In the wake of the 30+ year prison sentences handed down to the people behind Flawless IPTV, we’ve been exploring various aspects of the service’s operations and the extraordinary effort expended by the Premier League to bring Flawless down.

While no single facet of Flawless’ operations can explain why such punitive sentences were considered appropriate, the emphasis on the service’s efforts to undermine the Premier League’s ISP blocking program played no small part.

One of the key aims of the blocking program is to prevent football fans in the UK from watching games played in the UK at 3:00pm on Saturday. This ‘blackout’ only affects viewers in the UK; the plan at Flawless was to enable UK football fans to enjoy these games by offering 3:00pm games played in the UK yet only available legally in other countries.

ISP Blocking Program

By offering access to 3:00pm kick-off games, Flawless had a product that wasn’t available to buy in the UK. Fans loved the service but in the background, the Premier League was pulling out all the stops to prevent fans from accessing it.

Birmingham-based anti-piracy company Friend MTS was tasked with monitoring the internet for pirated Premier League streams. However, just like anyone else, the company needed to access the services offering those streams so that server locations could be identified and sent to ISPs Sky, Virgin, BT, TalkTalk, EE, and Plusnet for subsequent blocking.

Using covertly purchased Flawless subscriptions supported by watermarking technology, in 2017 Friend MTS was able to identify specific Sky viewing cards used by Flawless and trace those cards directly to Flawless kingpin Mark Gould. Sky responded by canceling the cards, but the cat-and-mouse game would continue.

A Mole Inside Friend MTS

Our 2019 article provided significant detail on the blocking program, including that information was being leaked from inside an anti-piracy company. We knew that company was Friend MTS, but only more recently did it become clear why the company rejected our requests for comment.

In April 2018, a person who identified themselves as ‘Bill’ opened a support ticket at Flawless. Claiming to work at Friend MTS, ‘Bill’ said that in return for payment via bitcoin, he would provide information from inside the company that would allow Flawless to identify the usernames and passwords of accounts used to obtain information on their service.

It later emerged that ‘Bill’ was Zak Smith, a Friend MTS employee who went on to supply Flawless with crucial information on the blocking system and other sensitive material from inside the company. Information handed over included a list of covert subscriptions and the payment methods used by the anti-piracy company to acquire them – PayPal accounts and scans/photographs of credit/debit cards, among others.

Blocking the Blockers

Using information already in Flawless’ possession, enhanced by the information detailed above, the IPTV provider was able to turn the tables by blocking Friend MTS IP addresses from the Flawless service. Not that the anti-piracy company was initially aware of that.

Through the development and use of a custom script, when the anti-piracy company attempted to access the Flawless service, to obtain IP addresses to be forwarded to ISPs for subsequent blocking, Flawless diverted those requests to servers operated by rival pirate IPTV services.

That meant that any IP address and related server/hosting information obtained during the sweep was actually related to services other than Flawless. When IP addresses were forwarded to the ISPs for blocking, rival IPTV providers were blocked, not Flawless itself.

The Beginning of the End

When arrests of those behind Flawless began in May 2018, information obtained from seized devices revealed the existence of ‘Bill’ and the information he’d supplied to Flawless. Knowing the information had come from inside Friend MTS, the company launched an investigation.

Comparisons were made between the times that data was leaked to Flawless and the company’s security systems which logged people in and out of the building, recording times and dates. With suspicion mounting that Bill was Zak Smith, attention turned to photographs ‘Bill’ had sent to Flawless.

In addition to confidential information, these photographs accidentally captured details of equipment and the office itself. ‘Bill’ was arrested under his real name on August 7, 2018, and pleaded guilty in February 2020. He was not sentenced with the others late last month, with reports indicating that a warrant had been issued for his arrest.

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

Italian consumers’ love for pirate IPTV services and the alleged damage suffered by broadcasters and the country’s world-famous clubs at the hands of those services, have been on a collision course for some time.

Italy has operated an administrative pirate site-blocking program for years. It currently blocks around 3,200+ pirate domains, with telecoms regulator AGCOM sometimes issuing blocking instructions to ISPs within days of a rightsholder complaint.

Defending live sporting events from ubiquitous pirate IPTV streams demands a whole lot more, though. After gaining and maintaining momentum, alongside increasing political pressure, it seems likely that football clubs and broadcasters are about to collect.

