While some anti-piracy groups focus on taking content down, others prefer to take entire sites down.

The benefits of the latter approach are obvious; when a site no longer exists, the need to send future takedown notices is eliminated. It’s also much more easily said than done but certainly not impossible.

The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment has taken down hundreds of sites, and it’s often possible to predict which sites are about to feel the heat. DMCA subpoenas obtained at courts in the United States compel intermediaries to hand over details of pirate site operators, and since the applications are public, the names of sites are public too.

A series of recent applications revealed ACE attempting to gain information on The Pirate Bay’s operators but other sites were mentioned too. Despite having millions of monthly visitors, two of them have just disappeared into thin air.

Bulgarian Exodus

Over the past several days, at least four pirate sites with a focus on Bulgaria disappeared without warning. According to SimilarWeb data, Filmisub.com was the largest with around 7.8 million visits per month.

Filmisub specialized in streaming movies and TV shows. From its apparently large selection, ACE/MPA complained about just one (Shaft) but that was enough to get Cloudflare to hand over the operators’ details. Of the four sites confirmed to have gone offline, Filmisub is the only one to have left any kind of message.

“The site is permanently closed. It will never work again in any form whatsoever,” it announced before disappearing offline.

“All sites, pages and groups on social networks that impersonate us offering applications and promises of return and continued activity have nothing to do with us and are created to mislead and abuse you in some way by using our name.”

Filmi7 Down, Most Likely Permanently Out

Before it went offline, Filmi7.com was another popular site with a focus on Bulgaria. SimilarWeb data indicates the site received around 2.7 million visits per month, with video content the main attraction.

Filmi7 left no goodbye message, at least as far as we can determine. However, there are signs that it will likely follow the same terminal path as Filmisub.

As the image below shows, in court documents Filmi7 was also accused of making available the movie Shaft without permission. The URL pattern is identical to that deployed by Filmisub, so when combined with other telltale signs relating to site infrastructure, it’s highly likely that the two platforms were connected.

The remaining pair of sites were not mentioned in the ACE/MPA subpoenas and neither left a shutdown message. Various rumors on Bulgarian forums are promoting theories on their demise but there may be a simple explanation based on available information.

Muvibg.com and Kinofen.net

When compared to Filmisub and Filmi7, Kinofen.net and Muvibg.com were much smaller sites, 880K and 230K visits per month respectively.

In common with Filmi7, Kinofen makes an appearance on the UK’s Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit’s Infringing Website List, a fate avoided by Filmisub despite it having considerably more traffic. Kinofen was first flagged by police in September 2021 and Filmi7 was added to the list in December 2020.

It’s possible that Muvibg’s lower traffic levels rendered it less interesting to the authorities, but the circumstances of its disappearance along with the other three sites suggests that it won’t appear on the list in future; all four sites were apparently connected so they may all share the same fate.

Image credit: Pixabay/qimono

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

It’s not unusual for piracy groups to have dozens of domains in storage for when things go wrong, but none has a bigger collection than Hollywood itself.

The MPA still owns isoHunt’s domain following its legal defeat a decade ago, alongside other spoils of war following battles with Popcorn Time, YTS/YIFY (the real ones), Hotfile and Openload . These examples represent just a handful of domains from a collection that has exploded since the 2017 launch of the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment.

Over the past few days, another dozen or so domains boosted the existing haul of several hundred domains that no longer play a part in the piracy landscape.

IPTV Targets Shutdown, Domains Stripped

As reported last November , DMCA subpoena applications filed in the United States revealed that ACE had developed an interest in pirate IPTV service MagisTV.

Early December 2022, ACE/MPA quickly took control of two domains – Magisglobal.net and Magistvapk.com – presumably as part of its ongoing investigation. During the last week or so, several additional domains were taken over, including magistvcostarica.com, magistvglobal.com, magistvparaguay.com, magistvbolivia.com, magistvbrasil.com,, magistvchile.com, magistvcolombia.com and magistv.global .

Late last week, signs pointed to yet another IPTV takedown. A service that had been variously known as Opt TV, Optimum IPTV, Opt Hosting and Opt Hosting IPTV, was suddenly identifiable as another ACE casualty. Offering a reported 1,300 channels, including PPV events, international and 24/7 channels, Opt IPTV had been available across multiple devices for as little as $8 per month.

