights,” says ASSOProvider President Giovanbattista Frontera.

“This time too we will fight for the affirmation of constitutional rights and for the recognition of citizens’ right to a fair defense. We won’t stop, and you won’t stop us.”

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

There are thousands of pirate sites on the Internet but only a few will receive a permanent entry in the history books. Sci-Hub will certainly be among them.

Founded by Kazakhstani computer programmer Alexandria Elbakyan, Sci-Hub provides free access to millions of academic publications. As such, it’s an essential tool for less privileged students and researchers worldwide.

There is no denying that Sci-Hub facilitates access to otherwise paywalled research, which is often partly funded by public money. At the same time, however, it’s a threat to major publishers who rely on those same paywalls to generate revenue and subsequent profits.

The publishers have the law on their side. Previously, Sci-Hub and Elbakyan were sued in U.S. federal court, which resulted in multi-million dollar judgments . That did little to stop the site from operating, however, so rightsholders had to resort to other, less direct means.

Sci-Hub Blockades

When direct lawsuits are unable to provide the desired results, going after third-party intermediaries is often the next step. This includes site blocking measures, where ISPs are required to block their subscribers’ access to pirate sites.

Russia was one of the first countries to order a Sci-Hub blockade in 2018 but it certainly didn’t stop there. In recent years, similar measures have followed in France , Denmark , Austria , the UK and, most recently, The Netherlands .

Despite the U.S. court orders, the site has yet to be blocked there, as site blocking isn’t a viable option due to the lack of no-fault injunctions. However, the U.S. Trade Representative recently branded the shadow library a “ notorious market “.

Germany Blocks Sci-Hub

Thus far, the Sci-Hub blockades have been mostly centered around Europe and Germany continues this trend. As part of a voluntary agreement between rightsholders and ISPs, the “Clearing Body for Copyright on the Internet” ( CUII ) regularly issues new blocking orders and Sci-Hub is the latest target.

The process doesn’t involve any judicial oversight but CUII relies on a thorough review process to check if a blocking request is warranted. The previous orders have all centered around film and music pirate sites but the latest comes at the request of a publisher.

CUII’s order is heavily redacted and doesn’t mention the applicant by name, only that it’s a member of the “International Association of Scientific, Technical & Medical Publishers” ( STM ). What’s clear, however, is that Sci-Hub is seen as a structurally infringing website and that blocking measures are warranted.

“The request for a recommendation to block the SCI-HUB website is justified. The website is a structural copyright infringing website (SUW). There is a clear infringement of copyright. The blocking is reasonable and proportionate,” CUII’s order reads.

Other Options Exhausted

Before a site can be blocked, rightsholders have to pursue other options to take the site offline. The publisher did so by hiring a private investigator to contact the site directly and track down various intermediaries, including the domain registrars, but without the desired result.

“The private investigator identified ***** in ***** and ***** in ***** as registrars. The requests for information to the registrars under the identified email addresses were not answered in terms of content,” CUII writes.

To confirm that Sci-Hub is mostly dedicated to sharing copyright-infringing material the publisher cited several claims from the website itself, as shown below.

In addition, the publisher investigated a random sample of content from Sci-Hub to conclude that between 92.15% and 95.56% is copyright infringing. That’s sufficient to characterize the shadow library as a structurally infringing website and have it blocked.

The final CUII order only mentions the sci-hub.st domain by name, but the redacted paperwork suggests that four other domains have to be blocked by German Internet providers.

The German news site Tarnkappe , which covered the recent order, informs TorrentFreak that, in addition to sci-hub-st, sci-hub.ru and sci-hub.se are also blocked by T-online. This likely applies to other ISPs too.

While this new blockade will make it harder for Germans to access Sci-Hub, those who are determined to bypass paywalls generally find a way. The shadow library currently gets most of its traffic from China, India and the United States; where the site isn’t blocked, yet .

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

To say that Italy’s much-heralded pirate IPTV blocking scheme got off to a controversial start would significantly underplay events of the past two months. And yet pretty everyone knew it was coming.

A TorrentFreak source familiar with the scheme’s development, introduction, and current operations, warned us in 2023 that the system and the ideas that underpin it are fundamentally flawed. We were even shown how the system could be subverted, the only surprise today is that it still hasn’t happened.

