During the 6th meeting of the Policy Subcommittee of the Copyright Subcommittee of the Cultural Affairs Council in Japan last month, representatives from Google and ByteDance were invited to give presentations on the topic of appropriate compensation.

As the meeting progressed, the topic sparked discussion on connected matters, sometimes with legal implications. Neither company had lawyers present but, with plenty of scope to challenge the video platforms on piracy issues, including how some manage to benefit more than others, there was no shortage of conversation.

Google/YouTube

Takeya Kito, Head of Music Content Partnership for YouTube in Japan, began with some background. Used in over 100 countries with support for 80 languages, YouTube’s platform grows at a rate of over 500 hours of uploaded content every minute.

More than 71 million people, including two-thirds of the adult population, use YouTube every month in Japan, with the streaming service committed to providing four freedoms to each and every one: Freedom of expression, freedom of access to information, freedom of opportunity, and freedom of participation.

Mr. Kito spoke of YouTube’s commitment to transparency, including via its Copyright Transparency Report. When working with music partners, rights holders and artists, YouTube provides reports detailing how their content is consumed. In some areas, however, YouTube would like to see more transparency from its business partners.

“In order for YouTube to obtain a correct understanding of the royalties received by rights holders, we believe it is important to ensure transparency between the labels and copyright management organizations with whom we do business and license our works, and the individual artists, performers and songwriters who come after them,” Mr. Kito explained.

“This is because, unfortunately, we have no way of knowing how the distribution is actually handled between the individual rights holders, performers, and songwriters, so it is important to ensure transparency in this area as well.”

So, the Music Industry Gets Paid. What About Us>

Given Mr. Kito’s job title, it was perhaps inevitable that YouTube’s work with the music industry would dominate his presentation. Content ID, the content recognition / monetization system that currently handles over 99% of copyright claims and to date has returned $9 billion to rightsholders, mostly in the recording industry, received plenty of coverage.

The first question from those in attendance came from Mr. Ito, a representative of Authorized Books of Japan (ABJ), who thanked Mr. Kito for his presentation and then got right down to business.

“I found it very interesting to hear about how the music industry is successfully using Content ID in various ways. By the way, I belong to an organization called ABJ, and I work in anti-piracy measures at a publishing company [TF: Shueisha], and I’ve been using Content ID for about 14 years,” Mr. Ito explained.

“On YouTube, there are cases where publications, mainly still images of manga, are uploaded as videos like picture-story shows, or picture books, which are read aloud by users while turning the pages on their own. A large number of videos like this have been uploaded. Regarding Content ID, Content ID has no effect on illegal videos published by publishers, so publishers have to hire specialized companies or search on YouTube themselves to find infringing videos. I’m working on erasing them.”

Mr. Ito noted how representatives from the music industry spoke of being rewarded through Content ID, citing a “huge amount” of around $1.8 billion. But then, the inevitable; if the music industry has the ability to turn copyright claims into profit, what about everyone else?

“I strongly feel that publishers are not receiving any return from capturing pirated copies regarding Content ID. My first question is, what do you think about the situation where Content ID cannot be used to deal with pirated copies of publications?” Mr. Ito asked.

ABJ’s representative didn’t get the answer he was hoping for.

“Thank you very much,” YouTube’s representative responded. “As to your question, please understand that I am not in a position to answer it, as my role is limited to music partnerships in Japan.”

Mr. Ito accepted the position but still wasn’t quite done.

Time For TikTok

Representing TikTok at the meeting was Mr. Tomiji Kato, Senior Manager of Global Music Business Development & IP Rights at ByteDance Inc.

Mr. Kato’s presentation was very long but at one point he also touched on Content ID. TikTok doesn’t have a comparable system but the question here, it seems, is whether TikTok needs or even wants one. Something like that could be too restrictive for TikTok.

“At TikTok, we have not yet introduced a system like YouTube’s Content ID for original recordings, but what we need to consider is whether a system like Content ID is better, or whether we should have a pre-decided, all-inclusive contract like we are doing now with the labels,” Mr. Kato explained.

“By introducing a system or mechanism, we must not, for example, impair the creativity of music development or competition in music use, and so we must consider how the platforms and users can best use new music. We are considering how we can best contribute to new music use and development on the platform side and on the users’ side, and this is something that both the rights holders and the platforms should consider.”

When the presentation was opened up for questions, Mr. Ito of ABJ (and of publisher Shueisha) initially had considerable praise for TikTok; users of TikTok who introduce publishing content to their followers have a “ripple effect” and as a result, “there are many things to look forward to.”

Unfortunately, there are other things too, none of them good.

YouTube Used to Have Most Pirated Content, Not Any More

“For many years, I have been taking measures including on YouTube, and when it comes to video posting sites, YouTube has by far the most pirated copies, with the largest number of pirated copies being deleted in a month, around 20,000,” Mr. Ito said.