With key domains opt.tv and opthosting.com now redirecting to the ACE anti-piracy portal, that rodeo is probably over. Whether the same is true for another domain redirecting to ACE is less clear, but this one is markedly different from those usually associated with ACE work.

Seizures and Redirects

One of the clearest signs that ACE has shut down a pirate site or service is the appearance of a seizure banner on the platform’s homepage. The text is unmistakable and largely self-explanatory.

In the majority of cases, a WHOIS lookup reveals that domains are now operated by the Motion Picture Association. This removes all doubt over a domain’s status but in some cases, domains are never transferred. In January 2021, ACE announced the closure of Megadede; the site’s domains were never transferred yet still redirect to ACE .

There are also cases where piracy domains redirect to ACE for no apparent reason, the MPA previously informed us. That raises the question of what alliance4creativity .xyz is all about and why it currently redirects to the official portal at alliance4creativity .com after being registered last month.

Domain Shows No Sign of MPA/ACE Ownership

Domains under full MPA/ACE control usually have a particular signature. With MarkMonitor listed as the registrar, the Motion Picture Association, Inc. is openly displayed as the registrant along with one of two specific email addresses. The domains also use the MPA’s name servers at ns3 and ns4.films.org and ultimately are directed to Amazon-owned IP addresses.

Alliance4creativity .xyz has different characteristics. It was registered with Namesilo on March 27 with PrivacyGuardian.org hiding the registrant’s details. The domain uses Cloudflare for hosting and DNS, and uses ProtonMail as its email provider. It transitions seamlessly to the real ACE portal like the official domains do, despite having none of their technical characteristics.

The MPA informs TF that they’re investigating the domain, so we hope to get a comment in due course. However, if this turns out to be an imposter domain, the potential for abuse can’t be understated. ACE has a pretty fearsome reputation woven into its branding so if people believe that they’re being contacted by the real ACE, that could lead them to do extraordinary things.

How Bad Could it Get?

Only MPA/ACE can clear up the true status of this unusual domain, but given the current climate of phishing, extortion, blackmail and similar online exploitation, considering the potential implications is useful since the same tactics are widely deployed elsewhere.

If a victim can be convinced they’re speaking to a specific person or entity, the potential for abuse is almost limitless. Considering that pirates represent obvious targets, a smart opening move in a hypothetical scenario would be to ensure no one else gets involved by insisting on confidentiality. From there, a malicious actor could attempt to ‘seize’ domains, extract a settlement, or resort to basic blackmail.

None of that would help ACE and could even make enforcement efforts more difficult in the future. There may also be a more benign explanation but only ACE/MPA and the domain owner are in a position to confirm that. We’ll update this article as soon as we know more.

Update: TF received an email from the domain owner who claims to buy ‘important domains’ to resell. We asked what use the domain could be put to and we’re waiting for a response.

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

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.

Operators of pirate IPTV services in the United States risk prison sentences and civil copyright infringement lawsuits when things don’t go to plan.

The recent 66-month sentence handed to YouTuber ‘Omi in a Hellcat’ is one example with a particularly hefty price tag – $30+ million in restitution.

IPTV services operated by Texas resident Dwayne Johnson weren’t as big or as profitable, but certainly important enough for Hollywood to step in with overwhelming resources.

Powerful Coalition Sues Johnson

In December 2021, movie and TV giants Universal, Disney, Paramount, Warner, and Columbia teamed up with Netflix, Amazon, Apple, and several other studios, in a lawsuit targeting AllAccessTV (AATV) and Quality Restreams.

The complaint alleged that AATV supplied infringing movies and TV shows via its IPTV and VOD services. Titles including The Godfather, Harry Potter, Jurassic Park, and The Office were distributed to subscribers via their smart TVs, computers, set-top boxes, plus mobile and tablet devices.

The studios said that most subscribers paid between $10 to $45 per month to access around 2,500 channels.

Connected service Quality Restreams allegedly provided infringing movies and TV shows to other pirate IPTV providers, including AATV.

In addition to live IPTV channels, its VOD service supplied 600 movies and 600 TV series, organized into named categories, including Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Hulu, and Disney+.

Disguised as a VPN Provider

While most IPTV providers make at least some effort to hide their nature, the lawsuit alleged that AATV went a little further by presenting itself as a VPN provider.

