When Hollywood sets its sights on something it wants to achieve in the piracy landscape, victory may not come this week or even next year. The MPA has been around for 100 years; it definitely has patience to see out a few more.

In Vietnam, despite changes in the law and visits by high-ranking MPA and ACE representatives, patience will be required to reduce piracy. The world’s largest pirate sites seem to operate freely there and even when giants like Zoro.to and 9anime came under direct pressure from ACE recently, immediate respawning under new domains was hardly conducive to confidence building.

MPA/ACE have enjoyed success, the closure of 2embed is just one example. But with Vietnam-based movie streaming giant Fmovies also announcing a domain switch/minor rebranding to Fmoviesz recently, more progress is needed and in an announcement this week, the authorities reported just that.

1,000 Piracy Websites Blocked

During an anti-piracy seminar held in Hanoi on Tuesday, data compiled by the Authority of Broadcasting and Electronic Information, a department under the Ministry of Information and Communications revealed that, during the past 12 months, 1,000 copyright-infringing sites were blocked in Vietnam.

The blocking reportedly took place between August 2022 and August 2023, but there’s not much for the MPA to celebrate, at least not in the short term.

It appears that most of the targets were sites offering pirate football streams, not the platforms offering movies, TV shows, manga, and anime that the MPA would like to shut down. Reading between the lines, these blocking efforts are considered a step in the right direction but were probably ineffective overall.

Blocking is 98% Successful Until it Immediately Isn’t

A representative of the state-run Vietnam Digital Copyright Center said that blocking of the 1,000 sites (a closer view reveals that’s actually the number of domains) was carried out in coordination with Vietnamese internet service providers. A similar approach last year allegedly reduced visits to pirate streaming sites by 98%, but general commentary on the scheme tends to undermine that.

Current blocking efforts are described as inconsistent, with some ISPs quickly blocking sites but others taking a much more leisurely approach. Given that sites reportedly switch to new domains in a claimed five to 10 minutes, blocking faces immediate challenges. A football streaming site known as ‘Xoi Lac TV’ is claimed to be the most notorious repeat offender and by ignoring bans and switching domains, it has remained online for around five years.

Pirate Sites Funded By Illegal Advertising

Media reports from 2018 indicate that Xoi Lac TV and many other sites were blocked on copyright grounds. And when 500 sites were reportedly blocked in 2021/22, copyright was again the headline reason.

Indeed, Vietnam already has a site-blocking mechanism in place; a verified complaint from a rightsholder can lead to the Authority of Broadcasting and Electronic Information (AEBI) instructing an online platform to remove content. If that doesn’t happen within the allocated timeframe, ISPs can be instructed to block the sites. Why that doesn’t happen to more sites more often isn’t clear, but there are other ways pirate sites can find themselves in more immediate trouble.

When football streaming sites are blocked in Vietnam, discussion of illegal betting advertising on the platforms usually appears as part of the discussion. Xoi Lac TV has appeared on lists of domains blocked due to illegal gambling promotions and the government seems very willing to bring those involved to justice .

Late 2022 an expert with Vietnam’s National Cyber Security Center said that the operators of local streaming sites obtain foreign streams, embed their own logos, and then use the content to promote gambling and fraud.

“The general method of these websites is to steal TV copyrights, ‘push’ the search engine optimization (SEO) to the top on Google to attract traffic, and then receive ads for gambling and fraud channels,” the expert said .

Xoi Lac TV streams reportedly promote the gambling game portal Zovip and sports betting sites including 1bet88 and fun88.

Vietnam Faces “Overseas Challenges”

This type of gambling-focused business model is largely absent from the large sites the MPA would like Vietnam to shut down. Whether that helps them to survive is up for debate but based on comments before and during the event on Tuesday, Vietnam isn’t averse to highlighting enforcement difficulties it faces in ‘other’ countries.

Xoi Lac TV is reportedly among around 70 football piracy sites that together generated around 1.5 billion views in 2022/23. However, figures cited by authorities in Vietnam claim that 200 local pirate movie sites only attract 120 million visits per month overall. Fmovies – now known as Fmoviesz – receives around 119.5 million visits each month in its own right.

Traffic estimates aside, Pham Hoang Hai, Director of the Digital Content Copyright Center, notes that all of these sites have something in common; they use foreign domain names and services to hide their identities. It was previously highlighted that when Xoi Lac TV operated from Xoilac.tv, it was difficult to trace its operator due to the domain’s registration in the United States. That wasn’t made any easier by the site allegedly using a U.S. IP address and U.S. hosting.

Blocking or shutting down websites isn’t something to be taken lightly and it appears Vietnam will take its time before deciding how to proceed against the largest pirate platforms. Meanwhile, it’s being reported that the government has been drafting new rules that will compel ISPs to kick citizens off the internet if they share “law-breaking information.”

“The move threatens to throttle web access further in a country where an estimated 1,000 websites, from those of the BBC to Freedom House, are already blocked,” Nikkei reports .