“However, starting around the summer, TikTok has finally overtaken YouTube, and now, depending on the month, TikTok has two to three times as many pirated copies being uploaded. We are also in serious trouble, and although the person in charge and the person at the anti-infringement company are deleting the information every day, the situation is not going away.”

Mr. Kato was then asked four questions: Is TikTok aware of so many pirated copies of publications, including manga? Does the company know that pirated copies often appear in recommendations? Does TikTok know that, when compared to YouTube, malicious accounts are less likely to be suspended? And finally, does TikTok appreciate how little copyright awareness is shown by its users?

“First of all, thank you for your positive comments,” said Mr. Kato. “I’m sorry, but I would like to refrain from answering any questions regarding pirated copies or takedowns, as this is outside of my scope of work.”

For those interested in how the discussion developed, the full minutes of the meeting ‘令和5年度第6回（2024年3月13日’ are available here (pdf). In summary, there might be a little more work to be done.

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

Despite intense pressure from the United States, including criticism as part of the USTR’s reports on notorious pirate sites and foreign trade barriers , actions against online piracy are still relatively rare in Bulgaria.

Whether the Bulgarian government had any hand in the closure of RARBG last year remains unclear but its hoped that August 2023 amendments to Bulgaria’s Criminal Code will at least make pirate site investigations more straightforward. A new operation tackling music piracy may be an opportunity to demonstrate progress.

GDBOP Team Up With Europol

The General Directorate Combating Organized Crime ( GDBOP ) is a specialist unit within Bulgaria’s Ministry of Interior. GDBOP is most closely associated with the disruption of organized crime groups and transnational criminal networks, which often sees the unit take action in coordination with international partners.

In a recent action to disrupt music piracy, GDBOP carried out an operation under the supervision of the Sofia District Prosecutor’s Office, in coordination with the European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation, more commonly known as Europol.

“Employees of the Cybercrime Directorate (GDBOP) conducted an operation to prevent the illegal use of music as an object of copyright and related rights,” a GDBOP announcement reads.

“In the course of the special operation, the cybercrime police established the identity of the owner of 12 sites that he built and maintained to offer their users access to popular music in different countries, providing the possibility to download them in .mp3 format.”

Sites Targeted Display Seizure Banner

The domains of the dozen music piracy sites targeted “due to numerous violations of intellectual property rights” are reported by GDBOP as follows:

downloadmp3bg.com, baixarmp3gratis.com, www.tekstove.org, mp3pesme.com, mp3piosenki.com, descarca-muzica.com, indirsarki.com, mp3kostenlos.com, mp3hitove.com, mp3greek.gr, xn--3-wtbj.net, mp3aghani.com

The domains now display a seizure banner in Bulgarian (translation alongside)

Considering the words used in the domains, it seems likely that in many cases they targeted an international audience.

Baixar, for example, is a Portuguese term for ‘download’ while descarca-muzica suggests downloading music and may have been directed at a Romanian audience. Most likely targeted at a German audience, mp3kostenlos translates to mp3free, indirsarki.com was intended for Turkish consumption, while mp3greek speaks for itself.

xn--3-wtbj.net is an internationalized domain name (IDN) using Punycode, a system used to encode domains containing non-ASCII characters; in this case the domain мп3.net.

Nine of the targeted domains are registered at Dynadot in the United States.

Action within the EMPACT Framework

In coordination with Europol, the action was carried out within the EMPACT framework (European Multidisciplinary Platform Against Criminal Threats) an initiative to “identify, prioritize and address threats posed by organized and serious international crime.”

Participants in EMPACT include law enforcement authorities, the judiciary, EU agencies, customs and tax offices, and various private partners. According to the European Union Agency for Criminal Justice Cooperation (Eurojust), around 200 operational actions are carried out each year under EMPACT.

The specific reasons for targeting these particular dozen sites under EMPACT hasn’t been revealed by the authorities. The operator of the sites has reportedly been identified, but no arrests have been reported.

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

If the vision for the creation of the web included a day one feature that could restrict access to content, people working on their own specialist topics, catering to their own niche audiences, would’ve happily pressed the button.

A hundred or a thousand thriving communities, small utopias in their own right, with no connection to each other, would’ve been seen as a feature, not the failure of the internet we otherwise see today. The openness of the early days of today’s web, the ability to see most other sites and communities while being exposed to creativity and information like never before, was the easiest elevator pitch in history.

Come and see, everything you want for free, was the dream made reality and people couldn’t wait to experience it. Some things for free, but you have to pay for everything else, would’ve changed everything.

Regardless, that’s what we have as our internet today, although the definition of ‘free’ has been adjusted over time, mostly to mean no money changes hands. Just watch a few ads, allow the content providers to share your data with the world, and enjoy a lifetime of ‘free’ content.

