Since its launch early February, Italy’s Piracy Shield system and its operators have been at the center of a series of controversies.

From blocking innocent platforms and bizarre public denials claiming that never actually happened , to the leaking of Piracy Shield source code online and claims that didn’t happen either , a more difficult debut would be hard to imagine.

Yet with legitimate complaints from negatively-affected members of the public being given short shrift, and access to information requests pushed aside, the groundwork is in place for additional controversy further down the line.

AGCOM Issues its First Piracy-Shield Related Fine

Without assistance from Italian ISPs, blocking pirate services would be impossible in Italy. Against the wishes of many, however, their role in the system is enshrined in law.

When the Piracy Shield system churns out domains and IP addresses to be blocked, ISPs must ensure that none of their customers can access them within 30 minutes. Associated costs are the ISPs’ burden too, as are the fines they face for non-compliance. Rightsholders, meanwhile, face no sanctions whatsoever for their own blunders.

ISP association ASSOProvider has protested this imbalance from the beginning; it represents smaller companies likely to be disproportionately affected by the imposition of additional costs. Last year, ASSOProvider mounted a legal challenge and predictably ran into the combined might of telecoms regulator AGCOM and Piracy Shield’s corporate backers, including top-tier football league Serie A.

The challenge failed to stop the launch of Piracy Shield but when predictions of over-blocking became reality, ASSOProvider filed an official information request to obtain data relating to the program thus far. AGCOM’s response was to fine ASSOProvider for obstructing its Piracy Shield supervisory activities; specifically, for not providing a list of the ISPs it represents, despite AGCOM already being well aware of their names.

That the first fine linked to the new anti-piracy regime targeted non-pirates hasn’t gone unnoticed. ASSOProvider seems to have drawn energy and motivation from it, contrary to the intended effect.

New Legal Challenge Filed at the Council of State

Working with the Sarzana Law Firm of Rome, ASSOProvider will now challenge the legality of the regulatory provisions underpinning the AGCOM-supervised Piracy Shield.

“The dozens of reports from users, businesses and associations, whose rights have been unjustly violated, have convinced the Association to continue its battle for legality and the protection of citizens’ rights on the internet,” an announcement from Sarzana & Associati reads.

“In recent months the Association had already requested the list of access inhibition measures implemented through the platform, especially since the inhibitions seem to have also involved subjects completely unrelated to piracy activities,” it continues, referencing the access to information request filed last month.

The Consiglio di Stato (‘Council of State’) is the body that ensures public administration in Italy complies with relevant law. The specifics of ASSOProvider’s challenge will appear in due course but since the Council has jurisdiction over all administrative authorities in Italy, the association will seek a robust review and a positive outcome.

Giovanbattista Frontera, President of the Board of Directors of ASSOProvider, says its aims are clear; greater transparency in order to identify the critical issues that can compromise the battle against internet piracy.

“The association I represent intends first of all to thank the free press and the countless ‘straight-backed’ journalists who covered the Piracy Shield affair with professionalism and independence, in an objectively difficult context. What happened to completely innocent individuals who had nothing to do with piracy is there for all to see,” Frontera says.

“ASSOProvider will continue to invoke the principles of legality and protection of rights before the Judiciary, as it has always done and will not be afraid to report the errors of the system before all possible jurisdictions and institutions, in compliance with the law.”

Predictable Action By Legal Streaming Services

Piracy Shield typically aims to prevent consumer access to pirate IPTV services, especially those that provide access to live sports broadcasts. Subscribers to these services typically mention the expense of legal services as a driving factor; paying a fraction of the cost for a pirate product is clearly more attractive than paying perhaps ten times more.

Depending on opinion, legal services are over-priced because football in general lives beyond its means, they simply like to profiteer, or because of thieving pirates. If these people paid their fair share, companies could reduce their prices to all, some have claimed.

As we’ve heard from AGCOM and Serie A since Piracy Shield launched in February, the system works; pirates are getting blocked left and right, and pirate services are having big problems servicing customers in Italy. If that is indeed true, it would be interesting to know the background to Sky’s decision to increase the price of its sport and football packages in Italy.

DDaY reports that annual subscribers will see the sport component increase from 16 euros to 22 euros, a total of 90 euros per month. The football package will increase from 5 euros to 8 euros per month. Those who subscribe to the Open offer will see the sports pack increased from 20 euros to 26.90 euros per month, with football increasing from 5 to 8 euros per month.

If it’s true that Piracy Shield is definitely working, those who predicted falling prices appear to be wrong. In theory, at least.

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

In recent years, copyright holders have paid close attention to a growing number of large piracy services with connections to Vietnam.

Popular brands including Fmovies, AniWave, 123movies, BestBuyIPTV, 2embed, and Y2mate are all linked to the Asian country, which was recently branded a ‘piracy haven’ .