The lawsuit revealed that along with many other pieces of ‘cross contamination’ evidence, the studios had already identified Johnson as a manager of VPN Safe Vault LLC, the entity believed to be behind the ‘VPN’ site.

Alleging direct copyright infringement, contributory copyright infringement, and inducement of copyright infringement, the plaintiffs demanded $150,000 in statutory damages for each willfully infringed work, plus a broad injunction.

Johnson Fights Back

At least initially, Johnson’s legal team put up a spirited defense. Describing aspects of the plaintiffs’ evidence as “biased” and details of the proposed injunction as “unsupported” and “absurd,” the defense said targeting a VPN platform would amount to “an unlawful restraint on trade.”

Within days, however, the parties informed a California district court that they had agreed to the terms of a preliminary injunction. The court handed down the injunction in February 2022.

In May 2022, the parties informed the court that while there was no aversion to reaching a settlement , they would press ahead with discovery nonetheless.

Numerous entries preceded a filing dated November 8, 2022, which was followed by more than four months of complete silence.

Parties Shake Hands on $30m Damages Award

With a trial scheduled for July this year, on March 16 the studios and Johnson reached an agreement to bring hostilities to an end. The settlement includes a permanent injunction restraining any and all unauthorized copying, storing and dissemination of copyrighted content to internet users, whether directly or indirectly through third parties.

Johnson also agreed not to “distribute, transfer, or give any source code, object code, or other technology,” including domain names, trademarks, brands, assets or goodwill, that are in any way related to the AATV and Quality Restreams services.

By having the court sign off on the agreement, Johnson could be held in contempt for breaching its terms. District Court Judge Andre Birotte Jr signed off on the permanent injunction on Monday, along with a judgment in favor of the plaintiffs for copyright infringement and an award for damages.

“Damages are awarded in favor of Plaintiffs and against Defendant, in the total amount of thirty million dollars ($30 million),” the judgment reads.

The $30m judgment and associated filings are available here ( 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , pdf)

Image Credit: Cdu445/Unsplash

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

More than a decade has passed since Kim Dotcom’s file-storage empire Megaupload collapsed after becoming the prime target in a high-profile law enforcement operation .

The U.S. Government booked an early result in 2015 when programmer Andrus Nomm was handed a one-year prison sentence following a plea deal .

The case lit up again last year when two of the three remaining defendants, Mathias Ortmann and Bram van der Kolk, signed an agreement to be charged in New Zealand and avoid extradition to the United States. That left Kim Dotcom as the sole ‘active’ extradition candidate.

As Dotcom’s extradition battle continues, the U.S. Government’s criminal case has stalled along with a pair of civil lawsuits filed by the RIAA and MPA . These are not expected to begin until the criminal case is finalized, which could take a while.

MPA and RIAA Cases Postponed Again

Over the past several years, Megaupload has repeatedly asked the court to delay these lawsuits. This bi-annual postponement cycle began in 2014 and continued earlier this month.

“Defendant Megaupload hereby moves the Court to enter the attached proposed order, continuing the stay in this case for an additional six months, subject to the terms and conditions stated in the proposed order,” the requests note, adding there are no objections from the RIAA and MPA.

As expected, District Judge Anthony J. Trenga – who took over the Megaupload lawsuits after complaints about Judge Liam O’Grady’s alleged financial ties to Disney – swiftly signed off on the new six-month delays.

“[T]his matter be stayed until September 1, 2023, on the same terms and conditions as set forth in the Court’s original stay order,” the order reads.

Stricken From Active Docket

Interestingly, there is a notable difference compared to earlier orders. One day after extending the stay in both the RIAA and MPA lawsuits, the court struck both cases from the active docket, marking the lawsuits inactive instead.

“It appearing to the Court that this case has been stayed nearly continuously since June 10, 2014, it is hereby ORDERED that this case be, and the same hereby is, STRICKEN from the active docket and placed on the inactive docket,” Judge Trenga writes.

Marking the case as inactive makes sense, as no progress is expected anytime soon. A decision on whether to extradite Kim Dotcom could take years and even if he was eventually sent to the United States, criminal proceedings could take another decade to complete.