Unfortunately, a ‘lifetime deal’ on the internet is subject to change too and when ads and other mechanisms stop paying the bills, the doors get locked until payment is made for the key.

Paywalls and News

If the whole piracy debate is put to one side just for a moment, paying for music, movies, and books, doesn’t sound especially ridiculous. Yet when it comes to paying to read news, a majority suddenly get a little offended, annoyed even. They read a handful of articles a day, and they’re not paying for that, period. Certainly, they’re not paying a full subscription to several online newspapers on the basis they might have something worth reading this month.

And to be frank, who can blame people for that sentiment? The days of someone sitting back in an armchair with a single newspaper, from which they consume all news, are largely gone. And good riddance too. Consuming news from multiple sources is the only way to filter out the political biases, balance opinions, and get closer to the truth. Yet increasingly, large swathes of information, crucial to broader insight and analysis, can only be found behind paywalls.

The conundrum is currently unsolvable; a news business requires revenue, just like any other. Ads don’t work and while paywalls are broadly disliked, they pay the bills. People want access to news, information about their world, current events that affect their lives. The only issue is that when asked to pay for it, people mostly don’t want to. If the streaming service market is fragmented, news takes it to a whole new level.

Bypass Paywalls Clean

Bypass Paywalls Clean (BPC) is a browser extension that bypasses many of the paywalls put in place by most of the world’s news publishers. While that’s an accurate description, it’s really an indication of a wider problem.

BPC restores the news landscape to one that people can enjoy again, in keeping with news delivery of the last couple of decades. It removes the irritations of news articles appearing in search engines with excerpts promising everything, only to transform into a ‘subscribe now’ bait-and-switch popup, of which there was no mention earlier.

BPC removes the need for credit card hunts, not to mention the pain of any subsequent data breaches. BPC removes the need for usernames, passwords, logins authorized by 2FA, and eliminates the barrage of follow-up spam news publications suddenly feel permitted to send; pressure to sign up for longer, and for more money, not to mention the price increases of this year and the year after, plus ‘special offers’ that nobody wants.

For these and other closely related reasons, users of BPC are very upset right now. In a post to X yesterday, the software’s developer revealed why his project is no longer available; someone filed a DMCA takedown notice against his repo on GitLab .

BPC has not published a copy of the DMCA takedown notice, GitLab doesn’t appear to have shared it either. In fact, the URL where the repo could be previously found returns only a 404 error; there’s no indication that a DMCA complaint was even received, let alone who sent it and what it said.

DMCA Abuse or Something Else?

The absence of information has led to some speculation that the notice may have been abusive. Only the developer can say for sure but on the assumption that a DMCA notice was indeed responsible for taking BPC down, some point to the BPC code while shouting ‘foul’. They claim that since the BPC code is the unique creation of its developer, a DMCA notice would need to wrongfully claim copyright of his code.

While that could be a worthy topic of discussion, these scenarios can be immediately addressed using a DMCA counter-notice. BPC’s creator can simply file one with GitLab and in less than two weeks’ time, the platform would have to restore it, if whoever sent the original notice didn’t sue the developer in the United States.

Diving into a potential legal quagmire is rarely attractive or sensible. Here, however, there are signs to suggest the option has been rendered unavailable. The repo no longer exists according to GitLab, but that seems like a minor detail when compared to the status of the developer’s account .

There’s no information close to hand on GitLab that attempts to explain why magnolia1234 is ‘blocked’ and no reason supplied on the developer’s account on X either. Responses from BPC users are limited to those who @Magnolia1234B specifically mentions, so discussion is somewhat limited.

More than One Type of DMCA Notice

The developer’s earlier comment, “another day another DMCA takedown notice” tends to suggest receipt of two, three or potentially more DMCA notices. On which platforms they were received isn’t specified but if those all relate to GitLab, it raises the question of whether a ‘repeat infringer’ policy came into play. That could explain the ‘blocked’ account status but since details aren’t being made available, it’s difficult to say for sure.

However, DMCA takedown notices come in more than one flavor and the ‘remove this copy of my content’ type may not even be the best fit here. It’s certainly possible that if a DMCA notice is responsible, it could be an anti-circumvention notice for which there is no counter-notice option available.

Whether BPC amounts to a tool that circumvents a “technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected by copyright” rendering it illegal under 17 U.S. Code § 1201 , cannot be answered without a proper technical analysis.

Websites use all kinds of methods to restrict access to content but whether some, any or all qualify for protection is mostly uncharted territory. There’s also the question of intent, i.e what BPC was designed and marketed for; that has the potential to matter a lot.

Blame the Game, Not the Player

In the physical world, a locked door is a pretty clear sign that whatever lies behind it is currently unavailable for access. Some people might give the handle a couple of tries to be sure but, in ordinary circumstances, people don’t immediately start searching for security weaknesses or pull out a lockpicking set.