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

It’s no secret that French file-hosting platform Uptobox has been in the crosshairs of rightsholders for some time.

Founded in 2011, Uptobox gained popularity by making it easy for users to upload, store, and share files with others. In April 2023 alone, Uptobox received 34 million visits, roughly a third of those from France.

News that Uptobox domains had been blocked by French ISPs emerged in May, but the service remained unfazed. Rather than panic, it offered unblocking advice instead.

Serious Technical Issues…

Roughly three hours ago, the official Uptobox account on ‘X’ tweeted that the service was experiencing issues.

“It appears that we have a technical problem, we are currently investigating, the network seems to be severely disrupted,” the platform reported.

Reports from all over Europe confirmed that Uptobox was down, accompanied by differences of opinion as to the cause. Soon after, French news outlet l’Informé broke the news that no user of the service wanted to hear.

Police Raids on Two Datacenters

According to l’Informé sources, around 20 police officers (see update below) raided Scaleway and OpCore, two cloud service providers based in Vitry-sur-Seine, an area in the southeastern suburbs of Paris.

At the time of the report, police were still on the scene, reportedly carrying out a court-ordered “counterfeit seizure” operation targeting Uptobox, which presumably utilized servers at Scaleway and OpCore.

According to l’Informé, the raids were carried out on behalf of the world’s largest entertainment companies; Columbia, Paramount, StudioCanal, Warner Bros, Disney, Apple and Amazon. All are members of the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment, the world’s largest anti-piracy coalition.

(Update: ACE has just confirmed its involvement in the operation. Statement below)

No Uptobox domains are functional at the time of writing.

One Image Reportedly Sealed Uptobox’s Fate

A remarkable detail in l’Informé’s report suggests that an image posted to Twitter almost five years ago may have marked the beginning of the end for Uptobox. It was posted to the @Starouille account just before Christmas 2018 by an individual believed to be the chief technical officer of Uptobox.

‘Online’ is a reference to Online SAS, the cloud hosting company that rebranded as Scaleway in 2015. DC2 is a reference to datacenter 2, a 4,500 m² facility located in Vitry-sur-Seine, the same suburb targeted by police this morning. Images courtesy of Google comprehensively clear up any remaining doubts over the location.

When contacted by l’Informé for comment, representatives of the movie industry, Scaleway and OpCore all declined to answer any questions.

‘Expert’ Opinions Should Be Ignored

Some ‘experts’ posting on social media are claiming that the l’Informé article is bogus. Unfortunately, they have to overcome two massive hurdles to remain credible.

Most importantly, the news was broken by journalist Marc Rees , so we can safely bet the house it’s authentic. Secondly, the official Uptobox account on ‘X’ has just provided important updates.

“Following the incident, we lost access to the servers containing the user files, they are no longer reachable, we have not yet had any documented confirmation of the seizure of our servers by anyone,” the first tweet reads.

“The database was not affected, and for security reasons, it was relocated off-web and the servers operating the site were erased in their entirety.”

Uptobox reports that no user data is currently lost and if it can regain access to its servers, files and user accounts may be reconnected.

“In the meantime, your files remain anonymous on our servers and are unusable. As for Premium subscriptions, these are frozen and will be restored and credited with compensation as soon as we regain access to the file servers. We are not going to give up, our team is working hard to resolve this situation as quickly as possible.”

Update:

ACE informs us that this was not a police action, but a civil action mandated by the court. Two police officers assisted in the operation, which was orchestrated by ACE. In addition, ACE undertook action in Dubai where the main operators allegedly reside.

Additional statement from the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment:

The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE), the world’s leading anti-piracy coalition, today announced it has shut down Uptobox and Uptostream, two of the digital piracy world’s most notorious illegal video hosts.

The action, conducted in France and the United Arab Emirates, puts an end to a piracy operation that was well known for a decade among distributors of infringing content. The illegal service boasted massive audiences, mainly from France, but also from Indonesia, India and Mexico, with 1.5 billion visits over the last three years. The services hosted a sizable infringing library of film and television titles affecting all ACE members and many other rightsholders, allowing users to stream and download copyright-protected content at no cost or through a paid premium subscription.

The two French nationals who ran the illegal service are based in Dubai, where they amassed illegal gains from selling advertising and premium subscriptions.

“The action we announced today demonstrates that even the most sophisticated piracy operations are not above the law,” said Jan van Voorn, Executive Vice President and Global Content Protection Chief of the Motion Picture Association and Head of ACE. “This case sends a strong message to criminal operators that their illegal actions will be put to an end eventually. They may think their operations are undercover, but ACE has the network, resources and expertise to identify them and shut them down.”

“Canal+ supports swift action when acts of piracy compromise intellectual property rights, which in turn has an impact on our business,” said Céline Boyer, Head of Content Protection at Canal+. “Our partnership with ACE is essential to ensuring that the creative marketplace continues to thrive by addressing content piracy at its source.”

