Despite MPA/ACE having enough investigators to field both teams in a football match, while players argue with an in-house referee in multiple languages, the state of piracy in North Africa and the Middle East presents a considerable challenge.

At the time of writing, over 150 deliberately confusing domains and subdomains, linked to around three dozen illicit football streaming sites, are redirecting to the ACE anti-piracy portal. The domains started to redirect on Saturday, still hadn’t finished on Sunday, and may not even be finished now.

No Announcement From ACE Just Yet

Faced with a risk of sudden domain suspensions, ISP blocking, or domains being penalized in search results due to persistent copyright complaints, it’s common for pirate sites to have a few domains at their disposal. There’s also a growing trend of sites with common ownership operating from dozens of confusingly-similar domains by design.

This strategy has the potential to complicate enforcement, including a not-insignificant chance of sites continuing under the guise of different ownership, even when on paper an entire operation has already been shut down. There are signs that some overseas site operators are finding opportunities by generating chaos on the surface, while remaining completely organized behind the scenes.

None of this provides immunity from enforcement measures, but confirming compliance becomes more complex.

The Football Piracy Ring

For the sake of clarity, subdomains and other distractions have been stripped from this sample of domains currently redirecting to the ACE portal.

livehd7.club, livekooora.tv, livekoora.io, live-koora-online.tv, live-kooora-tv.com, live-kooora-tv.net, live-koora.tv, kingshoot.club, kingfoot.live, kooora4.us, kooragoal.club, koora4live.club, koora2day.net, kora365.online, kooralive.io, kooora365.live, kora-tv.online, kora-online-tv.com, koraextra.club, koratvonline.net, kora-live.plus, kora-star-tv.live, kora-goal.net

One of the above domains, kooora4.us, shows how small changes can help to muddy the waters. The word ‘kura’ is Arabic for ball while ‘koora’ is broadly understood as relating to football; in this case, an extra ‘o’ appears in the mix while other domains contain one or two.

SimilarWeb data shows that traffic increased for kooora4.us during October at a time when traffic for a similarly-named domain was in steep decline.

Similar behavior can be seen across dozens of similar domains, although not always under common ownership or even in direct response to enforcement measures. Now redirecting to ACE, kooora4.us received 277.6K visits in December 2023, a peak now unlikely to return.

Kooragoal.club, another domain that began redirecting over the weekend, also increased its traffic in October before a decline set in the following month.

A quarter of kooragoal.club’s traffic came from Egypt, which along with Saudi Arabia and UAE, appears regularly in traffic reports for similar domains.

Most also receive traffic from countries including the United States, but the clear focus is North Africa and the Middle East, putting the sites firmly the crosshairs of ACE member, beIN Sport.

In November 2022, ACE settled with the operator of a series of websites with similar names, appearance, and functionality, to those that began redirecting this weekend.

While their operator agreed to shut them down, ACE acknowledged the existence of additional sites, noting that enforcement actions would continue.

Mirrored Fortunes & Those That Can Slip Away

At the time of writing, kooragoal.club (above) and kora-goal.net (below, right) are both redirecting to the ACE portal, having generated 1.16 million and 120.5K visits respectively during the period Oct 2023 to Dec 2023.

The chart to the right also includes kora-goal.com, which is currently operational and showing progress that closely mirrors the decline of kooragoal.club.

Both domains display a shift in fortune in early November before meeting in traffic terms in December, with kora-goal.com taking over as kooragoal.club prepared itself for redirection to ACE. Whether kora-goal.com is destined for new anti-piracy ownership or will go on to further boost its traffic is unclear.

Kooralive.io Had Significant Traffic

Between October and December 2023, kooralive.io received almost 2.1 million visits, so ACE will be pleased that its growth has already been curtailed. The interesting thing here is that kooralive.io had around 250K visits in October and then, almost if someone had simply flicked a switch , in November its traffic suddenly skyrocketed to around 1.8 million visits.

In at least some cases, this was achieved by redirecting traffic from other domains/subdomains operated by the same owner, to other domains/subdomains also owned by the same owner, which then redirected to subdomains on kooralive.io. Similar behavior can be observed on other domains which, unsurprisingly, are also operated by the same owner.

Getting Rid of the Roots

In addition to the domains listed as redirecting at the start of this article, it remained a question whether other domains with common ownership would also suffer the same fate, even if some had fallen out of use.

While ultimately it could prove impossible to weed out every last domain, showing links between the domains was surprisingly straightforward, and as far as we can see (a handful of outliers aside) all currently redirect to ACE.

Whether any agreement reached with the operator of the sites has enough teeth to prevent a resurgence is unknown.

At least for now, however, the removal of dozens of domains seems significant enough for a quick celebration before getting back to the job, which apparently never ends.

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

Russian media outlets are reporting that the volume of pirated content on the internet doubled between 2022 and 2023. That’s not exactly true, or indeed true at all.

The claims are based on data supplied by local telecoms watchdog Roscomnadzor. Speaking with Izvestia , the government agency said it blocked or deleted more than a million links to infringing content in 2023, more than double the amount blocked or deleted during the previous year.

While 1.1 million links is a notable uplift over the 485,000 reported in 2022, removal or blocking of links to allegedly-infringing content is just that. The infringing content itself, such as movies, TV shows, music, or indeed anything else, remains unaffected. New links to the same content may reappear and face deletion once again; that would increase the number of links being taken down, but in itself wouldn’t show that piracy volumes had increased.