BestBuyIPTV Conviction

To curb this trend, western rightsholders have been working with local authorities to bring local investigations and enforcement efforts up to par. While this process takes time, there was a breakthrough last week.

The People’s Court of Hanoi handed BestBuyIPTV operator Le Hai Nam a 30-month suspended prison sentence. In addition, the man must pay the equivalent of $4,000 in local currency, after having paid $12,000 in restitution previously.

BestBuyIPTV is known as one of the most popular IPTV services. The subscription platform has been repeatedly called out as a notorious piracy market by the US Trade Representative, as recently as this year.

The defendant reportedly pleaded guilty to his role in the BestBuyIPTV operation. While a copy of the verdict is not immediately available, a release shared by rightsholders attributed the following quote to the Hanoi court Judge.

“The defendant has violated the provisions of the law which protect the copyright and related rights of the Motion Picture Association’s members and the English Premier League,” Judge Le Hai Yen said.

According to the Judge, these types of crimes are a danger to society and should be strictly enforced and prosecuted, to send a deterrent to other operators of pirate sites and services.

First Ever Online Piracy Conviction

The prosecution follows referrals from the Premier League and Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment ( ACE ), who note that this is the first-ever online piracy conviction in Vietnam.

The rightsholders see last week’s conviction as an important milestone that will set a precedent in Vietnam. It’s a clear signal that online pirate sites and services won’t be tolerated, they say.

“This result should serve as a stark warning to anyone involved in the illegal supply of Premier League streams in Vietnam. It is the result of a strong partnership between the Vietnamese authorities and local law enforcement, ACE and the Premier League,” says Kevin Plumb, Premier League’s General Counsel.

Karyn Temple, MPA’s Senior Executive Vice President, shares this view and hopes that the Vietnamese authorities will move onto other high profile targets next, which could include the popular streaming site Fmovies .

“We eagerly await similar action from Vietnamese law enforcement on other longstanding priority targets engaged in digital piracy on a global scale,” Temple notes, without explicitly naming any.

BestBuyIPTV is Online?

Interestingly, the BestBuyIPTV threat may not be completely dealt with yet. MPA previously called out the ‘Bestbuyiptv.biz’ domain in relation to the popular service, which remains online today.

“BestBuyIPTV is extremely popular in the United States & Europe,” MPA wrote at the time, adding that “the operators are located in Vietnam.”

It’s possible that other operators of the service managed the service online, which would put the conviction’s deterrent effect in doubt. Or was the sentenced operator perhaps linked to another BestBuyIPTV service?

We have asked the MPA for clarification, as its press release makes no mention of this, and will update the article when an official response comes in.

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

Spain found itself at the center of a worldwide controversy last month when it was revealed that various rightsholders had somehow managed to convince a local judge to block Telegram in its entirety .

Under intense pressure, the judge quickly rolled back the decision after an advisor concluded that the planned measure was massively disproportionate. Just weeks later, a row over an app that’s no longer available from any official app store, seems to be heading towards another controversy and yet more debate on what constitutes a proportionate response to online piracy.

This time top-tier football league LaLiga stands front and center.

Newplay: Popular .M3U Player Unpopular With LaLiga

For an explanation of the capabilities of the Newplay app, here’s what LaLiga itself told the European Commission in a 2022 submission to its Counterfeiting and Piracy Watch List ( pdf, translated )

The ‘Newplay IPTV’ player application, developed by ITECH SLU, is one of the main player apps focused on Spain. In 2021, more than 900,000 users downloaded the app through Google Play, in Spain alone. This application has its own website (www.newplay.site) and has various profiles on social networks and communication channels: Telegram (+17k members); Twitch (+2,000 followers); Instagram (+29.2k followers); YouTube (23k subscribers). Through these, the use of the app is promoted. As can be seen in the attached evidence, through this application users can access various audiovisual content such as sports, TV channels, series, movies, etc.

That the description above offered plenty of facts and figures for everything except the alleged infringement, which only gets a line of attention right at the end, isn’t exactly typical of these kinds of submissions. The evidence amounted to a screenshot of a video of the app on YouTube, showing icons for various TV channels, two of which appeared to relate to LaLiga.

Crucially, there were no claims that the app arrives in the hands of users already configured to supply LaLiga match streams, nor was there any mention that the app requires users to supply their own M3U playlists. However, there was a screenshot of a comment made by a user querying an in-app message (“It asks me to enter a URL, what do I have to do?”) and two responses.

One response appeared to be from someone affiliated with Newplay, who wrote: “You have to add or create a channel list.” The other response linked to a URL where a playlist could be obtained. If that playlist had been posted by someone working for Newplay, that could’ve caused problems. There are no signs that was the case though; in isolation it only adds weight to the claim that no channels were provided in the app.

LaLiga Takes Complaint to Court

In the same month as the submission, April 2022, LaLiga walked away from a Spanish court (Juzgado de. Instrucción Nº 1 de Cieza) with an order that targeted Newplay.