“France Televisions has zero tolerance for piracy and illegal distribution of content and channels,” said Nathalie Bobineau, Senior Vice President of International Development of French public broadcaster France Televisions. “By collaborating with ACE, we reinforce our commitment to upholding the principles of copyright protection and preserving the value of original content.”

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

It’s no secret that the majority of mainstream movies appear on pirate sites soon after their release. In that respect, not much has changed since the early 2000s. Pirate site aesthetics, on the other hand, have undergone a transformation.

Today’s pirate movie and TV show sites are considerably more polished, often carrying official poster images and metadata to give that Netflix-style feel. Pirate sites offering Japanese cartoons (anime) often look so good they could easily pass for legitimate platforms.

These glossy sites receive hundreds of millions of visits every month from extraordinarily enthusiastic fans who happily soak up every available detail but mostly pay nothing for the privilege.

Japanese rightsholders are making progress against anime piracy, even in challenging overseas territories such as Brazil . But having spotted the pots of gold at the end of the anime rainbow, companies like Disney also have content to protect. With decades of experience doing just that, there’s little doubt that the pressure is building.

DMCA Subpoenas, Visit to Vietnam

During the last week of June, high-level executives from the Motion Picture Association visited Vietnam, a hotbed of some of the most polished and popular pirate sites to ever exist. The visit coincided with the takedown of Vietnam-based 2Embed, a site that supplied hundreds of other sites with video content.

Authorities in Vietnam welcomed enhanced cooperation with ACE to tackle other pirate sites moving forward, but a visit to court in the United States and a routine application for a DMCA subpoena against Cloudflare was also delivering results.

In the wake of our initial report on the subpoena early July, one of the targeted sites ‘Anime Kaizoku’ indicated it had thrown in the towel . Now a considerably larger platform claims to have done the same.

Animedao.to Announces Shutdown

Recent data published by SimilarWeb indicate that AnimeDao received over 54 million visits in three recent months. In April, the pirate anime site welcomed around 19.1 million visitors, and in May, around 18.1 million.

June’s figures were lower at 16.9 million visits, but with the majority of visitors arriving from the United States, it was inevitable that anti-piracy group ACE would eventually take action.

The DMCA subpoena provided fairly clear evidence that the site was under some type of investigation but what lies ahead after more recent developments is unclear.

As the image below shows, AnimeDao has now decided that for financial, technical, and legal reasons, its days of servicing millions of visitors each month are over.

The comment about content no longer being available without popup ads is interesting. While situations vary, it may suggest that at least some content arrives as a package and is intended to be consumed in a particular way, i.e. while being monetized.

The statement about CORS relates to cross-origin resource sharing, a browser mechanism that controls access to resources located outside of a given domain. This suggests that content that may otherwise have been accessible from other platforms is being restricted .

The final comment about ‘being targeted’ is self-explanatory but how that will play out, especially given recent events, is open for debate.

Problematic Resurrections

Following MPA/ACE’s visit to Vietnam, Zoro.to – until recently the world’s most popular pirate site – suddenly shut itself down and handed its domains over to the MPA .

Had that been the end of the matter, Hollywood would’ve probably mentioned it via a press release. What actually happened is that within hours of Zoro.to’s closure, it reemerged under a new domain (aniwatch.to) with all-new branding.

That could suggest that if any agreement was in place with the operator of Zoro, it might not have taken the form of a cast-iron legal contract usually associated with ACE activity. Whether that indicates one of the parties not taking things particularly seriously is open to speculation but the recent reemergence of former fan-favorite Aniwatch.me (not to be confused with Aniwatch.to) may be a sign of things going in the wrong direction.

Then finally, there was the demise of Anime Kaizoku, a much smaller site, but a significant closure nonetheless. After disappearing online in response to ACE pressure, a few days ago the animekaizoku.com domain suddenly found new life and now redirects to another anime site called Simkl.com, which is now scooping up all of the shuttered site’s traffic.

Only time will tell how this difficult anime landscape will change over the next few months, but it seems unlikely it will be allowed to continue in the manner it does today. The anime piracy scene seems to be extremely well organized, with both centralized and somewhat sophisticated independent systems ensuring that content reaches the widest possible audience via any number of supplied sites.

That raises interesting questions concerning the diversity of original (pirated) content sources and how that might affect the stability of the anime piracy ecosystem.

Relatively few sites offer large volumes of anime content that they both host and control, perhaps fewer than 10 and maybe less than that. One of those sites, GogoAnime, is relied upon by dozens of sites for their content so they may be especially vulnerable to being substantially wiped out overnight.

One domain that won’t be offering anime content anytime soon is BUNNYCDNN.RU. It was previously known for its connections with high-traffic anime platforms but today, after being transferred to a new owner, is now notable for being under the control of MPA/ACE.

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

Operating a pirate site is not without risk. Those who get caught risk millions of dollars in damages, multi-year prison sentences, or even both.

To avoid that fate, many sites prefer not to poke the proverbial bear. With dozens of high-profile shutdowns in recent years, the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment ( ACE ) is the biggest bear there is in the piracy landscape.