Not that a small clarification makes the Russian piracy situation any easier to understand.

Western Companies Are to Blame

When good content is made available legally, conveniently, and at a fair price, studies have shown that legal sales tend to increase. When content isn’t made available at all in a particular market, whether that content is pirated by one person or 10 million, piracy rates immediately hit 100% for that product.

After Western entertainment companies withdrew from the Russian market following the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, any new content became impossible to consume legally in Russia. So, by default, any consumption would increase piracy rates for restricted products. When approached by Izvestia to comment on Roscomnadzor’s latest takedown stats, Yuri Zlobin, president of the Russian Shield anti-piracy group, blamed Western companies.

Zlobin says that, if Western copyright holders continue to treat Russian consumers poorly, piracy will continue to grow unhindered due to the lack of Western rightsholder enforcement in Russia. If the rightsholders fail to protect their own content, no one else will do it for them, he said.

“If Western brands do not want to fight piracy in a particular country, it means that they are actually legalizing piracy of their content,” Zlobin added.

Blame the West First, Try to Make Things Fit Later

While there’s a chance that Zlobin meant ‘effectively’ rather than ‘actually’ legalizing piracy, lack of enforcement in its own right doesn’t legalize piracy of anything and, to our knowledge, that applies everywhere. That said, enforcement is important; if done in a way that resonates or is simply effective, piracy rates can indeed reduce.

However, a fundamental problem appears to undermine claims that Western companies are to blame here.

If we accept that pulling out of the Russian market increases piracy of products that are no longer available legally, and accept Zlobin’s comments that Western companies’ failure to enforce their rights increases piracy, that leads to a couple of important questions.

If the volume of takedown notices has indeed doubled in a year, and Western companies are to blame for alleged increases in piracy due to the reasons outlined above, who sent all of those notices and for whose content?

If Western companies sent the notices, that would be enforcing their rights, contrary to the claim stating otherwise. If the rise in takedown notices was due to non-Western rightsholders protecting their content, how does that relate to Western content becoming unavailable to buy legally?

Western Companies Taught Russians to Pirate…

Zlobin is obviously right when he says the situation in Russia has deteriorated over the last couple of years. After many, many years of hard work, many consumers were indeed becoming accustomed to obtaining content legally. And yes, the withdrawal from the legal market they championed in Russia means that Western majors have lost those consumers.

These arguments are pretty solid, but the next part, not so much.

“[Western companies] have actually taught Russian clients to obtain the necessary content for free,” Zlobin said, according to Izvestia. “This is a kind of response to sanctions and incorrect attitude.”

So have other market players in Russia drawn similar conclusions?

Russian Pirates Like Local Content Too

In comments to Izvestia, legal online streaming platform ‘Premier’ appears to confirm that Western companies aren’t responsible for the rise in takedown notices. The company said that since there’s no official party able to submit applications to Roscomnadzor, enforcing their rights in Russia is difficult. However, Western content isn’t the only content in town.

“[P]irates not only consume Western content, but also projects of Russian online cinemas, so last year we strengthened the protection of our filmography,” the online cinema told the publication.

A representative from START, a local subscription streaming service that’s reportedly showing growth, says enforcement systems are being streamlined to tackle the piracy threat in Russia.

“To quickly search for unlicensed content, START has an anti-piracy department that searches for pirated links, protects content, and also conducts reconnaissance using open data,” the company told Izvestia. “We have created our own automated anti-piracy solution, thanks to which up to 80% of links are processed automatically.”

The Blame Game

This whole debate was launched on the basis that an increase in takedown notices means an actual increase in piracy. Yet, according to two of the people who commented, Western rightsholders aren’t enforcing their rights, including by not filing takedown notices.

More information would be useful, but this suggests that non-Western rightsholders not only managed to make up the deficit in takedown notices left behind by Western rightsholders, but then went on to send double that number in a year. Taking this scenario to its logical conclusion, the surge in notices likely relates to non-Western content , content that is both accessible in Russia and legally available to buy.

Maybe the real problems lie closer to home. Perhaps it’s always been that way, whoever gets the blame.

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

In the final days of 2023 as people were preparing to welcome in the new year, yet more pirate domains were being redirected or transferred into the hands of the MPA, presumably as part of a settlement agreement.

Among them were uhuseries.com, owlserieshd.com, and ahaseries.com, relatively popular streaming platforms targeting the Thai market. We gave the news a brief mention at the time but since MPA/ACE have certain procedures to follow, the official announcement was published yesterday.

It reveals that in addition to the above, several other domains were also rendered inoperable including Iamtheme.com, nunghub.com and aplayer.xyz, described by ACE as a back-end domain that hosted a “vast collection of U.S. and international TV shows and movies” estimated to contain around 78,000 titles.

ACE Partners With TrueVisions

According to ACE, the Uhuseries.com network of sites had been running since 2019, attracting an average of 1.3 million visitors per month, with most traffic originating in Thailand, the United States and the United Kingdom.

“Another successful ACE and TrueVisions collaboration has resulted in the shutdown of two of Thailand’s most notorious illegal streaming services,” said ACE anti-piracy chief, Jan van Voorn.

Sompan Charumilinda, Executive Vice Chairman of TrueVisions, expressed gratitude for the invaluable support of Thai law enforcement.

“We would like to thank the Economic Crime Suppression Division of the Royal Thai Police for their steadfast commitment to protecting intellectual property rights. Thailand can produce and distribute world-class local content, but we must protect content rights if the benefits are to be realized by the creative economy and the country as a whole,” Charumilinda added.