Other technical details showed how over-blocking was always inevitable but could’ve been mitigated to an extent with a pragmatic approach to matters such as blocking duration and the rapid rectification of blocking errors. Yet, interest in these and similar proposals was brushed aside in favor of what Italy has now.

Excluding the Experts

The entities best placed to advise on these issues, Italy’s 300+ Internet service providers, were not invited to the discussions. Interlocutor status was granted to just four ISPs, all of which were (and still are) neck-deep in other complex matters, including merger and restructuring talks. Almost everyone else was summarily ignored.

The end result is a substandard system that ISPs are mandated by law to use, purely for the benefit of other companies, but at their own expense. That same law carries financial penalties for ISPs who fail to block, yet carries no penalties whatsoever for those who overblock. The law does include provisions that allow overblocking victims to complain, yet is being executed in a manner that makes complaining impossible.

These complaints and many more have been delivered to telecoms regulator AGCOM via several mechanisms, including letters, emails, FOIA requests, and countless times via the media. Yet despite the protection of citizens’ fundamental rights being one of its main tasks, and a mandate that includes dispute resolution, the authority has mostly shown a preference for one-way communication; an appearance at a recent hearing , for example.

National Consumers Union Demands Answers from AGCOM

Founded in the 1955, Italy’s Unione Nazionale Consumatori is a non-profit organization whose exclusive statutory purpose is to safeguard and defend the interests of consumers. Today that includes aspects of ecommerce and with a seat on the National Council of Consumers and Users (CNCU) at the Ministry of Economic Development, the government’s ear is never too far away.

In a letter to AGCOM, titled ‘FOOTBALL: Does Piracy Shield Work?’ UNC seeks clarification on the functioning of the Piracy Shield platform and its intended purpose, i.e. blocking infringing streams.

“As a consumer association we are on the front line against piracy, but it is obvious that only the culprits must be intercepted and obscured, i.e. the IP addresses intended exclusively and univocally for the illicit diffusion of protected content, not the innocent ones which have nothing to do with online piracy and who only have the misfortune of sharing the IP address with the sites targeted by AGCOM,” writes Massimiliano Dona, lawyer and president of the National Consumers Union.

“As they say, better to have a guilty person free than an innocent person in prison,” Dona continues, highlighting the ambitious aim of blocking illicit streams within 30 minutes of being reported.

“However, since it is one thing to design an instrument and another to put it into action, we ask AGCOM to report on how many innocent people have ended up in these traps, given the conflicting data that has emerged so far.”

Why is it Impossible to Complain?

As previously reported, those negatively affected by overblocking can file a complaint within five days of the blocked IP addresses being published on the AGCOM site. Thus far, however, AGCOM hasn’t published any IP addresses, rendering the complaint process impossible.

UNC would like to know why AGCOM doesn’t publish the IP addresses in the same way that Consob ( financial scams ) and Ivass ( insurance ) do, after first taking a swipe at the lack of due process.

“We ask AGCOM why it doesn’t do as Consob and Ivass do. When they block an illegal site they also issue a press release with the list of blocked sites […] which allows a possible right of defense to the interested parties, from which this law instead seems to derogate, given that in cases of seriousness and urgency, which concern live broadcast content, first viewings of cinematographic works, the precautionary measure can be adopted without any cross-examination,” the letter reads.

“This could also be acceptable, if the right of defense were allowed at least ex post . Instead, the complaint against the blockades carried out must be presented within just five days, yet not from the notification to the direct interested party of the blockage, as happens for any type of other sanction, from fines of the Highway Code to tax bills, but, as AGCOM writes on its website : from the publication of the list of blocks carried out on this internet page.

“It’s a shame that on that page there is no list of blocks carried out, but only the number of blocks day by day,” UNC’s lawyer concludes.

AGCOM Has Been Rejecting Complaints From Cloudflare Customers

After initially dismissing the wrongful blocking of Cloudflare as ‘fake news’, AGCOM eventually admitted that Cloudflare had indeed been blocked in error.

Last month Cloudflare wrote to all of its customers affected by the rogue blocking urging them to file an official complaint with AGCOM. Some people had already complained but no matter how their complaints were presented, AGCOM used rules (known and unknown) to reject every single one.

In this example, AGCOM claimed that since the block was removed “shortly after its blocking” (around four or five hours) there are no grounds for a complaint. Furthermore, people only have five days after the IP address is published to make a complaint; the response makes no mention of the fact that the IP address was never actually published.