DonTorrent Stands Out

ACE is well aware of all large pirate sites, so hiding isn’t really an option. Instead, most sites simply try to stand out less than the rest, a strategy that doesn’t apply to one of Spain’s most popular torrent sites, DonTorrent.

With millions of visitors, DonTorrent is one of the larger pirate sites in the region but getting users to the site isn’t always easy. Spanish ISPs are required to block DonTorrent, so the site regularly rotates to fresh domains.

DonTorrent currently has over 100 registered domains and also offers a censorship-free Tor version. To inform followers about its most recent new home, it uses a dedicated Telegram channel , which pops up for all new visitors.

Taunting the Anti-Piracy ‘Don’

The photo that accompanies the Telegram invite link may not immediately ring a bell with everyone, but those in the know recognize Jan Van Voorn’s likeness. Van Voorn is the head of ACE and MPA’s Chief of Global Content Protection.

Van Voorn’s photo, with an added pirate hat and crossbones, is also present in the site’s official logo now. Apparently, the site is not afraid of drawing attention, even though this type of mockery is likely to make ACE even more determined to find its operators.

This isn’t the first time that DonTorrent has openly featured the ACE chief. The torrent site previously listed Van Voorn as the site’s owner and is now upping the ante.

Needless to say, ACE is working behind the scenes to find those responsible for the site. For example, a few weeks ago the coalition obtained a subpoena that required Cloudflare to hand over the details of the admin behind Dontorrent.cat, and there have been similar attempts in the past.

Thus far this hasn’t resulted in any effective enforcement actions, suggesting that the torrent site doesn’t have any sensitive data at Cloudflare. But ACE is not an outfit that gives up easily. According to Van Voorn, DonTorrent is indeed on its radar but the group didn’t have much more to add at the moment.

Messing With OSINT Investigators

DonTorrent is well aware of the potential risks involved but seems unfazed by it all. Speaking with TorrentFreak, one of the people involved with the site notes that OSINT investigators are circling the site as well.

For example, an IP crime investigator from a Belgian company, located close to one of MPA’s branches, sent money to DotTorrent’s Paypal address, presumably fishing for information. Whether MPA or ACE were involved in this is unknown, but the torrent site laughed it off.

DonTorrent also shared an example of a Spanish investigator who apparently tried to obtain IP-address details via email. When DonTorrent privately confronted the person via social media, the OSINT expert blamed it on an infected server.

For the Lulz (and Some ‘Netflix’ Money)

Needless to say, the site is playing a high-stakes game that has an asynchronous payout. It can only be lost once.

In addition to taunting anti-piracy forces for fun, the site also generates revenue through advertisements. These are not the nasty popups found on some pirate sites. Instead, the income is ironically generated indirectly through legal streaming platforms.

DonTorrent is an affiliate for StartGaming , a service where users can purchase shared accounts for legal streaming services. Whether Netflix, Disney and HBO are happy with this is doubtful.

It’s not clear how password-sharing crackdowns will affect this business model but, for now, it helps the torrent site to pay its bills.

“We don’t make money through popups, malware, or pushing intrusive advertising. What we have is a deal with an external store that we take a percentage of the user’s purchase in their store,” our DonTorrent contact says.

The revenue helps to pay the server bills but it’s not the site’s goal to make big bucks. Instead, DonTorrent says that it is mostly a hobby project. While that may be true, it certainly is a risky one.

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

Based on readily available information and data provided by the entertainment industries through various studies, online piracy is rampant and in some areas, more prolific than at any point in history.

On a day-to-day basis, based on news of pirate site closures, arrests, lawsuits, and various investigations, it could also be argued that the tide is turning and has been for some time. The truth probably lies somewhere in the middle, shifting one way and then the other, according to the ebb and flow of dozens of complex factors, subject to change at a moment’s notice.

One constant is the enforcement work of the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE). According to an interview published in Vietnam at the end of June, ACE identified 1,400 pirate sites and services in the United States in 2018. After five years of enforcement operations, with the assistance of the Department of Justice and U.S. prosecutors, the number reported as still in existence today is just 36.

The overseas picture of a few hundred torrent sites and thousands of streaming-related platforms presents an epic challenge that may never be won but won’t be given up on either. Recent action in Vietnam and Latin America show mixed fortunes but that is just part of a much bigger picture.

More Domain Takeovers This Week

The recent closure of a Cuevana3 variant in Peru will see ACE (via the Motion Picture Association) take over 22 domains that were good for more than 100 million visits between March and May of this year. Some have already been handed over.

As previously reported by TF but not yet reported by ACE, the domains of Zoro.to and Goku.to are now under MPA/ACE control . On Friday, those .to domains were joined on the MPA’s DNS servers by Zorotv.to and ZoroNetwork.ru, presumably handed over by the site’s operator.

Considering the volume of similar domains still in use and now pointing to Zoro.to replacement Aniwatch.to , the loss of a couple of extra domains is unlikely to make much of a dent in traffic heading to the anime piracy giant. That being said, this battle is not over yet, and ACE/MPA won’t give up until it is.