There is one notable caveat. Kim Dotcom’s former business associates, Mathias Ortmann and Bram van der Kolk, remain defendants in the civil lawsuits and pleaded guilty in the criminal matter. The Megaupload pair will be sentenced in New Zealand soon, but what that means for the civil cases in the U.S. isn’t immediately clear.

If there’s an indication that the civil cases can move forward, the lawsuits can be moved to the active docket again. For now, however, they remain in hibernation.

Dotcom, meanwhile, continues to build his online following , inserting himself into political, financial, and other global debates. When the need arises, he will likely turn his attention to the Megaupload battle again.

—

Copies of the orders to stay the civil cases are available here ( MPA / RIAA ). Judge Trenga ordered these cases to be stricken from the active record shortly after ( MPA / RIAA ).

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

Legal video streaming services such as Amazon, Disney, and Netflix are booming. At the same time, there’s a flourishing dark market of pirate streaming tools.

These unauthorized alternatives increasingly use slick designs and easy-to-use apps to appeal to a broad audience. And unlike the legal options, they offer all popular titles under the same roof, without charging a penny.

Cloudstream is one of the apps that made its mark in recent years. The Android-based software can aggregate pirated content from several third-party sources and is fully customizable through open-source extensions.

This hasn’t gone unnoticed by rightsholders. Sky UK targeted the software last year and across the pond, Cloudstream also appeared on the radar of the MPA , Hollywood’s anti-piracy group.

MPA Targets Cloudstream

This week, the MPA decided to take action. The organization, which represents the major Hollywood studios and Netflix, sent a DMCA notice to GitHub, asking the developer platform to remove several Cloustream-related files.

“We […] request your assistance in addressing, the extensive copyright infringement of motion pictures and television shows that is occurring by virtue of the operation of the domain cloudstream.cf, which is hosted on and available for download from your repository GitHub Inc.

“Specifically, at the URL, the Repository hosts and offers for download the APK CloudStream, which in turn is used to engage in massive infringement of copyrighted motion pictures and television shows,” the notice adds.

When GitHub receives DMCA notices it typically informs developers of the targeted content, allowing them to address the problem on their own. That also happened in this instance and led to a drastic decision.

Cloudstream Takes Voluntary Action

Yesterday, Cloudstream developer “Lag” informed the app’s Discord followers that they had received a “very serious DMCA notice” that simply can’t be ignored. For that reason, the team will voluntarily remove the contested files from GitHub.

According to “Lag”, complying with the takedown request was the only viable option. The developer didn’t wait for GitHub to respond and decided to pull the plug, hoping to avoid legal repercussions.

“Having the absolute worst anti-piracy coalition on our asses is not preferable. They will undoubtedly fuck us legally if they have to. Think what you want but I do not want all of Hollywood after me because of some hobby project,” Lag wrote.

“At least they will never be able to shut down torrents :)”

The MPA’s DMCA notice also mentioned the Cloudstream.cf domain, which has gone offline too, and remains unreachable for the foreseeable future.

Speaking with TorrentFreak, “Lag” explains that the site linked to the reported repositories and was taken down for that reason. The developer is still waiting to hear from GitHub to see if his removal actions are sufficient, before making choosing how to go forward. However, challenging the MPA isn’t on the table.

A Prime Enforcement Target

The MPA’s head of Global Content Protection and Enforcement Operations, Jan van Voorn, confirmed the legitimacy of the takedown request, adding that it hasn’t contacted the developer directly, yet.

“The popularity of Cloudstream’s website, which received millions of visits in the last few months alone, and its Discord channel, with over 46,000 members, naturally made it appear on our radar as a prime target for enforcement,” Van Voorn says.

As we publish this article, all of the reported GitHub URLs are unreachable. Most return a 404 error, indicating that the developer removed the content voluntarily. In addition, a repo from ‘third-party’ developer “Eddy976” displays a DMCA removal notice , so GitHub likely intervened there.

Given the immediate response of developer “Lag”, it seems unlikely that they will stage a comeback under the same team. However, the door remains open for an external restart, according to the Discord message.

“The project may be handed off to another development team within a couple of days so I would refrain from calling it over yet,” Lag wrote.

That will likely ensure the MPA’s continued interest.

—

A copy of the MPA’s DMCA notice to GitHub is available here . Below is a list of all the targeted URLs.