Push For The Big Anti-Piracy Bill

By the middle of 2022, support for radical action to shut down the flow of pirate streams was building in Italy. Unprecedented blocking measures, new powers for telecoms regulator AGCOM, punishments for stream suppliers, even punishments for those in the telecoms sector who fail to block them, sat firmly on the table.

Working against the clock in December 2022, the new standards were laid out, one in particular. ISPs would be required to block pirate IPTV streams “ without delay and in real time ” most likely having been informed well in advance of what to shut down.

Anti-Piracy Bill Unanimously Approved

This week in the Chamber of Deputies, Italy’s lower house of parliament, the football and broadcasting industry-developed anti-piracy bill was unanimously waved through to the final.

If the bill meets with the approval of the Senate, as it almost certainly will, the new law will attempt to strangle the availability of pirate streams and punish suppliers and consumers of those that get through.

New powers bestowed upon AGCOM will see it rapidly respond to rightsholders’ complaints against all types of content, not just illegally streamed football matches.

AGCOM will be able to order the immediate shutdown of pirate IPTV streams and any associated platforms, and have internet service providers respond to those orders within 30 minutes. Search engines will be required to remove pirate platforms from their results.

That may be just the beginning for the telecoms regulator. Once the law is approved, an automated blocking system could be in place in just a few months, with the aim of blocking pirate IPTV streams almost instantaneously.

That type of system obviously can’t be built in just a few months, at least not from a standing start. Live IPTV blocking systems have been operating for several years, especially in the UK. Work in Italy is already underway.

Whether the positions are directly linked to developments in Italy is unclear, but the live IPTV blocking experts at anti-piracy company Friend MTS have been on quite the recruitment drive lately. From senior software engineers to automation, DevOps, and algorithm engineers, offers to swell the ranks have been numerous over recent weeks.

Italy Intends to Go Hard

According to official documentation ( pdf ) , the bill seeks to punish anyone making illegal copies of any cinema, audiovisual, or publishing content (in whole or in part) with up to three years in prison and a fine of up to 15.5k euros.

If somehow the blocking mechanisms fail to do their job and pirate IPTV services aren’t driven out of business, people who subscribe to pirate TV packages will also face sanctions including fines of up to 5,000 euros.

AGCOM chief Massimiliano Capitanio seems pleased with progress thus far.

“Italy is the first country in Europe to challenge the digital mafia in this way,” he said, adding that Sky and Dazn will help fund additional staff at AGCOM.

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

Whenever rightsholders and anti-piracy groups need more enforcement options, efforts to strengthen or establish new understanding of copyright law are rarely far behind.

In many cases these moves tend to follow a similar pattern – don’t ask for too much all at once, dismiss any idea that the internet or ‘honest’ users could suffer, and then downplay suggestions that new powers represent the thin end of an extremely large wedge.

From being presented as a tool of last resort for use in strictly limited circumstances, site-blocking injunctions are just one example. From humble beginnings they’re now available in dozens of countries around the world. A single site in one application was the starting point but today it’s not uncommon today to see ten, fifty, or even a hundred.

That shouldn’t surprise anyone, nor should the recent efforts to push injunctions into unchartered territory.

Reliance Entertainment: An Early Site-Blocking Pioneer

India began blocking pirate sites in 2011 but the public had no idea it was coming. In an early case, movie company Reliance Entertainment went to court to protect the movie ‘Singham’ and came away with an order that compelled ISPs to temporarily block sites including Megaupload, Megavideo, Rapidshare, Putlocker, Hotfile and Fileserve.

Having obtained one injunction, to the surprise of no one Reliance Entertainment immediately sought and obtained another . From there, the site-blocking train gathered steam and hasn’t looked back.

Indeed, site blocking in India has now reached a point where evidence of actual infringement isn’t a priority and in some cases hasn’t even happened yet. Nevertheless, courts are still prepared to issue injunctions that include domain suspension orders to businesses in other countries.

Reliance’s ‘Minority Report’ Blocking

Most site-blocking injunctions worldwide are based on evidence of past infringements but for Reliance Entertainment, looking forward has been a persistent theme. The company attempts to predict where its movies may turn up when they’re inevitably copied after release, then asks the court to authorize preemptive ISP blocking against a few common offenders. Or at least that’s where it started.