CableKill Tried to Kill Cable, ACE Killed It

One domain that won’t be receiving (or distributing) any more infringing traffic is CableKill.us. Founded around five years ago, CableKill offered tutorials that informed people how to ‘kill cable’ by dumping their provider and using pirate apps instead.

“Kick giant companies to the curb and control your own TV! How does being able to watch ANY movie or TV show whenever you want sound? How does watching ANY sporting event that’s live no matter your location sound? On top of all that little to ZERO monthly fees. Well that’s exactly what we do here at CableKill,” the site advised.

With the benefit of hindsight, some of the logos above should’ve been avoided. Sports streaming app Mobdro went down in a ball of flames in 2021 , Area51 was shut down by ACE in 2020 and later ordered to pay $272k in damages , and the people behind Gears TV had to pay back millions and are now in prison .

Precisely what offenses led to ACE/MPA taking over the CableKill.us domain on Friday isn’t clear. The same is true for the affiliated domain CKhosting.org, which did business under CK Servers branding, and also under MPA/ACE control as of Friday.

Likely candidates include hosting many of the world’s most popular free pirate apps, selling set-top boxes ready configured for piracy, and the promotion, sale and/or hosting of premium IPTV services. The specifics aren’t public but even in isolation, any of the above would’ve been enough for ACE.

The public availability of both email and physical addresses, linked directly to the operator of CableKill and CK Hosting, would’ve been the icing on the cake.

Anime Kaizoku Calls it Quits Early

Last week we reported the details of DMCA subpoenas recently obtained by MPA/ACE in the United States. Among the targets were three anime sites; animedao.to, animet.site, and animekaizoku.com.

While the first pair continue business as usual, animekaizoku.com appears to have taken the existence of a subpoena as a signal to throw in the towel.

We aren’t in a position to verify that the communication we received was sent by one of the site’s operators, but it does align with the fact that the site went offline this week. The message begins with a link to our report and continues with assurances that the site is gone for good.

“Just figured i’ll notify you that animekaizoku.com has been taken down for good, including the data and website code has been wiped. The domain won’t be up ever again. We are fully out of the piracy side of things. You can visit the site and see for yourself,” it reads.

Domains mentioned in other DMCA subpoenas that have also gone dark recently include the following: tvzon.tv, moviehdapkdownload.com, megacamais.com, and filmisub.com.

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

For at least five years , major rightsholders in the United States have issued regular warnings that Vietnam represents an emerging piracy threat.

Pirate site brands, including 123movies, Putlocker, Kisscartoon, 123movieshub, and GoMovies, were suddenly recognized all over the world, despite in many cases having been copied from ‘pirate’ brands already in existence. After the US Ambassador to Vietnam got involved in 2018, calling on government officials to launch criminal prosecutions , several persistent sites suddenly shut down .

Over time, several hundred domains reappeared online with similar branding, but none were as relevant or persistent as those previously removed from the market. Instead, a series of soon-to-be ‘mega brands’ were gaining a foothold, some on their way to 100 million, 150 million, then 200+ million visits per month – each.

Hollywood Visits Vietnam

Despite important legal developments in Vietnam earlier this year, it was still unclear whether the government would begin to take action against local pirate platforms.

On June 29, 2023, Deputy Minister of Public Security Lieutenant General Le Quoc Hung welcomed to Vietnam two important guests from the United States; Jan van Voorn, Head of the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment and Chief of Global Content Protection at the MPA, and Karyn Temple, the Hollywood industry group’s Executive Vice President and Global Chief Counsel.

The Ministry of Public Security described the visit as an opportunity for the two sides to have “open, substantive and effective exchanges” on the protection of content online. Vietnamese authorities offered assurances that the fight against intellectual property crime would be stepped up; for their part, ACE and the MPA were asked to share information to strengthen cooperation between the parties.

On the same day, local media published an interview with van Voorn, during which he took the unusual step of calling one pirate site by name; Zoro.to.

With over 205 million monthly visits, ACE had a clear goal in mind for the giant pirate site. “To close the website completely, avoiding the situation of it closing and then opening,” a local news outlet reported.

Momentus Week in Vietnam

On Monday, July 4, we were able to confirm that ACE had already booked a significant win in Vietnam. The recent closure of 2Embed, a site that acted as a video library for hundreds of other sites, was the result of the anti-piracy group’s work.

“[T]he service was shut down through direct operator outreach,” ACE chief Jan van Voorn informed TorrentFreak, a possible reference to the “Knock-and-Talk” strategy now closely linked with the anti-piracy coalition.

Running in parallel, news began to emerge of big changes at Zoro.to. For reasons not immediately made clear, the site suddenly abandoned its Zoro.to domain and then reemerged at Animewatch.to , sporting a brand new coat of paint and according to site staff, a new set of people at the helm.

“Everyone calm down, Zoro is acquired by a new dev team, they will now handle the whole website and social network accounts,” an announcement on the site declared. “Do not worry, all the data will remain the same, the old staff will keep supporting the server.”