Don’t Forget to Mention Malware

In the current environment, no anti-piracy press release can be considered complete without an obligatory malware warning and, thankfully, this one didn’t buck the trend.

“Piracy sites such as Uhuseries.com and Iamtheme.com put consumers at risk of malware, undermine investment in the Thai content industry, and reduce tax contributions to the local government,” van Voorn added, describing the closures as a “win-win for all.”

Despite being all-inclusive, it’s difficult to disagree with that statement.

Instant Pirate Site Service

ACE says that 27 pirate sites that relied on Iamtheme.com for content and infrastructure are now offline. Given there’s little to suggest that security of operators or users was considered a priority, that might be a good thing.

Through ads on various online discussion platforms, people with little relevant experience were encouraged to buy a website template for the equivalent of $225. Once installed, the script would make them a pirate site owner/operator almost instantly.

As the image shows, TrueVisions content was available via an API which according to the ads, could be purchased on a subscription basis. The headline price of $225 is therefor less of a bargain than it first appears. However, the most concerning aspect (copyright infringement aside) is the promotion of these scripts to people with little to no relevant experience.

A key website selling the scripts offers to install the software on a server for people who don’t know how, but insists that if any changes are made to the script whatsoever, all customer support ends there and then. For someone with no technical skills, that’s a pretty clear invitation to leave everything well alone, including any attempt to apply any security fixes, in the unlikely event any are issued at all.

Advertising Eyesore

Assuming new pirate site owners aren’t concerned that a third party probably has root access to their server even after installation, it’s time to get the site ready for visitors. The first couple of lines in ads promoting these scripts link two key features; 1) Online movie-watching website script. 2) Responsive Design with VIP membership system.

There’s also a section on how to set up advertising to generate more revenue: “Can manage and edit website page details like advertising contact information, member payment notifications, advertising space rates, website information through the web page. There is no need to have knowledge of programming.”

Indeed, attempting to change any code means the end of customer support, so having no knowledge is presumably a big plus. However, if all goes to plan with the installation, script buyers could end up with a website looking like the one on the left below.

With a more-is-always-better approach towards intrusive, suspect advertising, the finished product on the right shows what can be achieved if site owners are prepared to put in the time and effort.

While anything that limits exposure to insecure platforms run by novices should be considered a plus, Thai internet users still appear to have options if they want to launch an insecure template site of their own.

Meanwhile, site users in search of the latest movies and TV shows are probably oblivious or at least indifferent to the security situation, despite epilepsy-inducing gambling advertising on the front page telling them everything they need to know.

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

Dubbed “Nollywood,” Nigeria has a flourishing film industry which generates billions of dollars in revenues while creating new stars in the process.

In tandem, a flourishing piracy market serves parts of the population that either can’t or won’t pay for films.

Local authorities and anti-piracy organizations are trying to get a grip on the problem, but that’s not easy. Aside from investigative challenges, there’s also a shortage of basic enforcement resources.

Laptops, Electricity, and Internet Access

These issues were previously recognized by the U.S. embassy in Nigeria, which generously donated 50 laptops and other gadgets to the Nigerian Copyright Commission in 2020. This equipment should help to aid the local fight against online piracy, it reasoned.

The equipment was certainly welcome but the International Intellectual Property Alliance ( IIPA ) recently indicated that the Nigerian Copyright Commission also lacks reliable access to electricity and the Internet. Without these necessities, the laptops are useless.

“Provide more resources, including critical resources such as electricity and Internet access, for the Nigeria Copyright Commission (NCC) online enforcement unit to adequately engage in and sustain efforts to combat piracy in the country,” IIPA urged Nigeria’s government

Police Take Action Against Pirate Sites

It’s clear that tackling online piracy is a challenge in Nigeria. However, according to local media reports, police recently busted several key suspects in one of the largest enforcement actions thus far.

Officers from the Force Criminal Investigations Department ( FCID ) in Alagbon, Lagos, arrested five alleged operators and accomplices with ties to local pirate sites, including noregret.com.ng, 36vibes.com.ng and naijajoy.com.ng.

The police action follows a complaint from actress and filmmaker Toyin Abraham , who discovered that her latest film ‘Malaika’ was illegally distributed through these pirate sites.

Commenting on the news, Lagos police chief Idowu Owohunwa said that an investigation into the alleged crimes eventually led to the five suspects.

“Through these initiatives, the websites of origin of the crime were narrowed down to www.noregret.com.ng which was registered, owned and operated by one Lagos-based Kehinde Iyanda and www.naijajoy.com.ng owned and maintained by one Ogun State -based Adekunle Segun,” Owohunwa said .

The police investigation identified Kehinde Iyanda as a main suspect and the alleged operator of noregret.com.ng. The man was arrested and reportedly admitted that the website was used for online piracy.

“He additionally acknowledged that the website was, as alleged, utilized to pirate several movies including the ‘Malaika’ movie as alleged by the complainants,” the police boss added.

Panic Attacks and Hospital Visits

The police action must come as a relief for Toyin Abraham, who reportedly suffered panic attacks as the result of online piracy, which led her to be hospitalized several times.

Abraham said that she’s committed to taking up the fight against online piracy, not just for herself, but also in the broader interest of the Nigerian entertainment industry.