After obtaining certification for its new movie ‘Vikram Vedha’ last Monday, Reliance Entertainment filed an injunction application the next day. The goal was to protect the movie from online piracy following its premiere last Friday. Given that courts in other countries can take months over a decision, the Madras High Court needed to act quickly.

On September 30, the day of the movie’s release, the Court published its orders, noting that substantial sums had been invested in ‘Vikram Vedha’ and the movie was expected to screen in 3,000 cinemas worldwide. With words such as “imminent” and “threat” featured early on, it was already clear which way the judge was leaning.

How far he was prepared to go still came as a surprise.

Reliance Successfully Argued ‘Alleged Piracy’ in the Future

After reading through the Reliance application, the judge declared that Reliance had made its case and that an injunction was appropriate.

The judge said that if an interim injunction wasn’t immediately granted, it would “result in alleged piracy being completed in all and every aspect of the matter.” That would in turn lead to an “irreversible situation” and “irreparable legal injury incapable of compensation.”

Due to the urgency, the respondents in the case – including 40 internet service providers – weren’t notified of the legal action. Nevertheless, the injunction was handed down via two separate orders, which together prohibit anyone from copying, recording, camcording, making available, uploading, downloading, exhibiting or playing the movie without a license.

After specifically prohibiting copying to CD, DVD, pen drives, hard drives or tapes, the orders move on to the issue of ISP blocking. It appears that Reliance asked for a lot and the judge gave them everything.

Thousands of Websites Listed For Immediate Blocking

According to one of the orders, the websites put forward for blocking are all “non-compliant” operations, in that they have no reporting and take down mechanisms in place, at least according to Reliance.

Interestingly, Reliance also informed the court that all of the websites were infringing its copyrights in respect of the movie ‘Vikram Vedha’, even though it was yet to be released and when the application was filed, no copies were available online. This means that Reliance couldn’t have provided any infringing URLs even if it wanted to. Nevertheless, the judge did consider more limited blocking.

“I am also informed that technologically/technically, there is no possibility of blocking that part of the contents of the website which contains alleged pirated version of the suit Movie alone,” his order reads.

Ultimately, the judge granted an interim injunction and ordered all of the ISPs (list below) to immediately and proactively block a grand total of 13,445 websites. While the names of the websites were made available to the court, the court did not make the schedule available on the docket.

As a result we have no way of confirming which domains are on the list. The ISPs weren’t informed about the injunction application either, so presumably they’re also in the dark. The idea that the judge tested all 13,445 domains seems wishful thinking at best.

That leaves Reliance Entertainment as the sole entity with any knowledge of the submitted domains, all of which have been labeled in court as infringing the movie’s copyright, even though no copy was available when the application was made.

Overblocking Seems Unavoidable

To put 13,445 sites into perspective, the UK’s Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit’s ‘Infringing Website List’ aims to deprive as many pirate sites of revenue as possible after a strict validation process. That list is also a closely guarded secret but at times we know it’s featured around 2,800 sites. We believe there are currently around 1,600 sites on the IWL, give or take.

We already know from the injunction application date that none of the domains had the movie (or even a link to it) because a) it hadn’t been released yet and b) no copies appeared online until Friday. But beyond that, there is zero chance that all 13,445 sites intended to host or link to the movie and there is zero chance that all 13,445 are “non-compliant” pirate sites.

At least as far as we know, the Department of Communications is yet to publish a formal instruction notice for ISPs to start blocking but that should appear fairly quickly. When it’s published we’ll certainly be having a very close look and won’t be at all surprised to see overreach. The only remaining questions are the scale of the collateral damage and who is affected.