Big Sites Never Switch Domain on a Whim

The suggestion that Zoro.to had rebranded simply because it had grown tired of its old domain and liked the idea of a fresh design, was implausible at best. Seizing a pirate site’s domain is one of the most punishing enforcement techniques, and sites don’t inflict that on themselves for no reason.

Soon after the switch, a site admin on the rebranded site – Animewatch.to – was a little more candid, although a DMCA issue seemed unlikely to dictate a change of theme.

That message was posted eight days ago, and in the past few hours, more information came to light supporting the theory that Zoro.to was probably under pressure from ACE/MPA directly, or maybe indirectly via local authorities.

As the image below shows, Zoro.to’s nameserver records have now been updated to point to ns3 and ns4.films.org. These nameservers are operated by the MPA and when site operators hand over their domains as part of a settlement, most of the time they are updated with these details.

To ensure that these records are indeed correct, we conducted a domain lookup directly at the Tonga Network Information Center (Tonic), the domain registration authority in control of the .to TLD. Those records confirm the details above and also provide a domain ‘edited’ time of 07:14 on July 13, 2023.

Domains offered by Tonic carry no personally identifying WHOIS records. Tonic says that maintaining that type of database would reveal registrant information, something that many of its customers consider “invasive of their privacy.”

This means that we cannot confirm that the Zoro.to domain has been transferred to MPA ownership already, whether it will ever be transferred, or indeed whether the addition of MPA nameserver details is intended to be permanent.

What we can confirm is that Zoro.to isn’t the only pirate site domain displaying these kinds of changes today. Pirate movie streaming site Goku.to displays similar domain records after enjoying around 32 million visits back in April and then slowly drifting away.

A similar domain, Goku.sx, on a very similar-looking site, made its first appearance in April and now receives almost 43 million visits per month.

Another domain, gokutv.me, is just getting started. Visitors from the United States are up 94% in a month, the United Kingdom 185%, and India 216%. Just another day at the office for pirates.

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

If we didn’t know better, we might conclude that ‘Cuevana’ is Spanish for ‘mole’.

The popular streaming piracy brand first appeared on the radar in 2009 and anti-piracy forces have been trying to ‘whack’ it ever since.

The original Cuevana site was founded by Tomas Escobar , at the time an engineering student in Cordoba, Argentina. By offering a Netflix-type streaming experience, with a bigger catalog and without any subscription fees, the pirate service quickly took off.

Taking Down Cuevana

It didn’t take long before rightsholders started to take notice of the millions of users flocking to the site. That marked the start of a series of enforcement campaigns that continues to this day.

Rightsholders and their anti-piracy representatives are no longer battling Escobar. The original founder moved on many years ago, and with an unrelated innovator accolade from MIT Technology Review, he now builds a career as an entrepreneur.

Escobar’s change of plans opened the doors for aspiring pirate tycoons, of which there were many. Over the past decade, many dozens of new Cuevana variants have launched, using creative domain name variations such as Cuevanahd, Cuevana2, and Cuevana3.

It is not always clear if and how these new variations are linked, but Cuevana remained a thorn in the site of Hollywood and was repeatedly featured on the U.S. Trade Representative’s list of notorious pirate sites.

“Cuevana is the most popular piracy site in the Spanish-speaking part of Latin America, offering more than 7,000 unlicensed television and movie titles,” the USTR wrote in its most recent overview.

ACE’s 2021 Breakthrough

Two years ago, the Alliance of Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) appeared to have made a breakthrough . The coalition announced that it had sent a cease and desist letter to the streaming portal’s Chilean operators, who decided to throw the towel.

This shutdown was legitimate and notable as it affected millions of users, but it didn’t shut down the Cuevana brand. In fact, Cuevana3.io, the leading domain at the time, remained online.

Earlier this year, we reported how Hollywood’s relentless pursuit of several Cuevana3 domains had failed to shut down the site. Cuevana3.io switched domains to Cuevana3.me and then Cuevana3.be. More recently, it was serving millions of monthly visits from Cuevana3.ai.

ACE Shuts Down ‘Another’ Cuevana

In an announcement yesterday, ACE said that this seemingly endless battle had come to an end. After tracking down the operator of Cuevana3.ai in the Piura District of Peru, the site was effectively pulled offline.

People who visit Cuevana3.ai, Cuevana3.me, Cuevana3.be, or any of the other domains run by this operator, are now directed to ACE’s “ Watch Legally ” page.

ACE informs TorrentFreak that it took control of 22 domain names in total, which were good for more than 100 million visits between March and May of this year. Some of these domains didn’t get any traffic but were kept as a backup, just in case.

“The largest Spanish-language piracy streamer in Latin America is no more, thanks to a tireless, global effort involving law enforcement and judicial authorities in several LATAM countries and ACE’s global teams in LATAM and other parts of the world,” says ACE boss Jan van Voorn.