While Kehinde was seen as the main suspect at noregret.com.ng, he didn’t act alone. The operator identified Adebiyi Sodiq and Sodiq Oseni Akano as co-conspirators, which prompted a follow-up investigation.

More Arrests and a Fugitive

The police eventually located Adebiyi Sodiq in Osun State, where he was arrested. The suspect conspired with his mother to hide evidence, including a laptop, but this was eventually uncovered by the police.

In addition, Sodiq also stands accused of running yet another streaming platform, 36vibes.com.ng, which distributed films including ‘Malaika’ and ‘A Tribe Called Judah.’ The makers of the latter had also filed a complaint in the past.

The third suspect, Sodiq Oseni Akano, received help from his girlfriend to evade the police. This was successful, as he is still on the run. His girlfriend and the mother of Adebiyi Sodiq were arrested, however.

Sites Remain Available

In addition to the two alleged site operators and their female accomplices, the police apprehended Adekunle Segun, the alleged operator of yet another pirate site; naijajoy.com.ng. This site also had a link to the ‘Malaika’ movie, according to the authorities.

Overall, three men were arrested for operating pirate sites. The two women were arrested for allegedly acting as accomplices by helping their son/boyfriend to evade prosecution.

All in all, the Nigerian police managed to pull off one of the largest anti-piracy swoops in recent history, at least locally.

While rightsholders are pleased with the action, it’s not yet clear whether it will have a lasting effect. At the time of writing, all three sites remain online, apparently offering a wide range of pirated content.

—

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

For those not fully engaged in the global manga/webtoon phenomenon, the scale and depth can be a little bewildering.

Fans are knowledgeable, passionate, and growing in numbers, with many older enthusiasts having been introduced to the content via pirate sites, at a time when content was impossible to buy legally.

Availability is much improved today but old habits die hard; pirate sites haven’t gone away either, a major challenge for content owners everywhere, in every content category.

One of the companies attempting to reduce piracy of its ‘webtoon’ content is South Korea-based Kakao Entertainment. Unlike other large copyright holders that have coupled strong anti-piracy responses with generally moderate public profiles, Kakao prefers a different approach. The company’s anti-piracy team constantly engages with the public on social media, often with controversial results.

Of course, Kakao is entitled to these freedoms. The company owns the content it seeks to protect and since almost all anti-piracy strategies fail to a greater or lesser extent, trying something different could inject new life and lead to fresh ideas.

That being said, the history books show that some scenarios should be approached with caution; when certain ingredients are combined, there’s a heightened risk of unpredictable results.

Open Source Manga Reader ‘Tachiyomi’ Receives Legal Threats

For the last ten days or so, open source software ‘Tachiyomi’ has found itself under the spotlight following an approach by Kakao’s anti-piracy team. But first, what does the software do? A manga aficionado familiar with the software informed TorrentFreak as follows:

“Tachiyomi is probably the ultimate Android-based manga/webtoon reader with plenty of features and extensibility. The development team behind it has been hard at work for close to 9 years since 2015, and has tirelessly iterated upon it, to create possibly the best kind of reader there is today.”

Tachiyomi is free to use, with the added bonus of being completely open source. In common with similar tools, such as web browsers or torrent clients, Tachiyomi contains no third-party content and makes no attempt to lock users into specific sources.

However, through various extensions, users are free to choose their own, including unofficial sources from where it’s possible to download content, including pirated content, without ever paying a penny.

We’re informed that on January 2, 2024, project contributors received communication from Kakao’s representatives who made several demands in respect of this functionality.

A source familiar with events informs TorrentFreak that the main developer of Tachiyomi was instructed to terminate the nine-year-old project by deleting all versions of the app, including those on GitHub.

He was further ordered to delete any comics uploaded to the app, despite the app carrying no third-party content, period. A further demand sought the immediate removal of all Tachiyomi forks on GitHub.

Tachiyomi Begins Removing Extensions

We understand that later on January 2, Tachiyomi’s main developer advised Kakao that the best way to take actual content down would be to file DMCA notices at problematic sites, over which the project has no control. He also offered to help, advising the company that he was willing to remove individual sources from Tachiyomi’s separate extension repo if those were considered an issue.

Three days later, Kakao reportedly presented a spreadsheet that listed allegedly infringing content available from five third-party sites. For one of those sites, Tachiyomi had no extension; for the remaining four, the Tachiyomi team would soon take appropriate action.

New versions of Tachiyomi were released between January 6 and January 8 without a list of extensions being preloaded. Moving forward, those who download Tachiyomi will find that extensions are no longer part of the ‘out-of-the-box’ experience.

January 9: Official Announcement

An announcement on tachiyomi.org dated January 9 spoke of “extenuating circumstances” and a decision to purge extensions to “ensure the long-term sustainability of Tachiyomi.”

“As of now, Tachiyomi is transitioning to a fully bring-your-own-content model. What this means is that you can still enjoy Tachiyomi for manga reading, but you’ll need to source and add your own content,” the statement added.

24 Hours Earlier

As detailed above, the Tachiyomi team responded to Kakao’s complaints quickly and went on to take significant action. Arguably the new versions of the app could’ve been pushed even sooner absent a 48-hour delay to determine certain details.

However, what appeared to be an amicable solution triggered an unexpected Twitter post by Kakao’s anti-piracy team. It implied that installing Tachiyomi carries a risk of viruses.

The post has now received 59K views and to quickly summarize the first few dozen responses, people didn’t especially appreciate a long-established open source app being described as a virus risk. One of the more polite responses can be seen below.