The order is referenced multiple times on the LaLiga website but no copy has been posted for public consumption and, thus far, we’ve had no luck locating a copy. The big question is whether the order was handed down after an adversarial procedure or one that relied purely on evidence supplied by LaLiga.

What does seem clear, however, is that the order required various intermediaries to take action to undermine Newplay’s ability to remain functional. Whether the companies took action before or after the order was handed down isn’t clear but Google, Apple, and Huawei acted similarly by removing Newplay from their app stores.

But for LaLiga’s top man, that wasn’t enough. Last September, Javier Tebas revealed that LaLiga had “eliminated” 58 pirate apps, by unspecified means, together worth a million downloads in Spain. He said that having “eliminated” the apps, LaLiga wanted Google to ‘locate’ apps already downloaded onto users phones, so they too could be “eliminated”. If the same can be done for child abuse images, then the same should apply to piracy tools, Tebas said.

There was no official response from Google, but it’s not difficult to see why the prospect of digging into users’ phones, to remotely delete content, could be problematic. The privacy implications alone could cause huge headaches, as LaLiga is well aware; a 250,000 euro fine for turning fans phones into piracy spying devices should’ve been an instant reminder, logically at least.

Instead, LaLiga is doubling down

According to an eLDiario.es report, LaLiga has now asked the investigating judge in the Newplay case to charge the local directors of Google, Apple, and Huawei, with “a crime of serious disobedience.” This relates to their alleged failures to prevent users of their app ecosystems from continuing to use downloaded copies of Newplay that still exist on their devices.

It’s a crime that carries a sentence of up to a year in prison.

In these preliminary proceedings, Google, Apple, and Huawei as corporate entities also stand accused of the same “crime of serious disobedience.” They also stand accused of cooperating with Newplay’s developer while profiting from his allegedly infringing, ad-supported activities.

“The person under investigation used his ‘simple’ video player as a necessary instrument for his clients to access the Television services he offered in exchange for a subscription or advertising, violating the rights of the content owners,” LaLiga informed the court, as recalled by elDiario.es .

In addition to removing the app from their stores, the order required Google, Apple, and Huawei to “prevent users” who had downloaded app from “accessing the application.” It further ordered them to “immediately cease payment of commissions” derived from Newplay’s paid version (without ads) and make available to the court “the amounts that may be pending delivery” to the Newplay developer.

According to LaLiga, the companies haven’t complied in either respect. All three refused to comment for legal reasons.

As reported this weekend, the app Smart IPTV was blocked by ISPs in Spain recently . In common with Newplay, Smart IPTV is also an .M3U player and comes with no infringing content or links.

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

England is widely regarded as the ‘home of football’ and the Premier League is its top competition, drawing hundreds of millions of viewers from all over the world.

Aside from the sportive stakes, the Premier League also has a vested interest in selling broadcast rights. These rights generate billions of pounds in revenue per year; a staggering amount unmatched by any other football league.

Broadcasters who secure these rights typically recoup their investment through the public, often in the form of subscriptions. However, not all football fans are willing to play this game and some seek out free or cheaper alternatives in the form of pirate streaming platforms.

In recent years, the Premier League has tried several legal avenues to tackle the piracy problem. In addition to obtaining blocking orders in multiple countries, the organization has been a driving force behind several lawsuits, some of which resulted in prison sentences .

Shutting down a pirate operation is always the preferred outcome for rightsholders, but it’s more easily said than done. Operators of streaming sites and services are typically aware of the risks and do their best to remain anonymous.

Premier League Takes Aim at GoDaddy Customers

In an attempt to lift this veil, the football organization went to a California federal court this week, hoping to discover the identities of operators connected to more than two dozen domain names.

The legal request isn’t targeted at the streaming sites directly. Instead, the Premier League requests a DMCA subpoena to compel domain registrar GoDaddy to hand over all information it holds on the operators. This doesn’t have to but might result in useful intel.

Domain names mentioned in the request (full list below) include live-kooora.com, 30.tv, live4.kooora-gooal.com, fctvlive.com, and soccertv4k.com. Some of these have a few hundred domain names, while others have several millions of monthly visits.

In addition, the Premier League requests information on several backend domains connected to the popular pirate streaming services EVPad and SVI Cloud. These two platforms are particularly popular in South East Asia and were previously called out as “notorious markets.”

EVPad, for example, was described as an “ extremely sophisticated ” pirate streaming service.

“A product purchased on behalf of the Premier League was found to provide access to over 1,700 channels, including 75 offering live sports broadcasts. The operators have been very careful to hide their location and identities, Premier League links them to Hong Kong and China.”

Identifying Pirates and More?

Through the requested DMCA subpoena, the Premier League hopes to gather more information on the people behind the sites and services.

Among other things, the football league asks GoDaddy for information that can identify people connected to the domains. This includes names, addresses, telephone numbers, and email addresses, payment information, and other account details.