In the online environment, where there’s an underlying assumption most things are free, a paywall popup with an article just visible underneath, is a signal that whoever published the article cannot afford to deliver it in any other way. Yet in many cases it has already been delivered, because the text is already right there.

Is it legally acceptable to remove the blocking element in your own browser or is this really about respecting the people who spent time and money creating the content, regardless of how good their security is?

Or could this be more about the online news situation in general, where anyone can setup a website that automatically copies everything a news site publishes in public, the moment it’s published, and then pumps it out as their own content to generate revenue?

Maybe the terrible ad networks that many illegal and indeed legal news platforms foist upon their readers are the real problem? Or perhaps the response to this barrage of unwanted ads causes most damage; exhausted readers simply rejecting ads altogether, blocking the good and bad in one swoop?

With no ad revenue, news sites can either shut down completely or turn to a paywall. So rather than viewing BPC as a parasite that stops creators getting paid for their work, perhaps a broader look at the news ecosystem itself is in order.

Who’s Really Taking Available Revenue?

Considering the volume of news available at any one moment, much of it simply rehashed or otherwise trash copies of reports produced by a limited number of original publishers, the real parasites driving paywall uptake aren’t found in the form of a browser extension.

They’re the publications that pass news off as their own, sometimes completely rewritten by AI, who then spend ten times more money on SEO, because getting low quality junk to the top of search results is clearly more important than journalism. They take news articles already being offered for free yet their only contribution is to make whatever they take worse. The world is awash with them yet search engines seem incapable of doing anything about most.

Removing these sites from the market would return more of the revenue to those that should’ve received it in the first place, hopefully negating the need for more paywalls and any future for tools like BPC.

If news consumers want fewer paywalls, boycott the parasites, plagiarists, and those bombarding your browser and inboxes with spam. Adding them to a hosts file or making a firewall rule is fairly painless but a convenient, open source browser extension might be a fitting solution under the circumstances.

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

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

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

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

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

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

UK Site Blocking Lull

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

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

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

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

17,317 Flagged URLs

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

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

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

Inflated Numbers

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

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

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

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

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

Way back in 2010, Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN embarked on a mission to have The Pirate Bay blocked in the Netherlands.

Ziggo, the country’s largest ISP, had been asked to implement a DNS and IP address blockade but when BREIN’s overtures were declined, legal action ensued.

Ziggo was subsequently joined by XS4ALL, a rival ISP which also opposed site-blocking measures. After The Court of The Hague decided that blocking all customers from accessing The Pirate Bay went too far, BREIN dug in for the long haul and prepared for a full trial.

In January 2012, BREIN emerged victorious . At the time, downloading copyrighted material was still considered legal in the Netherlands, but the uploads associated with BitTorrent were always illegal, tipping the case decisively in BREIN’s favor.

Years of appeals and intense legal action followed, including a trip to the Supreme Court and a referral to the EU Court of Justice. In 2017, after the CJEU effectively found The Pirate Bay itself illegal, the matter continued to be fought tooth and nail, sucking in other ISPs , KPN included.

This particular chapter was almost over, but another one had begun years earlier and was only just getting warmed up.

Pirate IPTV Takes the Netherlands By Storm

Tackling pirate IPTV services has been a BREIN priority for a number of years. Providers, sometimes extremely large ones , have fallen as part of BREIN’s investigations, but the anti-piracy group is just as much at home targeting sellers , resellers , and set-top box vendors. BREIN has tackled hundreds of these entities over the years , picking up landmark judgments on the way.

For ISPs like Ziggo and KPN, the existence of bandwidth-hungry pirate IPTV consumers might’ve once been good for business. Today, however, sales of broadband subscriptions constitute just part of their overall product range. In common with BREIN’s clients active in the movie and TV show production and distribution business, selling access to legal content represents an important revenue source for companies that today are much more than ‘just’ an ISP.

Increasing numbers of pirate IPTV users can be directly linked to fewer sales of legal TV packages, the ISPs argue. In an ideal world the ISPs should be selling these to the majority of their customers, but reports suggest that’s becoming increasingly difficult.

Interests of BREIN and ISPs Align

Reports vary but it’s believed that around 1.5 million Dutch households currently subscribe to a pirate IPTV service. With a total population edging towards 18 million, that’s a sizeable figure. It pushes the Netherlands close to the top of the most prolific pirate IPTV consumers list for the whole of the EU where there is no shortage of competition.

With the interests of BREIN and those of the ISPs suddenly aligned, it appears that all three are now speaking the same language. According to a report published at Ad.nl ( paywall ) , pressure on sales has led the previously warring factions to call on the state to take a stronger line against the runaway growth of illegal IPTV.

The Public Prosecution Service is seen as a potential ally but according to the report, the service has doubts about taking a tough approach. Larger pirate IPTV services are the usual targets when the state considers criminal prosecutions. Beyond that, it’s suggested that action against intermediaries or end users should be tackled by entities like BREIN, under civil, rather than criminal law.