For reasons that can vary from person to person and sometimes between communities, people often feel protective of open source projects. In some respects, their open nature seems to provide a small oasis of trust and when that’s surrounded by free, open source software, any perceived threat risks an unpredictable response.

It appears two can play that game.

January 10: Kakao Threatens Tachiyomi Forks

Having obtained compliance from the Tachiyomi team without a struggle, and then declaring the software a virus risk regardless, on Wednesday Kakao’s anti-piracy team took to Twitter once again, this time to threaten people who forked the Tachiyomi repo.

Vietnam’s approach to the protection of intellectual property rights has long been criticized by the United States, earning the country prominent placement in successive USTR Special 301 Reports.

With the world’s largest online piracy operations now publicly linked to Vietnam, Hollywood has been urging authorities to take meaningful enforcement action. A criminal complaint against the operator of Phimmoi.net had previously offered some optimism but for reasons that still aren’t clear, local authorities suspended the investigation.

News that police in Vietnam have just arrested three men behind an illegal streaming operation could be a step in the right direction, even if MPA/ACE had bigger fish in mind when they visited Vietnam last summer.

Alleged Leader Arrested

Reports that authorities had made three arrests first appeared on Tuesday. Information supplied by the Quang Binh Provincial Police Department and later reported by state-controlled media, claims that Phan Ngoc Tuan, a resident of Quang Ninh district, Quang Binh province, is the leader of a piracy group behind the websites bilutvt.net, tvhayh.org and animefull.net.

According to the authorities, 30-year-old Tuan sought to buy source code for the sites back in 2019. The aim was to launch services that would distribute movies to the public, without permission from rightsholders, for the purpose of generating illegal profits from advertising.

Hired Online, Two ‘Employees’ Also Arrested

It’s alleged that Tuan later went on to recruit two men, 24-year-old Ngo Quang Huy and 25-year-old Nguyen Thanh Nhan, both of Ho Chi Minh City. According to the authorities, the men never met in person, since all duties were assigned via Telegram.

Police say Huy and Nhan were tasked with downloading, editing and distributing movies, but offered no specific details in relation to that work. Images of all three men have since been published online, but the main focus is on alleged ringleader, Phan Ngoc Tuan.

Profits From Advertising

Information released by the authorities states that Tuan tried to stay in the shadows by using “anonymous intermediary servers” and rented movie storage servers located overseas. In total, police say that Tuan stored 188,322 movie files, around 40TB of data.

During the raid on his home, police seized two desktop computers, a laptop and a tablet device, a “high-speed wifi transmitter” and three mobile phones. Three bank accounts were also seized. No value was placed on deposits but its claimed that Tuan generated profits of 80 to 100 million VND per month (US$3,300 to US$4,100) to an estimated total of 3 billion VND (US$123,000)

The authorities are being especially clear on the alleged offenses and which laws apply.

The confirmed prosecution will be for “Infringement of copyright and related rights” under Article 225 of the Penal Code; when a person (without the permission of the copyright holder) intentionally copies a copyrighted work and/or distributes copies of the work to the public, that person can be criminally prosecuted.

Whether the type of advertising deployed on Tuan’s sites will form part of the prosecution is unclear, but illegal gambling ads are clearly visible on bilutvt.net, which for unexplained reasons is still online.

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

Over the past several years and especially over the past several months, major rightsholders’ interest in India appears to have risen.

India’s piracy rates provide the most obvious explanation but seemingly sudden and escalating use of India-based anti-piracy outfits is more difficult to quantify. Maybe they’re simply cheaper than the alternatives, or perhaps the jurisdiction has benefits. Certainly, Indian courts might already be providing access to one of the most powerful anti-piracy tools seen in years.

Cautious Approach Disappears Into History

Last May, the High Court in Delhi issued an injunction that among other things, required ISPs to block domain names that hadn’t even been registered. That was just another example of what can be obtained relatively easily from an Indian court today that would’ve been unthinkable just a few years ago.

Guided by the experience of courts in other jurisdictions, in April 2019 the High Court of Delhi issued the country’s first dynamic injunction , carefully crafted to deal with pirate site countermeasures such as domain hopping and mirror sites.

The Court acknowledged the “wide ramifications” of permanent site-wide blocking orders, the need to mitigate risk of over-blocking, and the corresponding need for judicial scrutiny. Justice Manmohan’s order also considered the importance of balancing the interests of rightsholders, ISPs, and the public, with a strictly proportionate response to online piracy.

Supercharging Site-Blocking

Having brought India right up to date, courts seemed happy to press ahead. Within months, a court ordered the preemptive blocking of over 1,100 websites , to protect a movie that hadn’t been released yet, while injunctions issued previously were updated to tackle the hydras .

In September 2022, the High Court of Delhi issued a site-blocking injunction that required domain registrars in the United States to immediately suspend a list of site domain names. The stated aim was to prevent an unreleased movie from appearing on those domains, at an unknown date sometime in the future. A month later another court handed down an order to block over 13,400 sites to protect another unreleased movie.

Major U.S. rightsholders could ask a court in the United States for something similar but for obvious reasons, have not. However, Indian courts are much more predictable and, when it comes to site-blocking injunctions, now seem receptive to new mechanisms being included to ensure compliance.

Suspending Domains Under Dynamic+ Injunctions

What we’re able to show today is that at least one domain registrar in the United States has suspended domain names under the instructions of the High Court of Delhi. The suspensions are part of a dynamic+ injunction issued in India last year, to protect the rights of several Hollywood studios and Netflix, ostensibly in India.