_{https://raw.githubusercontent.com/recloudstream/cloudstream-extensions/builds/repo.json
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/recloudstream/cloudstream-extensionsmultilingual/builds/repo.json
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/hexated/cloudstream-extensions-hexated/builds/repo.json
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/yoyzo/arab/builds/repo.json
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Jacekun/cs3xxx-repo/main/repo.json
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/daarkdemon/cs-darkdemon-extensions/builds/repo.json
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/LikDev-256/likdev256-tamil-providers/builds/repo.json
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Stormunblessed/kamy-cs3/master/repo.json
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Eddy976/cloudstream-extensions-eddy/builds/repo.json
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Stormunblessed/stormunblessed-cs3/master/repo.json
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/821938089/cloudstream-extensions/master/repo.json
https://github.com/recloudstream/cloudstream-extensions
https://github.com/recloudstream/plugin-template
https://github.com/yoyzo/arab
https://github.com/Eddy976/cloudstream-extensions-eddy}

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

Mid-February, the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) announced that MyCima , one of the largest pirate streaming sites in the Middle East, had been shut down.

Reportedly operated from Alexandria and offering 12,000 movies and 26,000 TV series, MyCima enjoyed around 50 million visits per month.

Following an ACE referral, Egyptian authorities took action to shut the site down. MyCima’s most popular domain – myciiima.autos – went offline along with around 70 others.

ACE thanked Egypt’s Prime Minister and the Ministry of Internal Affairs for protecting intellectual property, while two new members of the ACE coalition – MENA-based OSN and MBC Group – were acknowledged for their work in shutting MyCima down.

Not Quite Dead Yet: MyCima Sewn Back Together

According to Egyptian mythology, Osiris was a much-loved king who was killed by Seth, his jealous brother, who chopped him up and scattered the 14 pieces all over Egypt. MyCima had many more pieces, notably around 70 domains. While 13 pieces of Osiris were found and sewn back together, one was never found. An important piece of MyCima was overlooked too.

In January 2023, myciiima.autos alone received more than 43.3m visits, making it the 10th most-visited domain in Egypt. Many other domains redirected in and out, among them mycimaa.tv. Domains redirecting to mycimaa.tv were numerous too – myciiima.bond, myciiima.boats, myciiima.makeup and myciiima.monster, among others.

At some point in January, Myciiima.autos redirected to mycimaa.tv and on February 2, 2023, myciiima.autos was updated and fell out of use. Also on February 2, a new domain was registered and connected to many existing domains. Wecima.tube appears to be MyCima’s new home. Or one of them at least

MyCima? No. Wecima? Yeah

Given these and other connections not detailed here, there seems little doubt that WeCima is just MyCima with a new name and a new domain.

The site was already pretty glossy, so a new coat of paint probably wasn’t needed. That being said, absolutely no effort has been made to portray this as a new platform.

It’s unclear why the site’s operators are still in business, especially given the big shutdown announcements in February that received regional and international attention. The involvement of OSN and what this resurrection means for them is made especially clear on WeCima’s front page.

Site Changes Pirated Content Policy

On WeCima’s homepage, under the top row of movie and TV show cover images, is some Arabic text. It’s been edited at least once, maybe twice, over the past week or so. The image below shows the notice in English, as it appeared a few days ago.

Taken at face value, this clearly suggests that content owned by TV network OSN has been removed. That could be for any number of reasons, but the most obvious is that MyCima/WeCima are under the impression that removal either removes or reduces the risk of being targeted again.

Viewed from a different perspective, the site might be more concerned about local companies’ content than content owned by companies located overseas. A little more weight is given to that theory with a more recent update to the site’s main page.

It appears that while OSN content still won’t feature on the site, the same now holds true for all local content. This stated position is a far cry from the site being completely closed down and is almost certainly a big diversion from what the rest of the ACE coalition thought would happen.

But Will it Last?

After being chopped into pieces by Seth and sewn back together by Isis, Osiris lived for just a single day. His legacy, a son he conceived despite lacking a crucial body part, lived on. A single domain allowed WeCima to live on but the site is taking no chances.

Since wecima.tube was registered on February 2, 2023, the registrations have barely stopped. Domains including weciima.motorcycles and weciima.makeup are just two examples from a list of several dozen domains that are either active already and pointing at WeCima, or waiting for the right moment to do so.