Aside from the subpoena request, the Premier League sent a letter directly to GoDaddy, asking the domain registrar to remove or disable access to the infringing content. If not, it is expected that these sites will continue to broadcast similar pirate streams throughout the rest of the season.

At the time of writing, many of the domains and services listed in the application remain online. GoDaddy typically doesn’t take domains offline without a court order, so that doesn’t come as a surprise.

That said, if the DMCA subpoena is granted, GoDaddy will hand over the requested account holder information. These types of subpoenas only require a signature from a court clerk, so this will likely move forward.

Whether any of the information is usable to the Premier League is another question. Many pirate site owners use ‘inaccurate’ domain registration data and, since GoDaddy accepts cryptocurrency payments, the financial trail might run dead as well.

—

The subpoena request and the associated paperwork, filed at a California federal court, is available here ( 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 ).

A full list of all the domains mentioned can be found below. The request below includes several subdomains.

Websites

– live-kooora.com
– 5koora.live-kooora.com
– mpm24hd.com
– fctvlive.com
– koora-live.io
– yalla-shoot-as.com (redirects to yyallashoot.live)
– tarjetarojatvenvivo.net
– yalla–live.net
– kooora4lives.io (redirects to koora4live.ai)
– futbollibretv.me (redirects to futbollibretvhd.me)
– doomovie-hd.com (redirects to doomovie-hd.pro)
– streamlive7.com (redirects to match.fctvhd.com)
– live4.kooora-gooal.com
– 30.tv
– koooralive-tv.com (redirects to kooralive-tv.io)
– dooball2you.com
– dooballx.com
– soccertv4k.com
– futebolgratis.net
– baadooball.com
– dooballfree24hr.com
– herodooball.com
– kora-live-new.com
– kora-livee.com
– koora–live.com
– bein–match.com (redirects to tv.bein-match.pro)

SVI Cloud

– broker.6868a.cc
– 6868b.cc
– vpic.6868c.cc
– playback.f666666.xyz

EVPad

– appindex.google10sv.com
– v10js.google144.com
– sx.dl1717.com
– dlt.6868nbtc.com
– findpic.00005555.cc
– tm1.hdtvvip.com
– cdn_pic.0168861.com

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

In a world where users can have their own ChatGPT-like AI instances up and running on their own PCs, in just a handful of minutes, for zero spend and completely legally, the app experience on smart TVs rarely fails to disappoint.

Yet when smart TV users somehow manage to clunk their way through, say, LG’s menus, and then avoid the avalanche of distractions that exist purely to break their will, only disappointment lies ahead for the IPTV-curious.

If, against all odds, they find an app that resembles the thing they actually searched for, the high probability of being presented with the app “Smart IPTV” is something thousands before them will attest to.

More Disappointment

It’s not that Smart IPTV is a poor product, it’s not. The fact that most of the time people have to pay to use it isn’t to blame either. The problem is the expectations of those who bought the software in the belief it contains illegal streams. It doesn’t, and that can be very disappointing.

Most likely due to the number of complaints from misinformed buyers, listings for the app on the LG, Samsung, and Google Play stores are now very clear: Smart IPTV does not provide access to playlists or streams, so don’t even ask.

LG TV App Store

The reason for the confusion among prospective buyers isn’t immediately clear. Smart IPTV seems like it’s been around forever and at no point has anything stuck out as being especially misleading or offering any suggestion that more might be on offer.

Yet now, even those who purchased Smart IPTV in full knowledge it offered no content, are being disappointed too.

Smart IPTV Website Blocked in Spain

During the past few days, reports have surfaced indicating that the official website of Smart IPTV has been blocked by Spanish ISPs. Visitors to siptv.app are instead redirected to an alternative page displaying the following text:

“Contenido bloqueado por requerimiento de la Autoridad Competente, comunicado a esta Operadora”

When translated to English, the message reads: “Content blocked at the request of the Competent Authority, communicated to this Operator.

In common with many countries around the world, particularly in Europe, Spain has a site-blocking system that restricts access to sites and services deemed to infringe copyright. Some prominent cases receive publicity as they travel through the legal system, most notably when top tier football league LaLiga and its broadcasting partners obtain injunctions to block pirate IPTV services.

While Spain does put together a report every few months to show the extent of blocking in the country, its usefulness is limited to a review of blocking already in place. As a tool to explain what is happening now, much less why a site or service was deemed infringing, the report is effectively useless.

As a result, which company declared the Smart IPTV app as copyright-infringing is unknown. What we can do, if only as a thought exercise, is use existing information to establish the most likely candidate based on motivation and past statements.

LaLiga – Who Else?

When it comes to blocking measures, especially those related to pirate IPTV, no rightsholders anywhere in the world are more aggressive than those behind the most popular football leagues.