Another rejection, publicly posted on X by Ernesto Castellotti, concerned a legitimate FOIA request sent to AGCOM in February. The basis for the rejection was novel, if nothing else.

“AGCOM responded to my FOIA, in short ‘denied due to motivated opposition from interested parties.’ This answer is MADNESS, I am legitimately interested in having access to that data as a direct interested party as a victim of the erroneous blocking,” Castellotti wrote.

Source Code Spilled, Cloudflare Whitelisted?

We haven’t been able to confirm that this information is accurate, but we can confirm that the source who supplied it has been reliable in the past.

We’re informed that after the Cloudflare overblocking debacle, Cloudflare IP addresses are now on the Piracy Shield whitelist. Or, at least, IP addresses will be tested to ensure they don’t belong to Cloudflare before they’re blocked. Bottom line, Cloudflare IP addresses appear to be off-limits moving forward. We’ll see.

Last week, someone apparently annoyed at AGCOM, Piracy Shield, and the entire “censorship” system, posted the anti-piracy platform’s source code on GitHub . In a normal world, that code would’ve been immediately removed following a DMCA takedown notice but, against all sensible predictions, somehow it remains live today .

AGCOM hasn’t responded with an official statement, at least to our knowledge, which makes the lack of response here somewhat predictable, given its recent radio silence on almost everything else. But if logic says the repository should’ve been removed immediately, logic also says that there must be a reason for leaving it up.

With the possibility that AGCOM may feel more inclined than ever to send deterrent messages, presumably any Italians who downloaded the repo did so using a VPN. We understand that rightsholders blame IPTV pirates and those affiliated with them for the leak, but whether there’s any proof of that is a complete unknown.

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

Ever since Italian authorities announced their intent to introduce an even more aggressive anti-piracy blocking system than the one already in place, controversy has rarely been far behind.

Recent reports of avoidable overblocking, a reluctance to admit that the Piracy Shield system is fallible, and new reports that telecoms regulator AGCOM is now rejecting complaints from wrongfully blocked Cloudflare customers, are just some of the ingredients in a volatile mix that has always threatened to boil over.

Piracy Shield: Source Code Leaked Online

In what could develop into the biggest crisis yet for the Piracy Shield system and those who operate it, nine repositories of source code, internal documentation, and other related data, claiming to be the various components of the Piracy Shield system, appear to have leaked online.

An announcement in Italian and English, posted on GitHub a few hours ago, criticizes AGCOM and SP Tech Legal, the law firm-linked developer behind Piracy Shield, for creating a “tool of censorship disguised as a solution to piracy.”

The main ‘fuckpiracyshield’ repository on GitHub was created by a user of the same name; they appear to have joined the site for the purposes of leaking the code online and, after signing up at 15:55 on Tuesday, by 16:50 they were gone. Aside from the leaked material, a message was left behind.

“This is not the way to stop piracy. This is a gateway to censorship,” the bio message reads.

Content Allegedly Leaked

The apparently leaked collection spans nine repositories; they are named and described as follows:

frontend (The frontend of Piracy Shield), data (Guides for the ISPs and reporters that use Piracy Shield), variations (Some code that was probably used for testing for Piracy Shield?), service (Services and main logic of the Piracy Shield API), data-storage (Storage and filesystem management for the Piracy Shield API), data-model (Data models of objects used by the Piracy Shield code), component (Components needed by other Piracy Shield packages), api (This is the API for Piracy Shield)

For those unfamiliar with Python or no interest in code, period, the ‘data’ repository probably offers the most interesting information. It contains what appears to be up-to-date operations manuals for Piracy Shield, with the ‘ISP TECHNICAL MANUAL – PIRACY SHIELD’ described as v2.4.1, current on February 2nd when Piracy Shield made its full debut.

All documents are named and presented in Italian and the titles suggest that there are two versions of two distinct manuals: ‘Piracy Shield Manual’ and ‘Piracy Shield Error Codes’. One version seems to be directed at those reporting domains and IP addresses for blocking and the other toward the ISPs expected to carry out the blocking.

Unusual Feature of the Leak

When browsing the source code and attempting to work out its purpose, on some repositories something immediately stands out. With no assumptions as to who the name refers, a contributor to the Piracy Shield project appears to be someone called Daniele Maglie. Their name appears time and again throughout the code, which in itself isn’t especially unusual.