Raising Awareness

Raising awareness among consumers is seen as an area that could yield results but as the figures show, awareness of what makes pirate IPTV services attractive to consumers is already widespread. Typically available for up to 90% cheaper than official services, pirate IPTV services deliver most content offered by dozens of individual legal services, bundled into a single subscription package with all content readily accessible from the same place.

Rightsholders’ definition of awareness focuses on the potential downsides; financing criminal organizations, fueling other types of crime, malware, and set-top boxes capable of stealing banking credentials, among other things. For some consumers this type of messaging may have the desired effect but in ‘underground’ circles, where the grapevine and shared experiences rule, none of these issues carry much weight. At least, not enough weight to tip the scales against savings of up to 150 euros per month.

Future Cooperation

That BREIN, Ziggo, and KPN now appear to agree on the need to tackle IPTV services is logical, if a little unexpected. BREIN’s activities that require the assistance of local ISPs rarely run smoothly. Ziggo, for example, refused to forward piracy warning notices to its customers, leading to yet another face-off in court, from which Ziggo came out on top .

That being said, BREIN will likely appreciate any alignment and, as the site-blocking ‘Covenant’ currently in place shows, cooperation isn’t impossible, or even out of the question. In all likelihood, it’s simply a matter of timing.

Image credits: (1 , 2)

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

It’s no secret that the Motion Picture Association (MPA) views site-blocking measures in the United States as the logical next step in their perpetual campaign against piracy.

Working with U.S. Congress members, the plan is to propose judicial site-blocking legislation that will see local ISPs compelled by law to prevent consumer access to pirate sites. A similar but broader effort failed in 2012 but twelve years is a very long time; in the tech and internet world, it’s almost forever.

In the years since the rise and fall of SOPA, the MPA has been the driving force behind site-blocking legislation around the world, modeling dozens of partner countries in the shape of its vision for blocking in the U.S.

At this year’s CinemaCon ‘State of the Industry’ event at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas, MPA Chairman and CEO Charles Rivkin said that the United States now has plenty of catching up to do.

“It’s long past time to bring out laws in line with the rest of the world,” Rivkin said, a reference to the MPA’s substantial body of overseas work it now hopes to replicate back home.

Preparation for the Big Site-Blocking Push

After reliving the high points of 2023 – Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon and the portmanteau of the moment, Barbenheimer – Rivkin turned to the bottom line. The MPA’s top man reported box office revenues in the U.S. and Canada up 20 percent on the previous year, and up nearly 30 percent abroad. An unquestionably great achievement, especially without protection from site-blocking.

But while tradition allows for generous helpings of creative imagery in support of the magical silver screen, financial positives are dwelled upon only fleetingly; the fairy dust is quickly dispersed, bringing reality into sharp focus.

Commentary explaining why the figures aren’t as good as they sound, or will take great effort to maintain, helps to calibrate expectations. After assuring everyone they’re in this together, and whatever needs to be done will be done, because that’s what Hollywood does, the groundwork to support demands for new legislation are carefully laid.

It’s a tried and tested system that really does work; Rocky Balboa’s unbreakable determination in 2021 mid-COVID, a home/mobile entertainment market up 24 percent in 2022 and a billion at the box office in the first quarter. Avatar: The Way of Water surging past $2.3 billion in global ticket sales, Top Gun: Maverick at $1.5 billion and still plenty of jet fuel left in the tank.

Then a short pause as the tension builds for the annual stark reminder; American creators are under attack, just as they were last year, the year before, and every year before that.

We have no illusions about the scope and the severity of the problem……The challenges are as daunting as they are uncertain….. One of the biggest existential threats to our collective future.

Used during the last three CinemaCons, the warnings above won’t be enough this year. Not at a time when Congress is listening.

Piracy is Visible, Behind The Scenes Lies Worse

Piracy rhetoric usually finds itself delivered in a way that counters notions of stability based on reported business successes. When an urgent drive for new legislation is imminent, there’s no room for complacency and at CinemaCon the nature of the threat left nothing to the imagination.

“Remember, these aren’t teenagers playing an elaborate prank. The perpetrators are real-life mobsters, organized crime syndicates, many of whom engage in child pornography, prostitution, drug trafficking, and other societal ills,” Rivkin informed the audience.

And it’s not just big companies facing immediate threat; the entire country is at risk.

“They operate websites that draw in millions of unsuspecting viewers whose personal data can then fall prey to malware and hackers,” Rivkin said. “In short, piracy is clearly not a victimless crime.”

People shouldn’t go about their work in fear, however. They should listen to a story first.

Telling a Compelling Story

Rivkin told CinemaCon that the MPA focuses on two pillars: Protecting content and the people who produce it, which together pave the way for the industry to reach even bigger audiences worldwide.

