After years of relative calm, punctuated by intermittent action against larger operations, law enforcement actions against pirate IPTV services in Europe are on the rise.

The UK’s Eastern Region Special Operations Unit (ERSOU), a regional force with responsibility for disrupting organized crime and counter terrorism policing, has revealed details of raids executed on Tuesday targeting a pirate IPTV operation.

Warrants Executed in England and Scotland

ERSOU reports that simultaneous warrants were executed at residential addresses in Harlow and Chigwell in Essex, Waltham Cross in Hertfordshire, and Lanarkshire in Scotland. Two men, aged 33 and 35, were arrested on suspicion of fraud, money laundering, and intellectual property offenses.

The investigation, led by ERSOU but most likely supported by Sky investigators, relates to a channel on Telegram where pirate subscription packages, granting illegal access to Sky TV channels, were sold to the public. Police say the packages were sold to thousands of end users, earning those behind the scheme over £800,000 (US$1.01m).

Police Seize Cash, ‘Custom’ Streaming Devices, Firearms

Police report that specialist financial investigators were able to seize around £17,000 (US$21,800) in cash, unnamed digital devices, and an unspecified number of ‘custom’ streaming devices. Supplied images featuring some of the seized cash, and clear evidence bags containing immediately recognizable orange boxes, suggests modified Amazon Firesticks were probably part of the haul.

ERSOU reports that the men were taken into police custody where they were questioned and subsequently bailed. After two shotguns were seized by police, a man at the address in Harlow was also arrested for firearms license breaches, ERSOU reports.

Large-Scale Criminal Operation

ERSOU Detective Inspector Steve Payne says the arrests were part of an investigation into a “sophisticated large-scale criminal operation” that has generated significant revenue from the sale of illicit IPTV subscription packages. The money generated comes from buyers of the packages, most likely ordinary people looking for a cheaper way to access subscription TV.

DI Payne says that after police obtained subscriber lists, further action shouldn’t be ruled out.

“We have also gained access to the details of those purchasing the streams, and I would remind anyone doing so that they will be breaking the law and could ultimately be subject to criminal proceedings,” DI Payne notes.

The arrests were also welcomed by Matt Hibbert, Sky’s Director of Anti-Piracy.

“We’re grateful to ERSOU and to the forces involved for taking this action, which will have a significant impact on the illicit sale of Sky TV. We’ll continue to support efforts to shut down the organised networks involved in the large-scale theft of our content, and to protect consumers from the risks involved in accessing content in this way,” Hibbert says.

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

With few signs that public appetite for cheap but illegal streaming services will subside anytime soon, law enforcement agencies all over Europe are working to disrupt suppliers wherever they can.

The Directorate for the Prosecution of Electronic Crime in Athens, Greece, is reporting an apparently successful operation against an organization that until recently serviced customers in five regions of the country. A series of raids last Friday are said to have “dismantled” the group, details of which are now emerging.

Nine ‘Key members’ Arrested

The Directorate for the Prosecution of Electronic Crime says a coordinated operation carried out last Friday targeted a “criminal operation” whose members were “systematically active in the illegal retransmission of subscription television services.” In the areas of Attica, Ilia, Thessaloniki, Kozani and Crete, nine alleged key members of the group were arrested, with another three key members reportedly still on file.

Together they face charges relating to the formation, management, and membership of a criminal organization, violations of intellectual property law, offenses relating to subscription services, and weapons offenses after pepper spray and a knife were confiscated by police.

Other items seized during the raids include 52,915 euros in cash, 41 ‘online receivers’ (nature unspecified), 24 mobile phones, 46 bank cards, 22 hard disks, 11 computers, 6 SIM cards, 5 tablet devices, 3 USB flash drives, customer lists, and a wireless router.

The Organization’s Structure

Information provided by the Directorate indicates that two key members of the group were responsible for maintaining the network infrastructure from where illicit TV streams were retransmitted to subscribers of the service.

Other core members of the group acted as resellers to their own sets of customers, who purchased pre-configured set-top boxes using various mechanisms including cash, bank transfers, online money transfers, and cryptocurrency transactions.

Police say the resellers were able to check the status of each customer to determine if they had “fulfilled their financial obligations, if their subscription period had expired, as well as activate or deactivate the connection of each user.”

Known in IPTV circles as a ‘reseller panel’ this a type of software that allows resellers to manage their own customers via an online interface. In return for effectively becoming an IPTV provider’s sales and customer support agent, the business is structured so that resellers are able to make a profit on each ‘credit’ (usually a month’s subscription) bought and sold. In this case, police say the resellers received a 40% cut.

How Much Was Made?

When the authorities announce seizures of drugs or counterfeit goods, early value estimates are often calculated using methods more likely to have a bigger impact in the media.

Drug hauls, for example, aren’t valued using the ‘wholesale’ price available for 100kgs, but at the rate they would’ve been sold at for the smallest possible quantity at ‘retail’, commonly known as street value. Counterfeit watches purchased for a few dollars each at ‘retail’ and worth much less in bulk, are reported at the price a jeweler charges for an original timepiece.

With the above in mind, trying to decipher figures provided by the authorities following IPTV busts is rarely straightforward. In this case, however, Greek police take a different approach.