However, when looking more closely at the leaker’s bio, which includes an image of AGCOM’s president apparently deep in thought, leaving the mouse pointer in place for a moment produces a piece of popup text, as highlighted in the image below.

What the text means, if indeed it means anything at all, will be just one of the questions being asked in the days to come. In the meantime, AGCOM has yet another blocking target to contend with, although a DMCA notice will be much more effective.

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

After initially denying that Italy’s new Piracy Shield anti-piracy platform had been responsible for any over-blocking, last week telecoms regulator AGCOM conceded that an IP address belonging to Cloudflare had been blocked in error .

While that might be considered progress of sorts, the incident was downplayed as minor on the basis it was rectified a few hours later. No consolation for the many Cloudflare customers affected, of course, but that particular problem isn’t going away. Cloudflare is encouraging its customers to file complaints to draw attention to the perils of widespread blocking measures.

Yet despite calls for more transparency, not to mention an obvious need, AGCOM is still not reporting the IP addresses subjected to blocking, instead preferring to report the volume of IP addresses blocked instead. While the latter is not unimportant information, only the former can shine light on cases where IP addresses are blocked in error. Or when IP addresses are blocked despite the legal provision that prohibits blocking when IPs are not exclusively used for piracy.

New Third-Party Service Imposes Transparency

Official providers of all types of content have understood for some time that if they don’t meet demand, someone else will do it for them. After calls for transparency appeared to fall on deaf ears, transparency has been imposed on the Piracy Shield system thanks to a new, unofficial third-party system: Piracy Shield Search .

The most important feature of the service is the ability to enter an IP address or a fully qualified domain name (FQDN) to find out whether they’re on the Piracy Shield system.

The image below consists of an original blocking order (translated from Italian) issued in response to a blocking application by Sky Italia. To protect Sky’s broadcasting rights for FIM MotoGP World Championship and the Motul FIM Superbike World Championship, the domain http://live.vitocatozzo.eu was added to the Piracy Shield system.

The response from Piracy Shield Search added by us directly underneath the relevant section in the application confirms that the domain was indeed placed on the blocklist. The response also provides the time the rightsholder or its representative added the ticket to the system, which acts as the instruction for ISPs to go ahead and start blocking.

Rightsholder Tickets and Top AS By IP Address

The Piracy Shield Search system shows data relating to currently active blocking, not the total number of requests made or IP addresses/domains blocked to date.

In the image below we can see that 662 rightsholder tickets are currently live, and together they target 2,849 IPv4 IP addresses, zero IPv6 IP addresses, and 6,601 fully qualified domain names. The panel on the right shows the top AS (autonomous systems) ranked by the total number of IP addresses allocated to the AS that are currently subject to blocking.

The ticket panel on the left shows that the system deployed in Italy operates similarly to the blocking system operated in the UK.

Much is made in the media about the requirement to block IP addresses and domains within 30 minutes, possibly to imply that blocking takes place mostly during live matches. However, the two items at the top of the list show that IP addresses and domains are typically added in bulk, long after matches finish or, alternatively, long before they actually start.

Tickets Reveal More Blocking Blunders

The people behind Piracy Shield Search have decided to partially redact IP addresses requested for blocking in rightsholder tickets. Since the search facility on the front page responds to requests for specific IP addresses, there’s no need to expose the IP addresses in full here.

However, since the names of the hosts are displayed in full, it’s possible to determine whether the IP addresses that appear on the left are likely to be operated by CDN companies. More importantly, there may also be enough information to determine whether multiple services potentially share the IP address.

In a post to X, developer and researcher Matteo Contrini confirms what many people had suspected; Cloudflare isn’t the only major CDN provider whose IP addresses have ended up on the Piracy Shield system.

“The platform #PiracyShield is blocking 15 Akamai IP addresses! Not only Cloudflare but also the largest CDN in the world…,” Contrini notes.

The data suggests that transparency is a double-edged sword. Without transparency, there’s no scrutiny, and no specific fuel for criticism. When transparency exists, whether voluntarily or by imposition, scrutiny ensures that criticism can be backed up by data provided by the system itself.

What transparency offers that opacity never does, however, is a powerful incentive to do better. Whether the addition of these IP addresses is due to blunder after uncorrected blunder isn’t clear, but the alternative is unquestionably much worse.

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