The Premier League (England), Serie A (Italy) and LaLiga (Spain) are widely considered to be the leading proponents of blocking measures. Through a basic process of elimination, LaLiga is the only entity from the three likely to have targeted Smart IPTV in Spain, but there are more compelling reasons than simply being an aggressive blocking proponent in a specific geographic area.

In a 2022 submission to a then-upcoming edition of the European Commission’s Counterfeiting and Piracy Watchlist, LaLiga submitted a list of apps that, from a technical perspective, could play illegal streams of LaLiga football matches.

More accurately, the majority simply allowed the users of the apps to play content referenced in .M3U playlists that were not supplied with the apps themselves .

Terrifying Text Files From The 90s

Being able to play an .M3U playlist is a basic functionality offered by media players including VLC. For those sporting gray hair today, the same ‘technology’ was available in Winamp. Those who remember .M3U playlists starting to gain popularity in 1996 will be able to explain this incredible technology in a few words; it’s a text file containing locations where information can be found, on a hard drive (c:\playlists) or a network, mostly using a domain or IP address.

Instead of accusing the apps of infringement directly, LaLiga used broad strokes to paint a picture of infringing capability.

“It is important to note that all of these player applications allow the consumption of an innumerable amount of audiovisual contents such as sports, movies, series TV channels, etc. In other words, this problem affects the entire audiovisual and entertainment industry in general,” LaLiga added, carefully choosing its words.

As we highlighted at the time, LaLiga’s careful words were supported by carefully presented evidence, which in one case took an IPTV developer’s documentation and used it against them, after cropping the screenshot to disappear a line that began: “This app doesn’t contain any built-in channels…”

Again, we must reiterate that Spain’s blocking mechanism fails to offer enough transparency to identify who is behind the blocking of Smart IPTV. This means that we cannot say with any certainty that LaLiga is actually behind the blockade, but we can offer a generalized conclusion.

Any system that allows participants to mark their own homework in relative secrecy, can never be fit for purpose when other people’s basic rights begin to suffer. The fundamental right to conduct a legal business throughout the Union, for example.

Blocking Began Around April 12

To find out more about recent events, TorrentFreak spoke with the owner of Smart IPTV.

“The website domains siptv.app and siptv.eu have been blocked at some of Spain’s ISPs since approx. 04/12. Some ISPs still allow access to the website,” he explains.

“I have not received any correspondence from the officials or ISPs, I only started receiving messages from angry users from Spain that they couldn’t access the website. I conversed with a couple of them and it turned out the blocking is on the domain level, where ISPs are redirecting using 451 HTTP error, which also threw SSL certificate errors for those using HTTPS.”

With the blocking clearly causing access and security issues, Smart IPTV’s owner says that blocking can be avoided using a VPN but for him, it’s “not a very good solution.”

Instead, he’s having to make modifications to his apps to mitigate the problems.

“Since the App is operating on the same domains [as the website], the only way to work around this is to release updates of the appropriate Apps on devices, which I have already submitted and waiting for approval from Apps Stores (this can take a while),” he explains.

“A manual Android install is already operating normally, confirmed by Spanish users. The problem is that older devices that won’t get the app update (I am talking 10-year-old devices) will not be able to benefit from the app any longer.”

Of course, it’s likely that angry users who don’t understand the situation will blame the developer, then expect a new version of the app for free. But, as the MPA highlighted recently as it prepares its own proposals for blocking in the United States, blocking never, ever goes wrong.

As everyone else knows, that’s absolutely true, except for when it does.

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

Under U.S. copyright law, Internet providers must terminate the accounts of repeat infringers “in appropriate circumstances.”

Many ISPs have been reluctant to take such drastic measures, which triggered a wave of copyright infringement lawsuits in recent years with WideOpenWest ( WOW! ) as one of the targets .

The Colorado-based Internet provider was sued by a group of movie companies including Millennium Media and Voltage Pictures. The filmmakers accuse the ISP of failing to disconnect the accounts of subscribers who were repeatedly flagged for sharing copyrighted material via BitTorrent.

The movie companies hold WOW! liable for these pirating activities, which could lead to millions of dollars in damages. The ISP rejects the claims and responded with a motion to dismiss, which was denied last year , and the case remains ongoing today.

Multi-Million Dollar Lawsuit Expansion

After the case was stalled for over a year, the movie companies requested permission to submit an amended complaint, which would add seven new plaintiffs and more than 300 new works.

The proposals raised the stakes significantly. Instead of 57 works, good for maximum statutory damages of roughly $8 million, an expansion to roughly 375 works would increase the statutory maximum to $56 million.

In addition to the monetary stakes, the proposed update also introduced evidence from two new third-party piracy tracking companies, Irdeto and Facterra. The initial complaint only included piracy tracking information from anti-piracy partner Maverickeye.

WOW protested these additions, but the court allowed the movie companies to go ahead. This week, they filed their second amended complaint at the Colorado federal court, making the changes official.