Other resurrections may be happening elsewhere in Egypt too.

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

For people who enjoy movies and TV shows but prefer not to hand over a monthly subscription, Pluto TV is one of the most popular legal services around.

Depending on the region, Pluto TV offers up to 250 ‘channels’ covering TV shows, movies, general entertainment, documentaries, sports, and news. For those who prefer audio-only, Pluto TV throws in a selection of music channels too.

Pluto TV is available on mobile Android and iOS devices, media streaming devices such as Fire TV, Apple TV, Chromecast and Roku, and via apps on the Xbox and PlayStation gaming platforms. However, a condition of using Pluto TV is that it must only be consumed using through approved software.

Watch For Free, Pay in Other Ways

Official Pluto TV apps deliver video content and Electronic Program Guides (EPGs) to users who, incidentally, don’t even need to sign up. These apps play a key role in the advertising mechanisms that generate revenue for the Pluto TV service and support the free-to-watch model.

Viewed from a different angle, some users don’t like to be tied down to official apps and would rather use their own software. Users may also prefer less advertising or find the amount of user data scooped up by official apps a privacy risk.

Pluto TV uses systems that monitor and track user behavior (GitHub repo here ), so when viewers completely do away with official apps, it undermines Pluto TV’s business model, and that has an impact on revenue. In a strongly-worded copyright complaint sent this week, rightsholders say that will not be tolerated.

M3U Playlists and Pluto TV

Playlists using the .m3u format have been around for years. Often used to instruct a media player to play a bunch of locally stored songs in a particular order, .m3u playlist files can also point to online locations where media streams can be found. While these playlists can be used to access pirate IPTV services, some are configured to access Pluto TV streams from their official sources.

Downloading a Pluto TV .m3u playlist takes a second and they can be used in anything from VLC Media Player to systems like TVHeadEnd , which enables streaming to locations in a network, no official apps required.

While this offers new opportunities for users, supplying .m3u playlists isn’t without risk. The GitHub repo shown below used to offer Pluto TV playlists for download before suddenly experiencing issues last week.

These issues were caused by a DMCA notice sent by the Motion Picture Association to GitHub. The complaint is dated February 14 but wasn’t officially published until this week.

Massive Copyright Infringement

The language used in the complaint makes it extremely clear that the MPA views playlists as a threat and illegal under copyright law.

“We are writing to notify you of, and request your assistance in addressing, the extensive copyright infringement of motion pictures and television shows that is occurring by virtue of the operation of the playlist file, PlutoTV_mr.m3u, which is hosted on and available for download from your repository GitHub Inc. at [former repo location],” the notice reads (minor edits for clarity) .

“Specifically, at the URL, the Repository hosts and offers for download the Playlist, which in turn is used to engage in massive infringement of copyrighted motion pictures and television shows.”

The MPA references an attachment (not published on GitHub) that provides “a representative list of infringements” occurring via the playlist, along with screenshots to show MPA member studios’ content “being streamed without authorization through the playlist.”

GitHub responded by taking the playlist down and the associated repo no longer exists. While that solves the immediate problem, Pluto TV playlists and playlists for many other similar platforms aren’t going to disappear overnight.

Due to their nature, Pluto TV and similar playlist aren’t viewed in the same light as pirate IPTV service playlists, so taking a look at the MPA’s claims may prove informative.

Suppliers and Users Infringe Copyright

The MPA’s complaint basically accuses the entire chain of copyright infringement offenses, GitHub included.

“By offering this Playlist for download, your Repository enables the Playlists blatant infringement of the MPA Member Studios copyrights and countless other copyrights. Indeed, copyright infringement is so prevalent on the Playlist that infringement plainly is its predominant use and purpose,” the notice to GitHub reads.

Importantly, GitHub acted appropriately, so enjoys safe harbor protection. The same does not apply to the people involved in creating and then offering the playlist for download. The MPA cites several major copyright lawsuits where defendants were ultimately found liable for infringement, but Columbia Pictures vs. Fung seems to offer the clearest picture.

Contributory Copyright Infringement

Columbia Pictures sued Gary Fung, former owner of torrent index isoHunt, for operating a website that facilitated access to their copyrighted content. Fung was found liable for contributory copyright infringement on the basis that he induced third parties (isoHunt’s users) to download infringing copies of the studios’ copyrighted works. Fung later settled with the MPA.