Whac-a-Mole

An ACE spokesperson says that, according to their knowledge, no criminal charges will be filed against the operator. As long as the site stays offline, the main objective has been fulfilled.

There is indeed no doubt that this is a big score for ACE. However, history appears to be repeating itself once again. When the group reported that it took Cuevana offline two years ago, Cuevana3.io remained online.

Now that this Cuevana3.io threat has finally been dealt with, another Cuevana is filling the void. With over 110 million visits over the past three months, Cuevana3.ch is now in pole position, meaning that the whac-a-mole continues.

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

The Signal Association (Stowarzyszenie Sygnał) is Poland’s leading audiovisual sector anti-piracy group.

Among the group’s stated objectives are protecting film and musical works from piracy and promoting intellectual property standards found in Europe and the United States.

Many Signal members are well known outside Poland, with the majority also members of other anti-piracy groups, including the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) and the Audiovisual Anti-Piracy Alliance (AAPA).

Coinciding with the publication of a Deloitte report on how to tackle piracy more effectively in the region, Signal representatives have appeared in Polish news reports and given several interviews in recent days.

Anti-Piracy Groups Follow Same Playbook

Given the international movement to align piracy with malware, identity theft and fraud, driven by Signal’s international members Disney, Columbia Pictures, Warner Bros. Discovery, NBCUniversal, and Viacom/Paramount, the Polish approach in the media is predictably identical .

“First, it’s a safety issue. Piracy is often associated with fraud and extortion,” says Teresa Wierzbowska, president of the Signal Association.

“Secondly, it’s a matter of quality. No one likes watching a sports stream that stutters or pops up with unwanted ads. After all, it is also a matter of legal responsibility and moral judgment. By paying pirates, you deprive producers of revenue. Lower income from activities means a lower quality spectacle, lower state budget revenues, damage to the economy and to the development of culture, sport and entertainment.”

According to Polish Chamber of Information data, Wierzbowska’s standing across the entertainment, communications, and anti-piracy sectors is very impressive. In addition to her role as president of Signal, Wierzbowska is chair of the board at the Intellectual Property Protection Section of KIGEiT, the Polish Chamber of Commerce for Electronics and Telecommunications.

Wierzbowska is also on the board of Creative Poland Association and the president of Lewiatan , an organization with 4,100 member companies employing over a million employees. Two other positions useful to copyright holders include a position on the board of the Advertising Ethics Committee at the Advertising Council, and a vice-presidency of the Supervisory Board at the Association of Internet Industry Employers.

Social Media Advertising Fuels IPTV Piracy

Signal colleague Adam Jankowski has also appeared in the media over the last few days, highlighting “a plague” of pirate IPTV adverts appearing on Facebook and pirate apps appearing on official stores including Google Play.

“We don’t know what is actually going on under the GUI that the user sees. If there are any hidden functionalities, only the author of the application knows about it. It is through such careless installation of programs that users’ passwords are stolen,” Jankowski told wirtualnemedia.pl.

Jankowski acknowledged the game of “cat-and-mouse” associated with attempting to shut down pirate services but said the aim is to wear providers down financially through persistence. “We educate policemen and prosecutors in this area, and soon also judges,” he said of the piracy scene generally, adding that Signal can’t reveal too many details on enforcement for operational reasons.

ACE/MPA Targets Popular Poland-Focused IPTV Service

Just days before Signal’s representatives began giving interviews, ACE – via the Motion Picture Association – went to court in the United States hoping to compel Cloudflare to hand over the personal details of several piracy platforms.

Among them is PlanetaPL, a pirate IPTV service that claims to offer 150 of the most popular Polish channels and a VOD library of 5000+ movies and TV shows.

MPA/ACE cited two movies allegedly infringed by the service, one owned by Disney and the other by Paramount, and requested the “identities, including names, physical addresses, IP addresses, telephone numbers, e-mail addresses, payment information, account updates and account histories of the users.”

PlanetaPL has official apps listed on Google Play and Amazon and its terms and conditions point to Planeta Media, Inc. in Florida as its corporate entity.

The website of PlanetaPL states that “We a not a TV Provider. We are not responsible for the content of television programs. We provide equipment rental services.” The company’s promotional YouTube video below doesn’t mention which equipment is available to rent.

Whether Cloudflare has anything useful to hand over will remain to be seen, but it seems likely that ACE already knows a little about PlanetaPL’s setup due to a series of SSL issues that expose parts of its infrastructure. Somewhat ironically, especially given its warnings to others about security, Signal’s SSL broke last week after its certificate expired and it still hasn’t been fixed.

The DMCA subpoena application ( pdf )

Major Sites in Hungary Under Investigation

While there is less anti-piracy action in Poland when compared to some other EU countries (Poland still has no site-blocking program), until recently both Hungary and Bulgaria had even less. Activity in the United States indicates that domains targeting the Hungarian market and enjoying dozens of millions of monthly visits are firmly on the radar.

