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.

Après 146 jours d'une grève sans relâche, les studios répondent enfin aux demandes des scénaristes qui recevront de nouveaux contrats.

Grève à Hollywood : les syndicats ont gagné et mettent fin aux manifestations

La grève des scénaristes à Hollywood prend une tournure très sérieuse et très concrète avec l'intervention de Warner Bros. Le géant du divertissement a suspendu les contrats de scénaristes et producteurs de haut profil, donc J.J. Abrams, en réaction à la prolongation de la grève.

Warner suspend les contrats de plusieurs scénaristes de renom dont J.J. Abrams

Vulture a enquêté sur les pratiques d'une agence de publicité, qui aurait rémunéré des critiques et manipulé les scores Rotten Tomatoes.

Sur Rotten Tomatoes, des notes truquées et des critiques rémunérées

Il est déjà temps pour le syndicat des acteurs d'appliquer quelques exceptions à la grande grève afin de maintenir ces projets en vie.

Grèves des acteurs : ces productions hollywoodiennes reprennent malgré tout

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For millions of people around the world, subtitles are the only way to enjoy media in foreign languages. For the deaf and hard of hearing, they are absolutely essential.

Nowadays, most large streaming platforms and broadcasters are aware of the importance of offering a range of subtitle options to their viewers.

On pirate sites, the situation is no different. There’s a decades-long tradition of fansubbing which sees volunteers work together to supply homebrew subtitles to the masses. In many cases, these volunteers beat official channels, especially for non-mainstream content.

There are licensed and official sources for subtitles, but every now and then, we see fan-made subtitles appear on legal platforms. This is exactly what happened a few days ago, in a rare encounter between two of the largest cinephile platforms.

TCM Meets Karagarga

As part of its programming, Turner Classic Movies ( TCM ) recently broadcast the 1970 Spanish drama film “El Jardín de las Delicias,” also known as “The Garden of Delights” in English. The film is widely regarded as a top classic, which TCM viewers expect to see on the “ national treasure “.

What viewers didn’t expect to see, however, were ‘pirated’ subtitles and a reference to a BitTorrent tracker during the credits roll.

“Subtitles: Supersoft and Scalisto for KG,” an inserted subtitles credits line reads, as spotted by movie archivist ‘Jon’ on Twitter.

To the average viewer, this might not ring any bells. However, those in the know immediately recognize these as fansubs. Quite interesting ones too, considering the “KG” reference.

Invaluable Film Archive

KG stands for Karagarga , an illustrious BitTorrent tracker that’s been around for more than 18 years. Becoming a member of the private community isn’t easy but those inside gain access to a wealth of film obscurities.

The site focuses on archiving rare classic and cult movies, as well as other film-related content. Blockbusters and other popular Hollywood releases can’t be found on the site as uploading them is strictly forbidden.

This policy has helped the tracker to stay off the radar, as far as that’s possible. This allowed the community of tens of thousands of film fans to build an irreplaceable archive of the world cinema. This isn’t an exaggeration, the site has unique copies of films that are simply not available elsewhere.

While the tracker operates without permission from rightsholders, filmmakers, cinema researchers, and cinephiles have recognized the important role it plays to safeguard film history. Or as the National Post put it a few years ago;

“Movies of unflagging historical merit are otherwise lost to changes in technology and time every year: film prints are damaged or lost, musty VHS tapes aren’t upgraded, DVDs fall out of print without reissue, back catalogs never make the transition to digital.

“But should even a single copy of the film exist, however tenuously, it can survive on Karagarga: one person uploads a rarity and dozens more continue to share.”

Source?

The subtitles that appeared on Turner Classic Movies were made for a Karagarga release, too but weren’t necessarily sourced through the site. The fansubs may be available through other subtitle repositories as well.

TorrentFreak contacted TCM to find out if the company has any idea how the subtitles ended up on the official broadcast, but the company didn’t immediately reply. The problem may lie with a third party, as the Criterion streaming service reportedly shows the same subtitles.

The source and whatever reason these subtitles appeared on the official TCM broadcast is irrelevant. The true cinephiles will appreciate the mention.