The Madras High Court orders can be found here and here (pdf). ISPs affected by the order below as follows:

1) BHARAT SANCHAR NIGAM LIMITED,
2) MAHANAGAR TELEPHONE NIGAM LTD.,
3) BHARTI AIRTEL LIMITED,
4) AIRCEL CELLULAR LIMITED,
5) HATHWAY CABLE AND DATACOM LIMITED,
6) TATA COMMUNICATION LIMITED,
7) VODAFONE INDIA LIMITED,
8) IDEA CELLULAR LIMITED,
9) RELIANCE COMMUNICATIONS INFRASTRUCTURE LIMITED,
10) TATA TELESERVICES LTD,
11) GTPL HATHWAY LTD,
12) TIKONA DIGITAL NETWORKS PRIVATE LIMITED,
13) BG BROADBAND INDIA PRIVATE LIMITED,
14) SIFY TECHNOLOGIES LIMITED,
15) SITI BROADBAND SERVICES PVT.LTD.,
16) YOU BROADBANK AND CABLE INDIA LTD.,
17) ASIANET SATELLITE COMMUNICATIONS,
18) DATA INFOSYS LIMITED,
19) READYLINK INTERNET SERVICES LIMITED,
20) OPTO NETWORK PRIVATE LIMITED,
21) NETTLINX LIMITED,
22) CITY ONLINE SERVICES LIMITED,
23) PIONEER eLABS LIMITED,
24) AT AND T GLOBAL NETWORK SERVICE INDIA PVT.LTD.,
25) NEXTGEN COMMUNICATIONS LIMITED,
26) SOUTHERN ONLINE BIO TECHNOLOGIES LIMITED,
27) MYNET SERVICES INDIA PRIVATE LIMITED,
28) RELIANCE JIO INFOCOMM LTD.,
29) LIMRASERONET BROADBAND SERVICES PRIVATE LIMITED,
30) RS BROADBANK SERVICE INDIA PRIVATE LIMITED,
31) SPECTRA ISP NETWORKS PVT.LTD.,
32) PULSE TELESYSTEMS PRIVATE LIMITED,
33) ESSEISHYAM COMMUNICATIONS LTD.,
34) FIVE NETWORK SOLUTION (I) LTD.,
35) ATRIA CONVERGENCE TECHNOLOGIES LIMITED,
36) ACTION LANE,
37) JAK COMMUNICATIONS PVT LTD.,
38) C32 CABLE NET PVT.LTD.,
39) THAMIZHAGA CABLE TV COMMUNICATION PVT LTD.,
40) THIRU NEGAR SATELLITE VISION PVT LTD.

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

As pirate site blocking programs expand around the world, Denmark already has more than 15 years of experience in this branch of copyright protection.

After blocking Russian MP3 site AllofMP3 in 2006, Danish rightsholders haven’t looked back. The big drive now is how to streamline the site-blocking process so that piracy platforms can be hit as quickly and as comprehensively as possible.

Part of the problem is that to have pirate domains blocked, rightsholders need to have authorization from the court. This can be obtained by obtaining an injunction against an ISP but when a single ISP is the target, other ISPs are not legally required to do anything.

In 2014, rightsholders and ISPs solved these problems by signing a Code of Conduct which ensures that when one ISP is ordered to block, others follow voluntarily. But in the world of site-blocking, there’s always more to be done.

Dynamic Blocking….And Beyond

Since blocking pirate sites is a commitment rather than a one-off effort, Denmark’s site-blocking regime also tackles domain switches and proxy sites. This so-called ‘dynamic blocking’ doesn’t require a new court process. Anti-piracy group Rights Alliance has the authority to identify any new domains and forward them to ISPs for blocking, a process that will now be accelerated.

The Conduct of Conduct (CoC) that provides the framework for blocking has been revised over the years, to accommodate the changing piracy landscape. Earlier this month it was updated again, hoping to shut down domains more quickly than before.

“[T]he illegal market on the Internet is constantly and rapidly developing, which is why it has been necessary to carry out a slight revision of the CoC agreement,” Rights Alliance explains.

“This implies greater flexibility and automation of the processes in the agreement, which should make it easier for both the Rights Alliance and the members of the Telecom Industry to block illegal websites.”

The plan is for ISPs to block new domains within seven days, using automation to retrieve updated lists before carrying out the usual DNS blocking.

How Will The System Work?

Both Rights Alliance and Teleindustrien (Telecommunications Industry Association in Denmark) have published copies of the new Code of Conduct but neither explain how the new system will work. Indeed, the CoC contains a paragraph that explains that a section detailing the individual steps, procedures and criteria, has been withheld “in order to achieve the purpose of the agreement.”