Same Claims, Higher Stakes

The nature of the claims against WOW! haven’t changed. The movie companies accuse the Internet provider of contributory and vicarious copyright infringement, as well as DMCA violations.

The complaint lists several examples of WOW! subscribers who, according to the referenced piracy tracking data, repeatedly shared copyright-infringing content including plaintiffs’ films.

WOW! purportedly received tens of thousands of infringement notices and was allegedly aware of these piracy activities. However, the ISP decided not to take any action as that could hurt its revenues, the movie companies allege.

“Defendant knew that if it terminated or otherwise prevented repeat infringer subscribers from using its service to infringe, or made it less attractive for such use, Defendant would enroll fewer new subscribers, lose existing subscribers, and ultimately lose revenue,” the amended complaint reads.

Redditors and Site Blocking

In addition to IP-address logs and other evidence, the movie companies also cite screenshots from Reddit users who discussed WOW!’s handling of piracy notices, or its lack thereof. They suggest that this acted as a draw to potential subscribers.

“The ability of subscribers ‘who want it all’ to use Defendant’s high speed service to ‘intensively upload and download’ Plaintiffs’ Works without having their services terminated despite multiple notices being sent to Defendant acts as a powerful draw for subscribers of Defendant’s service,” they write.

Besides terminating accounts of subscribers whose connections are repeatedly used to pirate, the ISP could have taken other ‘simple’ actions as well. For example, by blocking notorious ‘pirate’ sites such as torrent sites YTS and (the now defunct) RARB.

“Upon information and belief, Defendant refuses to block or limit its subscribers from accessing notorious piracy websites out of fear of losing subscriber revenue,” the complaint reads.

Increased Damages and More

To compensate for this wrongdoing, the plaintiffs request statutory damages up to the maximum of $150,000 per work. With roughly 375 titles in suit, damages could reach $56,250,000 for the copyright infringements alone. The DMCA violations could add millions more to this tally, the movie companies note.

On top of the damages increase, the movie companies still seek far-reaching injunctive relief. They specifically request an order requiring WOW! to terminate the accounts of subscribers targeted by three unique infringement notices in three days.

In addition to this mandatory three-strikes policy, WOW! should also block all alleged pirate sites listed in the USTR’s annual overview of notorious markets . This includes the likes of The Pirate Bay, FMovies, and YTS.

Finally, the movie companies request an order that requires the Internet provider to disclose the identities of account holders whose accounts are flagged for copyright infringement. Needless to say, such an order would allow the companies to target the alleged pirates directly.

—

A copy of the movie companies’ second amended complaint, filed against WOW! at the US District Court for Colorado, is available here (pdf)

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

At the start of the 2010s, Movie2K was one of the most visited sites on the web.

The site was an early adopter of pirate streaming and at its peak, secured a spot among the twenty most-visited websites in Germany, beating Twitter and Amazon.

Movie2K’s success generated a healthy revenue stream which its operators converted to a new and exciting ‘currency’ called Bitcoin. It’s assumed that the goal was to keep the haul hidden from prying eyes, but more on that later.

The site’s reign ended with a surprise shut down in the spring of 2013. Many believed that legal troubles had plagued the site, a suspicion that was eventually confirmed years later when Dresden police announced several arrests .

Early Arrests and Prison Sentences

These initial arrests targeted one of the main operators, who received a one-year prison sentence for copyright infringement in 2023, as well as an eight-month sentence for money laundering, fraud, and tax evasion.

In the same criminal prosecution, the site’s financial agent received a ten-month suspended prison sentence. All sentences were suspended and both men issued a full confession. In addition, at least one of the defendants helped the investigation into other suspects.

The authorities had also seized 2,700 bitcoins. These are currently valued at €160 million but were previously exchanged by the authorities in an “emergency sale” for 38.6 million euros. The money remains in custody pending a final decision on the fate of these criminal proceeds.

While 2,700 bitcoins was already the largest seizure in a piracy-related prosecution, this figure was topped by the nearly 50,000 bitcoins the German authorities voluntarily seized earlier this year.

Fresh Charges

This second Bitcoin heist is connected to an ongoing prosecution where the Dresden General Prosecutor’s Office announced its charges this week, more than a decade after the site shut down.

The main suspect is one of Movie2K’s main admins, who remained on the run for a long time. The 40-year-old German man has been listed as wanted internationally since 2019. He was eventually arrested in Spain last year and extradited to Germany to face prosecution.

The defendant now faces charges including unauthorized commercial exploitation of copyrighted works and commercial money laundering. The second defendant, a 37-year-old Polish man, is charged with commercial money laundering and tax evasion.

The Polish defendant was a friend of the main suspect and reportedly received a salary in Bitcoin for his work at the pirate streaming portal.