There are more than 70 domains in the injunction and orders for domain registrars to suspend them all have already been issued.

The most striking domain in the list is Aniwave.to, a site dedicated to anime that currently receives 317 million visits per month; roughly 40% from the U.S., 9% from the United Kingdom, 8% from Canada, 3.5% Australia, and 2.5% Philippines.

Whatever percentage visit from India, it’s less than 2.5% of the site’s traffic according to SimilarWeb stats. A domain suspension, meanwhile, has global repercussions.

MPA Requests Blocking Injunction

“In a continued effort to curb dissemination of pirated content and its availability on internet, the Plaintiffs who are well established Hollywood Studios have approached this Court seeking blocking and removal of their copyrighted content, from the internet, accessed through rogue websites,” an order handed down by the High Court of Delhi explains.

“The suit is filed against a number of rogue websites who are unlawfully disseminating and communicating a large quantum of copyrighted content of the Plaintiffs,” the order continues, adding that the content “can be accessed and viewed on a variety of devices including Televisions, Personal Computers, Laptops, Tablets, Mobile Phones, etc.”

The order notes that the “rogue websites” offer “illegal viewing almost on a real-time basis” of the studios’ content including Stranger Things, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Batman, Spider Man: No Way Home, Top Gun: Maverick, and The Jungle Book.

Court Issues Dynamic+ Injnction

In light of the claims, the Court says it’s necessary to restrain the sites from streaming, reproducing, distributing, making available to the public and/or communicating to the public, in any manner, any copyrighted content owned by the Plaintiffs including any content they may own in the future.

The scope of the injunction includes all domains listed above, plus any mirror/redirect websites or alphanumeric websites or any variations thereof. At this point the scope of the injunction starts to become apparent.

“….websites identified in the present suit or any mirror/redirect websites or alphanumeric websites, or any variations thereof including those websites which are associated with the Defendants’ websites either based on the name, branding, identity of its operator, or discovered to provide additional means of accessing the Defendant’s website, and other domains/ domain along with their sub-domains and sub-directories, owners, website operators/ entities or even sources of content.”

Assumed association due to “sources of content” could be significant. The vast majority of movie and TV show piracy sites use the same pool of movie and TV show content by default. Arguing these sources of content are effectively the same wouldn’t be difficult in this type of court procedure, especially when arguing otherwise would require a pirate site operator to explain to the contrary.

Block Domains But Also Suspend Them

The order instructs local ISPs to block the domains listed above and as explained, any and all domains (plus “associated” domains) that subsequently appear to facilitate access to them, in perpetuity. However, it also goes further still by ordering domain name registrars to “lock and suspend” all affected domains while handing over domain owners’ details to the Hollywood studios.

“The Domain Name Registrars (DNRs) of the rogue websites’ domain names, upon being intimated by the Plaintiffs shall lock and suspend the said domain names. In addition, any details relating to the registrants of the said domain names including KYC, credit card, mobile number, etc. be also provided to the Plaintiffs,” the order reads.

Whether all registrars will comply remains to be seen but if they want to continue doing business in India, they appear to have little choice . Non-compliance could mean that registrars themselves will be blocked by ISPs.

TorrentFreak can confirm that at least two domains were suspended recently due to this action; fztvseries.mobi and mobiletvshows.net

“In the month of December, Namecheap suspended our domains based on the order from an Indian court,” the former owner of the domains informed us this week.

“The suspension was done without any warning or any sort of communication from either Namecheap or the plaintiff. It was only after noticing the suspension that we reached out to Namecheap. It took approximately five days for Namecheap to reply with an explanation for the suspension.”

Communication between the domain owner and Namecheap is included below.

“Indian courts have a reputation of issuing broad orders that encompass thousands of websites in a single directive, often without thorough verification. Such practices could potentially cause significant global disruption, especially if domain registrars begin to comply with orders from various countries,” the former domain owner concludes.

The sites in question have moved to new domains (fztvseries.live and mobiletvshows.site) and claim that traffic levels have returned to 80% of the levels seen before the suspensions.

Given the nature of the injunction, those domains are vulnerable to being blocked at bare minimum or even seized again. The bigger question is whether Indian courts are now being viewed as the preferred option for enforcement moving forward.

The order issued by the High Court of Delhi can be found here ( pdf )

The domains affected by the initial order are listed below but according to the Court’s instructions, any domains that can be linked to these sites or their operators in future must also be blocked and suspended

fztvseries.mobi
mobiletvshows.net
www.stagatv.com
vexmovies.uno
coolmoviez.cloud
coolmoviez.com.de
coolmoviez.com.co
fztvseries.mobi
mobiletvshows.net
www.stagatv.com
vexmovies.uno
www.coolmoviez.cloud
www.coolmoviez.com.de
www.coolmoviez.com.co
aniwave.to
aniwave.bz
aniwave.ws
aniwave.tv
www.animehana.in
www.animesenpai4u.com
gogoanime.is
w7.123animes.mobi
anix.to
freemovies2021.com
freemovieswatch.tv
freemovieswatch.net
medeberiyaa.com
medeberiyaa.com
kinogo.biz
ridomovies.pw
lmoviestv.com
moviehax.me
ripcrabbyanime.in
moviehunt.us
mlwbd.rent
mlwbd.digital
mlwbd.love
mlwbd.me
mlwbdofficial.com
mlwbd.photos
www.mov.onl
nyafilmer.gg
02tvseries2.com
projectfreetv.one
raretoons.me
raretoonsindia.in.net
uflix.cc
waatchmoviess.top
waatchmovies.top
watchmoviiess.top
yifymovies.xyz
kickassanime.am
kaas.am
kickass.onl
wwI.kickass.help
hindimoviesonline.to
www.hindimovies.to
freedrivemovie.lol
freeseries.watch
hdmp4mania2.com
hdmp4mania I .net
genvideos.org
hdflixtor.com
www.24-hd.com
123serieshd.ru
anihdplay.com
nocensor.cloud
nocensor.click
www2.showbox-movies.net
moviestowatch.tv
moviestowatch.cc
torrentbay.net