“To make that happen, we need to keep doing what we do best: telling a compelling story,” the head of the MPA explained.

“When I head to Capitol Hill in DC or State Capitols throughout the country, for example, I paint a picture of the ways our productions bolster communities: how film and television support 2.74 million American jobs; how production comprises 122,000 businesses; and how our incredible industry boasts a trade surplus with nearly every nation on earth.

Today, our job involves another plotline countering a central threat to the security of workers, audiences, and the economy at large: Widespread, digital piracy.

“This problem isn’t new. But piracy operations have only grown more nimble, more advanced, and more elusive. These enterprises are engaged in insidious forms of theft, breaking laws each time they steal and share protected content. These activities are nefarious by any definition, detrimental to our industry by any standard, and dangerous for the rights of creators and consumers by any measure,” Rivkin warnned.

Mobsters, organized crime syndicates, child pornographers, prostitution, drug trafficking, malware and hackers. Hundreds of thousands of jobs stolen from workers and tens of billions of dollars from the U.S. economy, “including more than one billion in theatrical ticket sales.”

As stories go, it’s as compelling as a synopsis accompanying a good film on Netflix which promises and then delivers, exactly as advertised. Or a bad one, where the exciting stuff appears in the synopsis yet somehow never makes it into the movie.

Regardless, the MPA has a plan, one that will protect content, protect creators, return a potential one billion dollars to theaters, and by extension, keep all Americans safe.

Blocking Piracy Websites

As outlined directly to the audience at CinemaCon: The MPA’s Site-Blocking Plan.

So today, here with you at CinemaCon, I’m announcing the next major phase of this effort: the MPA is going to work with Members of Congress to enact judicial site-blocking legislation here in the United States.

For anybody unfamiliar with the term, site-blocking is a targeted, legal tactic to disrupt the connection between digital pirates and their intended audience. It allows all types of creative industries – film and television, music and book publishers, sports leagues and broadcasters – to request, in court, that internet service providers block access to websites dedicated to sharing illegal, stolen content.

Let’s be clear: this approach focuses only on sites featuring stolen materials. There are no gray areas here. Site-blocking does not impact legitimate businesses or ordinary internet users. To the contrary: it protects them, too.

And it does so within the bounds of due process, requiring detailed evidence establishing a target’s illegal activities and allowing alleged perpetrators to appear in a court of law. This is not an untested concept.

Site-blocking is a common tool in almost 60 countries, including leading democracies and many of America’s closest allies.

What key player is missing from that roster? Take a look at the map behind me. It’s us!

There’s no good reason for our glaring absence. No reason beyond a lack of political will, paired with outdated understandings of what site-blocking actually is, how it functions, and who it affects.

Yet experiences worldwide have now answered these concerns and taught us unmistakable lessons: Site-blocking works. It dramatically reduces traffic on piracy sites. It substantially increases visits to legal sites. Simply put, this is a powerful tool to defend what our filmmakers create and what reaches your theaters.

To show what site-blocking could achieve in the United States, Rivkin homed-in on a site that has thus far proved impossible to shut down, one that was highlighted in a House Subcommittee hearing last December .

FMovies Comment Reveals More Than Just Site-Blocking

There’s little doubt that FMovies represents a primary enforcement target for Hollywood, or rather it would be a target if authorities in Vietnam wanted to do something about it, which apparently they do not. While obviously a negative for Hollywood, when advocating for site-blocking legislation, FMovies is a lobbying gift on a golden platter.

“One of the largest illegal streaming sites in the world, FMovies, sees over 160 million visits per month and because other nations already passed site blocking legislation, a third of that traffic still comes from the United States”, Rivkin explained.

The 160 million visits per month estimate seems conservative and may have been measured in February when the site experienced an unexplained dip. In January, FMovies received almost 198 million visits and in March, traffic was returning to normal levels of around 192 million visits per month.

However, Rivkin’s follow-up comment to the theater-focused audience at CinemaCon may be an indication that the MPA has more on its mind than just blocking.

“Imagine if those viewers couldn’t find pirated versions of films through a basic internet search . Imagine if they could only watch the latest great movies when they’re released in their intended destinations: your theaters. If we had site-blocking in place, we wouldn’t have to imagine it. We’d have another tool to make that real,” he said.

Memories of SOPA: “Blocking Didn’t Break The Internet”

Rivkin mentions the SOPA defeat in 2012 by citing one of the key claims by the opposition. They warned that eventually, one way or another, blocking would end up “breaking the internet” but a dozen years later, Rivkin noted that the “internet is doing just fine.”

While that is still likely to be a hot topic for debate in the coming months, Rivkin’s search engine comment deserves more attention.

Search engine removals or deindexing by companies such as Google don’t automatically happen just because a site is blocked by ISPs in a particular territory. What we know from blocking in Europe is that Google will remove sites from its results if a blocking order exists against a site, even if Google isn’t named in the order. In the SOPA era, that would never have happened, and certainly not voluntarily.