As mentioned by Tarnkappe , the crackdown and investigation into Movie2K also led to a real estate agent from Berlin who allegedly received millions of euros from the site’s operators through a Dutch mailbox company.

The Prosecutor’s Office notes that the Leipzig district court has yet to admit further charges against the real estate agent, who reportedly invested the money in physical properties.

Billions in Bitcoin

While the charges announced this week are significant, the earlier seizure of 50,000 bitcoins stands out most. These are valued at roughly 3 billion euros today and, as far as we know, they’re yet to be sold.

“The investigation into the handling of the seized Bitcoins is ongoing,” the Dresden Prosecutor’s Office notes.

It’s remarkable to see the recent developments in this case, considering that the site itself has been offline for eleven years. That said, with billions in Bitcoin at stake, perseverance seems to have paid off.

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

From a standing start in 2016, manga piracy site Mangamura (Manga Village) took just two years to become the largest site of its type and the single largest online piracy threat Japanese publishers had ever encountered.

Publishers including Shogakukan, Kadokawa, and Shueisha, and their anti-piracy partner CODA, estimated that in its relatively brief time online, Mangamura had caused a staggering $2.91 billion in losses. In April 2018, in the wake of a government announcement that detailed emergency website blocking against sites including Mangamura, the site suddenly disappeared and was never seen again. Then came the reckoning.

A criminal investigation eventually led to the arrest of the site’s operator, Romi Hoshino, in Manilla. After being deported to Japan and arrested, Hoshino faced a criminal trial and in June 2021, was handed a three-year prison sentence and financial penalties totaling around $650K.

Publishers Sue For Damages

Hoping to recoup some of their losses, in the summer of 2022 manga publishers Kodakawa, Shogakukan, and Shueisha filed a civil action against the former operator of Mangamura. Their lawsuit sought damages of 1.9 billion yen ($12.3 million at today’s rates) from Hoshino, supported by evidence obtained from Google and Cloudflare , among others.

Following his release in 2022, Hoshino hit the headlines last September when promoting the imminent release of his new book, The Truth About Mangamura , which appears to have generated mostly positive reviews on Amazon .

Publishers Handed Big Win in Tokyo

Whether Hoshino’s book was a commercial success isn’t clear. However, a decision handed down today at the Tokyo District Court in the civil action, brought against him by the publishers, carries a damages award big enough to upset even the most successful authors.

According to the publishers’ complaint, around 8,200 pirated copies of manga and magazines (73,000 volumes) were offered on Mangamura. With monthly visits of up to 100 million, totaling 538 million between April 2017 and April 2018, the publishers estimated overall damages in excess of 320 billion yen, around $2 billion at today’s rates.

The publishers’ 1.9 billion yen claim, based on a calculation that multiplied the average number of views by the sales price of each of the 17 infringed works in suit, was the largest ever claim against a pirate site in Japan. Even then, it represented just a small part of the overall damages attributable to the site, the publishers argued.

Judge Masaki Sugiura agreed that Mangamura caused damage to the publishers but awarded less than the 1.9 billion yen requested. The award of 1.7 billion yen, around $11 million, is still believed to be a record amount for a piracy case in Japan.

Hoshino and Publishers Respond to Decision

Outside the Tokyo District Court, Romi Hoshino appeared happy to answer questions about the decision. The full video is embedded below for any native speakers or those who have any confidence in the accuracy of the transcript. While the translation doesn’t feel authentic enough for us to report on directly, there’s no doubt when it comes to Hoshino’s overall opinion of the decision.

He rejects the decision, the amount, and even the result of the first trial that landed him behind bars. In the short term, Hoshino says he may appeal today’s decision. Ultimately, however, he lacks any motivation to balance the books.

“I have no intention of paying anything,” he said, effortlessly closing the loop.

A statement published on Kadokawa’s website notes that the award for damages is appropriate; it also concedes that it will be “impossible to recover all of it.”

“We believe that it is of great significance that the illegality and liability for compensation regarding ‘Mangamura’ have been recognized in the judicial arena. Copyright infringement cases are not limited to pirated sites targeting manga, but also include movies, anime, etc., and the scope of damage is wide-ranging. Our company intends to take a resolute stance in dealing with cases of rights infringement,” Kadokawa concludes.

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

Founded back in 2011, Uptobox rapidly gained popularity by making it easy for users to upload, store, and share files with others online. In April 2023, Uptobox received 34 million visits from users all over the world, around a third of those from France.

At several points in its dozen or so years online, Uptobox faced adversity, mostly due to copyright issues. Last May, the site was blocked by French ISPs but determined to stay online, Uptobox provided its users with advice on how blocking could be circumvented.

On September 20, 2023, not even the most sophisticated techniques allowed users to connect to Uptobox servers. After obtaining authorization from a French court, the world’s largest entertainment companies, including Columbia, Paramount, StudioCanal, Warner Bros, Disney, Apple, and Amazon, descended on two datacenters used by Uptobox.