Given that Denmark’s blocking program is DNS-based, it’s trivial for ISPs to modify local DNS entries to redirect pirate site visitors to Share With Care (SWC), a portal designed to encourage pirates back on to the legal path of authorized content services.

Somewhat intrigued by the apparent need for secrecy, we took a closer look at Teleindustrien and to our surprise, found the complete opposite.

Complete Blocking Transparency

It appears that when ISPs are ordered to block domains for any reason, Teleindustrien goes public with three things: the laws under which the blocking was ordered, who ordered the blocking, and which domains were blocked in response.

For example, the telecoms industry group details recent blocks associated with the Ukraine conflict (including RT.com and sputniknews.com) and publishes the domains to an easily downloadable .csv file – perfect for ISPs looking to implement DNS blocking.

Another .csv file is published for gambling site domains deemed illegal in Denmark, 183 according to the latest batch

The data relating to Denmark’s pirate site blocking program reveals how quickly it has expanded over the years. In 2017, Danish ISPs were blocking around 100 pirate sites , a figure that jumped to 478 in 2020.

The latest .csv file containing the list of blocked piracy domains is dated September 27, 2022. It contains 892 URLs – some of them domains in their own right and others representing sub-domains on various sites dedicated to unblocking.

It’s unclear how the new streamlining provisions in the revised Code of Conduct can beat pulling a plain text file from a website but Teleindustrian also provides the data in PDF format for the Adobe fans out there.

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

Given the phenomenal rate at which pirated content is uploaded and spread online, it’s no surprise that mistakes are made by those attempting to block or take it down.

Even at a rate of 99% accuracy, well-intentioned takedown requests have the potential to cause damage to people that have nothing to do with piracy. Indeed, erroneous or malicious takedown and blocking requests can deny other copyright holders the ability to exercise their right to distribute copyrighted content.

While provisions exist in US law to punish those who abuse the system, legal action is extremely rare. A draft law tabled in Russia hopes to make denial of access to content less prevalent while also offering support to intermediaries.

Liability For Initiating Illegal Takedowns

The draft is the work of Russia’s Ministry of Economic Development and its aims are outlined in an explanatory note.

“A person who illegally initiates the termination of access to intellectual property in the information and telecommunications network of the Internet can be held civilly liable in the form of damages,” the note on the government portal reads.

The proposal relates to two articles in Russia’s Civil Code (ГК РФ) that concern intellectual property – Article 1301 (Liability for a Breach of the Exclusive Right to a Work) and Article 1311 (Liability for Infringement of the Exclusive Right to an Object of Allied Rights).

Both articles protect rightsholders by holding infringers liable to pay compensation. There are currently no provisions for compensation when distribution rights are denied due to illegal blocking or takedowns, so the draft law aims to fix that.

Compensation, Not Damages

Articles 1301 and 1311 of the Civil Code address infringement by requiring infringers to pay compensation to rightsholders rather than damages. The draft law applying to wrongful blocking and takedowns will take the same approach while maintaining the current compensation range of 10,000 to 5,000,000 rubles ($165 to $82,700).

Should the draft law be written into law, rightsholders will have the right to demand compensation in an amount to be determined by the court. The amount will vary depending on the circumstances, with flagrant or egregious violations punishable at the higher end of the scale.

How the courts will ultimately handle such cases remains to be seen but given the volume of wrongful takedowns, cases could potentially mount up. However, the draft law also aims to solve another problem affecting service providers.

Easier Life For Online Platforms

The DMCA requires service providers in the United States to remove content in response to a compliant takedown notification. If the takedown notice is sent in error or maliciously, a counternotice option is available. If the notice sender fails to file a lawsuit in response to a counternotice, content can be restored by the service provider without fear of liability.

Russian law enables exclusive licensees to send takedown notices to websites, which are required to remove the allegedly infringing content within 24 hours. Website operators can request more information from notice senders to prove ownership of content but if infringing content isn’t removed, that may go against the website owner if the matter ends up in court.

The draft aims to make life easier for online services by removing uncertainty when responding to a notice. When a takedown notice is sent to a service provider, a direct line on liability will connect the sender and the owner of the content. In the event that the notice is illegal and legal content is blocked or taken down, the injured party will be able to claim compensation directly from the sender.

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