Times Change, But By How Much?

In today’s environment, there seems to be no obvious obstacle to prevent Google from doing the same, should site-blocking become available in the United States. If that type of cooperation does become the standard, perhaps Google will cooperate when it comes to blocking sites that use its DNS too.

We don’t know what Google is thinking and it could go either way. What we suspect is that a re-run of 2012, with the entire tech world united in opposition to SOPA and blocking in general, seems much less likely today.

The MPA could tip the scales even further in its favor by telling more detailed stories about the real-life mobsters and organized crime syndicates behind pirate sites it will actually name, in public, with supporting evidence.

If not for the sake of Hollywood, bringing the child abuse, prostitution, and drug trafficking to an end might be the biggest PR coup ever seen. As the basis for a box office record-breaker in which Hollywood itself stars, would be all the more tempting, especially in the absence of piracy.

Image credit: Stockcake

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

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

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

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

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

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

NHL, NBA and Premier League Piracy Blockade

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

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

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

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

Defendants Unlimited?

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

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

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

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

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

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

New ‘Streamlined’ Blocking Approach

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

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

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

‘Flexible’ Blockades Covering ‘Future’ Content

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

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

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

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

One Universal IP-address Blocklist

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

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

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

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

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

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

—

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Journalists Have Overlooked a Fundamental Fact”

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

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

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

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

SCOOP: THE BIG BLOCKING NUMBERS

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

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

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

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

Dynamically Generated Sub-Domains

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

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

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

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

More Subdomains Coming Up

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

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

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

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

Not Cloned or Hacked Although AGCOM Was Hacked a Bit

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Anti-piracy organization CODA (Content Overseas Distribution Association) is a permanent fixture on the front lines of Japan’s war against online piracy.

CODA represents the interests of around 30 corporate entities doing business in the publishing, media, movie, music, and wider entertainment industries. Members include publishers Kadokawa, Shueisha, Kodansha, and Shogakukan, through to videogame/publishing giants Square Enix and Bandai Namco. From the broadcasting sector, there’s NHK, Nippon, and Nikkatsu, to name just a few.

While these names represent just a sample of the individual companies represented by CODA, the anti-piracy group also has around ten ‘organizational’ members. These are trade groups in their own right and have members of their own.

They include the Japan Satellite Broadcasting Association, Motion Picture Producers Association of Japan, Japan Video Software Association, Japan Magazine Publishers Association, Association of Japanese Animations, plus several others involved in the videogame, software, and content protection legal sectors.

Popularity of Japanese Content Fuels Massive Levels of Piracy

The scale of the content protection challenge faced by CODA is difficult to overstate. The anti-piracy group is refreshingly open with its research and data, which as an observer makes it easier to connect with and appreciate the big numbers, rather than simply reciting them without relevant context.

Japan’s online piracy issues are a constant, much as they are in any other country, but more recent estimates reveal illicit consumption’s startling growth.

A major problem estimated to be worth less than 500 billion yen (US$3.3bn) back in 2019 took just three years to transform itself into a ~2 trillion yen ($13.2bn) piracy nightmare. Videogame piracy skyrocketed in the period leading to 2022, but it’s the products of the publishing and film industries that attract the lion’s share of all piracy, much of it taking place and directed from overseas.

CODA & MPA Officially Extend 10-Year Anti-Piracy Partnership

On March 20, 2014, CODA and the Motion Picture Association (MPA) signed an agreement to develop new strategies to tackle online copyright infringement worldwide, and to strengthen their joint copyright protection activities. The agreement, renewed another five times since then, has just reached its 10th anniversary and the event was marked with another renewal.

Last week at MPA headquarters in Washington, D.C., CODA and the Motion Picture Association signed an official memorandum of understanding (MOU) to extend the term of their agreement until 2026.

“On the day, MPA’s Karin Temple (Senior Executive Vice President and Global General Counsel) and CODA’s Representative Director Takeo Goto signed the agreement, and at the signing ceremony, each pledged further collaboration,” a CODA statement reads.

“CODA and MPA began a business partnership in 2005 to combat physical piracy in the Asian region, and have since built a strong partnership by signing a 10-year MOU starting in 2014. CODA and MPA’s joint enforcement efforts have achieved great results, including implementing many anti-piracy measures in the Asia-Pacific and beyond, resulting in tens of thousands of crackdowns.”

Joint Success, Massive Budget Disparities

CODA data shows that from January 2005 to March 2023, collaboration with the MPA generated thousands of enforcement cases. In China, 13,820 cases led to the arrest of 304 people, in Hong Kong 1,318 cases led to 1,275 arrests, and in Taiwan, 2,233 people were arrested as part of 2,215 enforcement operations.

From physical piracy operations to more recent actions targeting pirate IPTV in Taiwan, CODA deals with problems wherever it finds them.