At Scaleway and OpCore, two cloud service providers based in Vitry-sur-Seine in the southeastern suburbs of Paris, servers were unplugged and seized as evidence in support of a civil action. The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment eventually claimed responsibility and in a statement revealed that two French nationals were operating Uptobox from Dubai. It was always inevitable that the ‘criminal operators’ would find themselves shut down, ACE said.

Uptobox Said Little Until Recently

Given the gravity of any legal measures taken by a coalition with a combined worth expressed in triple-digit billions, Uptobox hasn’t said much over the past six months. Last December, via the service’s X account, the company said that all subscriptions had been frozen and would be extended. At a minimum, it would like users to get their files back .

Then on March 7, 2024, Uptobox appeared to offer more positive news. “Our position is to do everything to recover these servers and allow our users to recover their data, and more optimistically to resume our activity. Thank you all for your support,” a post to X revealed .

Dubai-based company Genius Servers Tech Fze is said to be the operator of Uptobox. It filed an appeal in October 2023 and the first hearing was held at the Paris judicial court a few days ago.

Server Costs Running to 75,000 Euros Per Month

Marc Rees of French publication l’Informé attended the hearing and had the opportunity to speak with Thomas Chalanset, Uptobox/Genius Servers’ attorney. He was critical of the seizure and the ex parte nature of the court order behind it.

“This is the first time the operator of the Uptobox/Uptostream service, Genius Servers Tech Fze has been able to present its case. The power of the companies in front of us must not let misleading appearances win the day,” Chalanset explained.

“The service risks being asphyxiated by server costs and the length of the proceedings, even if Genius emerges unscathed in terms of a conviction.”

Uptobox’s server bill currently runs to 75,000 euros per month and the current process has already been running for seven months. The nature of the case, currently in the hands of the public prosecutor, features parallel criminal proceedings for infringement filed by the plaintiffs. There are fears the process could run for years.

“Blocklist Inclusion Supported Seizure Operation”

Documents seen by l’Informé indicate that the movie companies used Uptobox’s inclusion on blacklists as justification for the seizure operation to go ahead. The first, the European Commission’s Counterfeiting and Piracy Watch List , mentioned Uptobox in its 2022 edition.

However, as the service’s attorney Thomas Chalanset points out, the European Commission “does not take any position” on any of the rightsholder allegations, including those below, that appear in the report. In any event, the Commission has never contacted Uptobox, Chalanset says.

Uptobox summary in the 2022 Watch List

Other actions against Uptobox all involved French regulator ARCOM; in respect of the first in 2023 , Uptobox claims to have received no correspondence and is now taking action to have the decision reversed. Two other judgments that resulted in the Uptobox domain being blocked by ISPs last year, are also being appealed.

No Different to Google Drive or Dropbox, Court Hears

According to l’Informé’s report on the proceedings, Thomas Chalanset informed the court that his client’s service is no different to Google Drive or Dropbox; if a complaint is received requesting the removal of infringing content, there’s an obligation to take it down.

Lawyers for the entertainment companies rejected the comparison; Google and Dropbox sell storage space, whereas Uptobox offered premium subscriptions with “18 features, only one of which relates to storage spaces. All the others aim to unblock access, downloading, and viewing of hosted files, for example to break the waiting time limit between two downloads or for viewing files.”

As for the comment about actioning takedowns in common with Google Drive and Dropbox, the studios highlighted a feature on Uptobox that restored files following receipt of a takedown notice. A test involving 68 infringing files revealed that half reappeared within two hours.

Some Users Are Pirates, Non-Infringing Files Get No Publicity

Chalanset conceded that pirates did use Uptobox, but these were just a tiny minority who wanted to accumulate enough ‘Premium’ points to pay for their five euro per month subscription. Uptobox also called on a pair of expert reports to counter claims from rights holders that 84% of the files on the platform were infringing. As per l’Informé (translated from French)

“[T]he Dubai company also produced two reports, one written by In Code We Trust, a consulting company, the other by Hubert Bitant, a legal expert at the Paris Court of Appeal. Their analysis shows that the vast majority of files hosted on Uptobox are not downloaded or viewed. In essence, 73.5% of the hosted files were not downloaded, while the rights holders estimate that 84% of the files are infringing.”

The statistical method used by the rights holders to identify pirated content stored on Uptobox also came in for criticism. Their approach reportedly involved visiting pirate sites that typically link to files hosted elsewhere, Uptobox included. However, by visiting pirate sites, most of the content on offer would obviously be infringing and shared in public; non-infringing content that isn’t shared in public, users’ personal files and photographs, for example, by their very nature simply wouldn’t appear on a pirate platform.

Whether the court found Uptobox’s appeal credible will be revealed when its decision is handed down in two months. It’s unclear if users will be able to retrieve any family photos at any point, but a stampede to discuss the matter in person before the court seems unlikely.

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