Of course, this is not the first time that we have seen ‘pirated’ subtitles appear on legitimate platforms. Sky, for example, displayed unofficial subs on a Chernobyl episode and Netflix also had similar issues on several occasions in the past.

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

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Major Hollywood studios Disney, Paramount, Sony, Universal and Warner, plus relative newcomer Netflix, are all members of the Motion Picture Association (MPA). They have something else in common too.

Every single minute of every single day, rain or shine, people can be found pirating their movies and TV shows online. In Netflix’s case, that means every single piece of content the company has ever produced.

For studios with longer histories and huge catalogs of movies and TV shows, piracy doesn’t win the Oscar for Total Content Coverage , but still gets top marks for effort on top of its annual lifetime achievement award. Hollywood’s corporate sheen and projections of wealth have a tendency to suffocate public empathy, but on any level, that must be pretty intolerable.

Lawsuit Against PrimeWire

When Hollywood sued PrimeWire in late 2021, the only surprise was the timing. For more than a decade, PrimeWire had played a key role in illegally streaming many thousands of movies and TV shows, perhaps hundreds of millions of times.

The studios received annual licensing payments of absolutely nothing but were spending money on lawyers in site-blocking actions in multiple countries. PrimeWire’s operator/s never appeared in any of them, most likely too busy running the site and circumventing site-blocking orders.

The same applied in the U.S. lawsuit. In the site’s absence, the studios’ attorneys methodically obtained an injunction to shut PrimeWire down, but faced with overseas entities reluctant to take action, PrimeWire never went completely offline.

Can’t Kill What You Can’t See

Links to movies and TV shows did disappear from PrimeWire for a while but the studios weren’t taking the bait. They were already engaged in a compelling investigation to identify PrimeWire’s operator/s.

In most shutdown operations, unmasking the target is a priority. Taking a domain or shutting down hosting is the equivalent of shooting a zombie in the body; somewhat irritating but easy to recover from. Unmasking, on the other hand, opens up the possibility of a clean headshot and the elimination of potential resurrections.

Studios Win Lawsuit

In December 2022, the studios’ hard work and patience paid off when they were awarded $20.7m in statutory copyright infringement damages. PrimeWire’s conduct was slammed by the judge as “willful” and “particularly egregious,” with a particular focus on the fact that the site’s operators had avoided his courtroom.

Whether those barbed comments were ever heard at PrimeWire HQ, wherever that might be, is unknown. More importantly, the operator/s of PrimeWire were never found and still remain anonymous. The likelihood of the studios receiving $20.7m seems vanishingly small. Likewise, more than $417,000 racked up on attorneys fees.

And the Overall Winner is….

At the time of writing, PrimeWire is still operating from primewire.tf, a domain that should’ve been seized, but clearly has not. On pages where movies are listed, links to third-party hosting sites, including 2embed, OnionShare, CrocoVid, and HDOnline, supply the same content the studios spent a fortune trying to take down.

On this basis, it would be easy to conclude that the lawsuit was a waste of time and an even bigger waste of money. After all, what’s the use of a $20.7m judgment when nobody knows who’s supposed to pay it? Perhaps the bigger question is whether it would’ve been paid even under different circumstances.

The key question, then, is whether the MPA’s lawsuit achieved its main objective.

When the MPA sued PrimeWire in 2021, the site had been enjoying “approximately 20 million monthly visits.” Infringement levels were reported as “breathtaking” along with the following statement:

“In less than three years, [PrimeWire’s] U.S. user base has grown from less than 1 million monthly visits to approximately 20 million monthly visits,” the plaintiffs wrote.

Three or four months after the lawsuit was filed, traffic levels began to fall.

Blatantly repurposing the MPA’s original traffic statement provides a fairly accurate representation of the position today.

Three years after the MPA filed its lawsuit, PrimeWire’s entire user base has shrunk from 20 million monthly visits to less than a million monthly visits.

Who knows what PrimeWire’s operators have going on elsewhere, but PrimeWire.tf is obviously alive. Or perhaps it’s just not dead. Hard to say for sure.

Image Credit: InspiredImages/Pixabay

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