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

On December 1, 2023, an interesting piece of news began to gain traction in South Korea and beyond.

First published by national broadcaster KBS, the report claimed that after five years of tracking, major webtoon publisher Kakao Entertainment had “identified the operator of ‘M’, the world’s largest illegal comics and webtoon distribution site.”

Big (Conflicting) Claims

This claim piqued our interest. Half a decade of tracking is significant and tends to suggest an important target. But after all that time, why give a heads-up in the media to the operator of the largest site of its type in the world?

Since it’s relatively easy to identify the world’s largest sites operating in that sector, why go on to mysteriously refer to the platform only as ‘M’? The answer to that question may lie in the fact that several of the largest sites have names beginning with that letter. However, taking such claims at face value isn’t always advised.

In the fourth paragraph of the article, a comment from Kakao Entertainment further muddied the waters. In a pretty sizeable shift away from the original claim, that the operator of ‘M’ had been identified, Kakao stated (emphasis ours):

“ If we identify the operator, we will be able to take civil and criminal action against each individual for violating copyright law, which will likely lead to a more fundamental solution to the problem of illegal distribution.”

Confidence vs. Confusion

In his book The Art of War, Sun Tzu wrote that the whole secret lies in confusing the enemy, so real intent cannot be fathomed. If that was the plan, it certainly worked here. Meanwhile, other publications seemed much more confident.

“World’s Biggest Manga and Webtoon Piracy Site Likely to Be Shut Down,” wrote CBR , “The Top Manga and Webtoon Piracy Site May Be Closed Soon,” ComicBook added .

On December 19, 2023, South Korea’s Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism announced the culmination of a major online piracy investigation and a significant arrest.

With Assistance from U.S. Homeland Security, “Site Shut Down”

The press release issued by the Ministry of Culture immediately scaled down the nature of the target. The world’s largest illegal comics and webtoon site was now being described as the largest site of its type in Korea. That doesn’t diminish the importance of the site locally but does set it apart from other sites with up to 60 million visits per month more.

After naming the site for the first time, the statement reveals that the operator of ‘Shelter’ was arrested following cooperation between the Ministry of Culture’s Copyright Crime and Scientific Investigation Unit, Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) in the United States, and the Korea Copyright Protection Agency.

“The operator of the ‘shelter’ site, which was visited by about 21.7 million people (according to SimilarWeb) in ’23, was provisionally found to have earned about 340 million won [$35 million] in advertising revenue,” the statement notes, adding that the platform illegally shared almost 27,000 titles causing “significant damage” to the publishing industry.

“The site was located overseas, which made it difficult to investigate the operator, but through active international cooperation and collaboration with the U.S. Homeland Security Investigation Agency, we were able to identify access from a specific space in Korea, and based on this, we were able to identify and arrest the operator of the ‘Shelter’ site.”

Images of the Raid Spread Online

Information released by the authorities provides no personal detail on the alleged operator of Shelter, so age and arrest location can’t be reported at this time. However, images of the raid distributed by the Ministry of Culture appear to show where Shelter was operated from.

The contrast between $35 million in advertising revenue and the hardware on display has been a topic of discussion since the raid, and probably best summed up by the comment , “The shelter operator lives more frugally than I thought.”

While the name ‘Shelter’ is now being mentioned openly, its full name and online location aren’t part of the information released to the public. That may be due to the platform remaining online, subject to limitations presumably put in place by the site’s operator.

1412.live / 1412.rest

While there’s a likelihood that other domains exist, Shelter operates from 1412.live. The authorities claim that the site marketed itself as a comic review platform but was really a pirate-linking site in disguise.

As far as we can determine, users of the site posted links to comics hosted on third-party file-hosting platforms for other users to download via the site.

Visitors to the platform are currently greeted with a popup notice in Korean, translated as follows;

Hello. I am very sorry to leave you with bad news.

Regarding the link posted on the book information bulletin board on December 5th. A crackdown was carried out by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism.

As previously announced, the book information bulletin board is closed and can no longer be used. In addition, we would like to inform you that all posts and comments related to sharing or requesting novels or posting download links are strictly prohibited and subject to sanctions.

We would like to apologize to the rights holders who suffered damage.

A browse around the platform reveals several items of interest. Not only does Shelter have many rules that can result in suspension, it also has a section containing a list of rightsholders who have complained about content being shared without permission. Linked from the frontpage under the title “ Protection List ‘, the list is actually hosted at Notion.

The text is in Korean but when translated, reads as follows:

Sharing pirated files by uploading them directly to an external server or cloud is prohibited by international copyright conventions.

The operation team is unable to verify direct infringement of URLs that link to third-party external websites, but if direct infringement is confirmed, posts may be deactivated and penalty measures may be taken without notice.