The terms of Pluto TV’s license ( section 5.2 ) forbid users from accessing the service in ways that are not expressly authorized by the platform.

Use of an unauthorized playlist breaches those terms, and for any user who claims not to have accepted or even read those terms of service, they may find themselves without any viewing license at all. In any event, claims of inducement (playlist suppliers/distributors) rely on the acts of primary infringers (users/viewers).

By citing MPA member studios’ content as being infringed, issues involving Pluto TV itself become less important, at least for the purposes of the DMCA takedown notice. That being said, we probably haven’t heard the last of ‘playlist piracy’ as featured here.

The MPA’s DMCA notice to Github can be found here

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

When Extreme Download (Extreme-Down.com) first appeared on the internet around 15 years ago, it linked to movies hosted on sites like Megaupload. The site was a little basic in the beginning, but people expected a lot less back then.

Four years later, Megaupload went down in spectacular fashion, but Extreme-Down and similar sites chose to ride out the storm. With increasing traffic and rising popularity, the eventual appearance of dark clouds was almost inevitable, it was only a matter of when.

Millions of Visits, Against The Odds

Focused on French-language content, Extreme-Down was predictably popular in France. Over three-quarters of Extreme-Down’s visitors hailed from the region in December 2022, with Belgium, Canada and Switzerland accounting for most of the remainder.

Extreme-Down received around 15 million visits per month last year, an impressive feat considering the circumstances. In common with other successful sites, Extreme-Down regularly switched to new domains. While the reasons were not always made clear, legal action by rightsholders was rarely far behind.

ISP blocking orders in Belgium ( pdf ) presented some obstacles but when rightsholders joined forces to target Extreme-Down in France, many of the site’s domains were blocked by ISPs in the region that mattered most ( pdf ) .

More Domains, More Confusion, More Copycats

To mitigate blocking, Extreme-Down began deploying new domains, which also helped the platform retain visibility in search engines. ISP blocking in France was supported by court-ordered ‘dereferencing’ instructions, meaning that Google was required to completely deindex Extreme-Down domains.

Deindexing was supposed to have a devastating effect on the site but, as some had predicted, it ended up making things worse. Spotting a gap in the market for sites with the same design and a similar name, copycat sites appeared one after another in a race to dominate search results. Some even exploited the confusion to separate people from their money.

Meanwhile, Extreme-Down remained determined to stay up, and did so well into December 2022. Then suddenly, without warning or suggestion of renewed blocking, the platform disappeared. From fairly early on, the chances of yet another return seemed less likely than before.

Early this Monday, it became clear that Extreme-Down is unlikely to make a return. One by one, domains previously controlled by the site – extreme-down.lol, extreme-down.video, extreme-down.tv, extreme-down.pro, and extreme-down.live – were transferred to a brand new owner.

Alliance For Creativity Shuts Down Extreme-Down

As additional domains were transferred to the Motion Picture Association, including extreme-down.in, extreme-down.io and extreme-down.info, all that remained was for the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment to officially announce Extreme-Down’s demise.

“The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE), the world’s leading anti-piracy coalition, today announced it has shut down France’s second most popular illegal streaming site, Extreme-down,” the ACE announcement reads.

“Thanks to ACE’s rapidly expanding global network, we are in a better position than ever to act decisively against illegal piracy operators in all markets across the world,” said Jan van Voorn, Executive Vice President and Global Content Protection Chief of the Motion Picture Association and Head of ACE.

“Extreme-down offered a large library of TV series and movies in French and original versions; we counted more than 40,000 movies and TV series episodes affecting ACE members. That library is now closed.”

ACE Traced Operator to Tunisia

The ACE investigation received support from French premium television channel providers, ACE members CANAL+ and France Televisions, and local authorities.

Extreme-Down’s operator was traced to Houmt Souk, Tunisia. ACE made an approach and obtained an agreement for the site to shut down. Surrendering domains to the MPA was part of the package.

“CANAL+ Group has fought content piracy for years and, as a member of ACE, we are particularly pleased with the takedown of this notorious illegal website,” said Celine Boyer, Global Head of Content Protection at CANAL+ Group.

“The elimination of this website is a massive success for the protection of rights holders in French-speaking countries.”

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