New Target: online-filmek.me
Content: Movies, TV Shows (Hungarian)
Recent Traffic: Apr 14.8m / May 14.9m / June 14.1m
Most Popular: Hungary (80% of overall traffic)
SimilarWeb Rank: #32 most popular site in Hungary

New Target: mozinet.me
Content: Movies, TV Shows (Hungarian)
Recent Traffic: Apr 12.4m / May 13.4m / June 13.1m
Most Popular: Hungary (78%)
SimilarWeb Rank: #60 most popular site in Hungary

New Target: filmvilag.me (used by above)
Content: Movies, TV Shows (Hungarian)
Recent Traffic: Apr 13.8m / May 14.5m / June 14.5m
Most Popular: Hungary (78% of overall traffic)
SimilarWeb Rank: #37 most popular site in Hungary

Without drawing too many conclusions on the possible relationships between the sites/domains, all three have very similar levels of traffic, despite three distinct designs. As the image above shows, two clearly draw on the same content library.

The final site of interest to the studios is nu6i-bg-net.com. Offering TV shows and focused on the Bulgarian market, the platform received an average of 1.6 million visits per month between April and June, with 80% of that traffic attributable to Bulgaria.

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

Dozens of times each year, global anti-piracy coalition Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment files DMCA subpoena applications at a court in California.

Once obtained, these are served on service providers, mostly Cloudflare, requesting personal information on pirate site operators. While the quality of supplied information varies, the number of applications suggests that the world’s largest entertainment companies do indeed obtain valuable intelligence from the process.

Under the banner of Hollywood’s MPA, ACE returned to court again this week, seeking information on a number of platforms, mostly dealing in movies and TV shows. The presence of yet more anime piracy platforms is probably a sign of things to come, with ACE members Disney and Paramount gaining a firmer foothold in the anime market.

Anime Sites in the Crosshairs

New Target: Animedao.to
Recent Traffic: Apr 19.1m / May 18.1m / June 16.9m

When sites like Zoro.to (which rebranded to Animewatch.to this week due to copyright issues) receive more than 200 million visits per month, it’s tempting to describe sites with tens of millions as ‘small’. We’ll refrain from doing that, especially when yearly visits to Animedao.to exceed the quarter-billion mark.

While the site’s traffic is in a slight decline, Animedao remains popular, especially in the United States. More than a third of the platform’s overall traffic hails from the U.S., the Philippines, and the United Kingdom.

Animedao.to is just one of many hundreds of sites that exist through the use of a site template. These sites are easy to identify using a number of methods but one of the most straightforward is a Google search for the term “anime” and the text of the standard disclaimer that appears at the bottom of most homepages.

In case anyone still believes that pirate site disclaimers are kryptonite to entertainment industry attorneys, they aren’t. The remaining pair of sites on the ACE list, along with summary details, are as follows:

New Target: animekaizoku.com
Recent Traffic: Apr 837k / May 637k / June 599k
Most Popular: India, Philippines, Japan

New Target: Animet.site
Recent Traffic: Apr 2.3k / May 2.2k / June 3.3k
Feature: Members Only, must sign in with Google/Discord account
Fun fact: Domain records state: “DNS points to prohibited IP stream server”

Latin American Targets

Working with local anti-piracy groups, ACE continues to take a keen interest in sites popular in Brazil and neighboring countries. Legal action to obtain site operators’ identities may take place in the United States, but any information obtained has the potential to be useful anywhere.

New Target: baixarseriesmp4.eu (baixar is ‘download’ in Portuguese)
Content: Movies, TV Shows, Anime
Recent Traffic: Apr 0k / May 1.4m / June 4m

Around 80% of Baixarseriesmp4’s traffic comes from Brazil, with Portugal following in a distant second place. The SimilarWeb figures listed above show the site’s traffic on a rapid upwards trend, which is probably one of the reasons ACE wants to take action before things get out of hand.

With that in mind, how does a site grow from nothing to four million visits in three months? The answer is simple: they don’t start from nothing.

Baixarseriesmp4.eu is a domain-hopping site that already had traction. Its current .eu domain is just the latest in use after having burned through baixarseriesmp4.xyz, .club, and .top. A message on those domains warns that they will be “decommissioned soon.”

It’s possible that ISPs may have blocked Baixarseries at some point. The main page provides instructions on how to unblock the platform by changing DNS settings in popular browsers.

New Target: 2now.tv
Content: Movies, TV Shows
Recent Traffic: Apr 13k / May 35k / June 233k

The request for information relating to 2now.tv is interesting. This is a new platform that did indeed launch from a standing start; information received by TorrentFreak suggests that 2now.tv is intended to be the English language version of Latin American streaming giant, Cuevana.

We haven’t been able to confirm that claim but attempts to boost the site’s traffic are very evident on social media. Around 75% of the site’s traffic (up 550% in the United States compared to the previous month) comes from social media referrals, 92% of that from links on Reddit.

There’s even a 2now.tv promotional video floating around, but since it uses clips from Hollywood movies – to promote piracy of Hollywood movies – we won’t link to it here.

The DMCA subpoena application can be found here ( pdf )

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