A major issue faced by CODA relates to its budget for overseas anti-piracy enforcement. Funding for overseas anti-piracy efforts is allocated as a proportion of overseas sales and CODA’s members simply don’t do enough overseas business to compete with the MPA, CODA explains.

Annual dues for the six major studios for piracy-fighting actions carried out by the MPA total $50m. CODA says that Disney’s sales alone out-volume the combined sales of Toei, Toho, Shochiku, and Kadokawa, at a rate of 16 to 1.

Given the disparity, the opportunity to conduct joint enforcement work with the MPA is clearly a massive boost for CODA’s members. At a time when Japanese content is in demand like never before in overseas markets, it’s especially important. As the market stands right now, however, only a minority of overseas consumers actually pay for it.

Enforcement Challenges Broadly Mimic Those of the MPA

In a presentation slide, CODA highlights how a typical pirate can operate if the operator wishes to remain anonymous. The original slide ‘The dark side of identifying operators of pirated sites’ is entirely in Japanese so here we’ve made best efforts to provide a like-for-like translation.

Some nuance may have been lost, but the common theme is undoubtedly a lack of ‘know your customer’ regimes from domain registration, to server rental, through to use of a CDN such as Cloudflare.

Considered a major irritant, the Njalla domain service is called out alongside Cloudflare.

“Began operations in April 2017. Sells ‘complete anonymity’. Founded by Peter Sunde, co-founder of The Pirate Bay. Users buy the rights to use domains purchased by Njalla. Njalla is the owner of the domain, Njalla does not disclose [user identities],” CODA writes.

“[Cloudflare] operates a distributed server system (user servers are hard to find). When Cloudflare discloses information, the site operator is also notified to that effect. The operator immediately moves the server,” the anti-piracy group contiues, adding:

“If you have basic knowledge of the Internet and can read and write simple English, you can operate a completely anonymous pirate site!”

Takedown Compliance: The Winner is….

In common with many anti-piracy groups, CODA sends large numbers of DMCA-style takedown notices to platforms including YouTube, Facebook, Daily Motion, and sundry local equivalents.

The data shows that CODA achieves a very high rate of compliance, in many cases above 99%. (Original slide in Japanese, our translations appear inside square brackets [ ])

Whether that’s due to CODA’s high-level accuracy (our knowledge of CODA suggests that they take accuracy very seriously) or adherence to strict local law, or even a combination of both, isn’t immediately clear. However, the stand-out figures here are returned by MEGA; every piece of content CODA asked MEGA to remove, was removed, earning the company a 100% compliance rate.

For reference, CODA’s members and their lines of business are listed below.
(Note: some companies may span more than one category but here they are listed only once)

### Anime and Entertainment Production
1. Aniplex Inc.
2. Cygames, Inc.
3. KADOKAWA CORPORATION
4. King Record Co., Ltd.
5. SHUEISHA Inc.
6. SHOGAKUKAN Inc.
7. Shogakukan-Shueisha Productions Co., Ltd.
8. SQUARE ENIX CO., LTD.
9. STUDIO GHIBLI INC.
10. TOEI ANIMATION CO., LTD.
11. TMS ENTERTAINMENT CO., LTD.

### Publishing and Media
12. ADK Emotions Inc.
13. KODANSHA LTD.
14. Nikkatsu Corporation
15. Nippon Television Network Corporation
16. Japan Broadcasting Corporation (NHK)
17. Shochiku Co., Ltd.
18. TOKYO BROADCASTING SYSTEM TELEVISION, INC.
19. TV Asahi Corporation
20. TV TOKYO Corporation
21. YOMIURI TELECASTING CORPORATION
22. WOWOW Inc.

### Film Production and Distribution
23. Happinet Phantom Studios Corporation
24. TOEI COMPANY, LTD.
25. TOHO CO., LTD.
26. Bandai Namco Filmworks Inc.

### Music and Record Labels
27. Avex Inc.
28. King Record Co., Ltd.
29. PONY CANYON INC.
30. UNIVERSAL MUSIC LLC

### Broadcasting
31. Fuji Television Network, Inc.

### Miscellaneous
32. FWD Inc. (Various services)
33. YOSHIMOTO KOGYO HOLDINGS CO., LTD. (Entertainment management and production)

Organizational members of CODA listed by category

### Media and Entertainment Associations
1. Japan Satellite Broadcasting Association
2. Motion Picture Producers Association of Japan
3. Japan Video Software Association
4. Japan Magazine Publishers Association
5. The Association of Japanese Animations

### Gaming and Software
6. Computer Entertainment Supplier’s Association
7. Association of Copyright for Computer Software
8. Digital Content Association of Japan

### Intellectual Property and Legal
9. Japan Patent Attorneys Association

### Anti-Counterfeiting
10. Anti-Counterfeiting Association

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