For registration restriction request procedures, please refer to the Posting Takedown and Rights Protection document.

Traffic data obtained from various sources broadly supports the 21.7 million visits per year claimed by the authorities. For the site’s main domain, 1412.live, SimilarWeb currently reports 1.4 million visits per month and SEMRush reports 4.3 million over three months. However, traffic appears to have diminished in the last few months of the year, so more recent figures may not be especially informative.

With some of the largest manga sites currently enjoying between 50 and upwards of 80 million visits per month, Shelter was nowhere near the largest.

On a local basis, there’s no question it was significant, just not as significant globally as people were initially led to believe, or named in the manner that was implied either. Whether the site’s operator made $35 million from advertising remains a question, at least in light of the frugal hardware on display.

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

Pirate IPTV services are a major cause for concern among broadcasters globally. In Italy, illegal streaming has grown in relevance to become part of a nationwide conversation.

Fueled by a national passion for top-tier football matches, viewable only by those who can afford a subscription, pirate IPTV services and other illegal streaming platforms found fertile ground in Italy.

New law passed during the summer, which increased penalties for piracy while supporting a new automated blocking system , sent the clearest possible message. Regardless of cost, fans will find money for legal subscriptions, but only when illicit access no longer exists.

Police Announce Major Action Against IPTV Operation

Law enforcement agencies shared information with the press on Tuesday revealing a “vast operation” against audiovisual piracy in Italy. State Police, on the orders of the Anti-Mafia Directorate at the Public Prosecutor’s Office in Catania, executed nationwide search and seizure actions against members of a “transnational criminal organization.”

Investigations directed by the Prosecutor’s Office in Catania, and initiated by the Catania Cyber ​​Security Operations Center in coordination with the Postal Police of Rome, are said to have confirmed the existence of a criminal organization involved in the illicit supply of premium TV and on-demand video.

By offering illegal access to content owned by Sky, Mediaset, Amazon Prime, and Netflix, Postal Police say the group generated profits (not turnover) of several million euros per month.

The operation revealed yesterday targeted 21 suspected members of the organization active in Catania, Messina, Siracusa, Cosenza, Alessandria, Napoli, Salerno, Reggio Emilia, Pisa, Lucca, and Livorno e Bari. The Prosecutor’s Office accuses these individuals of various offenses, including transnational criminal association, damage/corruption of information (anyone who destroys, deteriorates, erases, alters or suppresses data or computer programs), unauthorized access to an IT system, and computer fraud.

IPTV Piracy Pyramid

Police say the organization was found to be organized in a ‘hierarchical manner’ with members fulfilling “distinct and very precise” roles. Promotors of the service were stationed throughout Italy and abroad.

“In order to evade investigations, the suspects made use of encrypted messaging applications, fictitious identities and false documents; the latter were also used for the registration of telephone accounts, credit cards, television subscriptions and server rental,” an announcement from the Postal Police reads.

“The presence on various social platforms of channels, groups, accounts, forums, blogs and profiles, were found to advertise the sale, on the national territory, of streams, panels and monthly subscriptions for the illegal viewing of audiovisual content which can also be used through numerous illegal ‘live streaming’ sites.”

Broadcasters, Anti-Piracy Groups, Welcome the Action

Broadcaster Sky Italia congratulated Italy’s Postal Police on a “new and important” anti-piracy operation.

“The police have our full support in their law enforcement activity, which over the years has become increasingly valuable to guarantee legality, to protect all those who legitimately use their favorite content,” said CEO Andrea Duilio.

“Countering this criminal phenomenon is a commitment that involves us all and now, thanks to the new anti-piracy law, we can do it even more effectively.”

Federico Bagnoli Rossi, President of anti-piracy group FAPAV, also welcomed a “very important” operation, describing it as a “hard blow towards those criminal mentalities that manage illegal IPTV and illicit live streaming platforms, whose revenues finance criminal acts of various types.”

What Wasn’t Announced

For reasons that aren’t immediately clear, press releases issued by various police forces made no mention of any arrests Tuesday. The only thing reported in respect of the 21 people allegedly targeted is that they’re currently under investigation. For comparison, a Postal Police statement following an unrelated operation clearly reported 28 arrests in that matter.

Among the information that was made available to the public, police noted that the group used false documents to rent servers. Other than that, however, there are no reports of servers or any other devices being seized. While it’s possible that for operational reasons details are being withheld, based on the available information it seems more likely that the 21 ‘under investigation’ are subscription sellers and/or resellers, rather than those actually running a pirate IPTV service.

“Inhibiting the Flow of Illegal Streams”

Claims that the authorities were reportedly able to block or “inhibit the flow” of illegal streams are further detailed in a La Sicilia report. The publication says that officers of the Postal Police were able to “seize 13 control panels” servicing “over 50 thousand users”. This appears to be a reference to reseller panels and would explain how police were able to disconnect subscribers serviced through those interfaces.

Finally, it’s worth highlighting how the group’s earnings are being reported. La Sicilia reports that given the vast audience serviced by the platform, this “guaranteed ‘six-figure’ earnings to the managers of the illegal online piracy network.” In a statement issued by the Postal Police, it’s alleged that the group generated profits (not turnover) of “several million euros per month.”

However, a separate statement published on the website of the State Police (Polizia di Stato) claims an even bigger amount. According to that report, the group generated monthly profits of tens of millions of euros .

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