Financial Benefit to Subscribers

By taking the estimated number of subscribers to the service (2,000 minimum) and calculating the ‘financial benefit’ they obtained (presumably by buying a pirate subscription over an official package), the police arrive at a financial benefit for subscribers valued at 420,000 euros.

This suggests that each customer avoided paying/financially benefited to the tune of 210 euros each. The loss to the subscription TV companies, meanwhile, is measured at 2,240,000 euros, over five times the amount saved by the subscribers and equivalent to 1,120 euros in losses for every single one.

Taking that at face value, the difference is significant and may be important for more than 40 people reported by the police for watching illegal streams.

“The case file also includes 43 customers of the organization, for illegal viewing of subscription services,” police report.

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

Over the past few years, increased enforcement by players in both the private and public sectors has made Denmark one of the riskiest places in Europe for pirate site operators and prolific file-sharers.

Relentless pushback from local anti-piracy group Rights Alliance and its partnership with Denmark’s Special Crime Unit (National enhed for Særlig Kriminalitet (NSK)) has led to many site closures, arrests, and subsequent prosecutions.

The most recent reported conviction saw a 37-year-old man receive a 60-day suspended prison sentence in September for pirating more than a thousand works through local BitTorrent trackers.

In connection with this and other successes over the past few years, last month Rights Alliance revealed that Thomas Heldrup, the anti-piracy group’s Head of Content Protection & Enforcement, had been running an undercover operation in piracy circles since 2016.

Fears of Infiltration

Concerns that a site might have a spy on board certainly aren’t unusual; for many site operators, however, it’s the kind of thing that only ever happens to someone else , usually those perceived to be less careful than them. In some cases that might be true but
Denmark’s distinguishing features as a country may introduce complications.

A relatively small population and a language rarely spoken outside Denmark’s borders, presents an increased chance of local piracy communities overlapping. Combine that with a shared reliance on locally attractive content and one site’s security issues risk becoming a much broader problem, as the last couple of years appear to show.

Until recently, however, there were few signs to suggest those at the top of the so-called ‘ Piracy Pyramid ‘ may also have become targets in Denmark. Nevertheless, some of those with connections to Scene entities are starting to ask questions.

47-Year-Old Arrested in Denmark

In a statement last week, Denmark’s National Unit for Special Crime (NSK) announced that as part of a long-running investigation, a man was arrested on November 22 and then charged with copyright infringement offenses.

NSK said its officers searched the home of a 47-year-old man in South Zealand (Sydsjælland) and seized IT equipment in connection with illegal file-sharing and “copyright infringement of a particularly serious nature.”

“The case is about an organized network that has illegally shared extremely large quantities of films and TV series via file sharing services,” said NSK Police Commissioner Anders-Emil Nøhr Kelbæk.

While noting that NSK had no further information to offer at this time, Kelbæk said he was pleased that NSK had arrested another suspect believed to have played a ‘significant role’ in the unnamed network.

At Least Five Arrests Thus Far

Last week’s arrest was only the latest in a series of arrests carried out as part of the same long-running NSK investigation into the illegal distribution of movies and TV shows.

In late August, NSK arrested four people on suspicion of sharing “extremely large quantities” of movies and TV shows. NSK raided addresses in South-West Jutland, North Zealand and Bornholmand. A 43-year old was arrested at the last location, but it’s claimed he lives elsewhere. In common with last week’s arrest, all were charged on suspicion of “particularly serious” copyright infringement offenses.

In an almost identical statement to that issued last week, Commissioner Anders-Emil Nøhr Kelbæk said the case was about “an organized network that shares extremely large amounts of data, presumably in the form of films and series.”

Does Available Information Really Indicate a ‘Scene’ Bust?

TorrentFreak sources report concerns that last week’s arrest may be linked to Scene groups. Terminology used by NSK doesn’t instantly rule that out and does seem to suggest something potentially more significant than other arrests over the past few years.

According to NSK, the August arrests took place on August 28, 2023. Using information in Scene release databases we looked for Danish Scene groups and/or groups that were releasing Denmark-focused content before that date but then made no releases afterward; while that wouldn’t provide conclusive proof that a group had been targeted, the method has proven useful in the past. Findings as follows:

⦿ Nordic blu-ray release group (including Danish) paused Aug 13, restarted Oct 16. Nothing since
⦿ TV show release group paused Aug 28 to Sep 1 but continued as normal
⦿ At least one TV show group made dozens of releases on Aug 28 suggesting little ‘panic’ on that date

While activity late August suggests nothing especially out of the ordinary, activity since the arrest last week stands in contrast.

Notable Danish content release group inactivity since November 22 arrest as follows:

⦿ ‘HYGGE’ | TV shows | 550+ releases since March 23 | Last release Nov 23, 2023 07:43:39
⦿ ‘HiVE’ | TV shows | 650+ releases since March 23 | Last release Nov 23, 2023 05:03:52
⦿ ‘DKiDS’ | TV shows | 3000+ release since March 23 | Last release Nov 21, 2023 10:34:50
⦿ ‘DANES’ | TV shows | 640+ releases since May 23 | Last release Nov 22, 2023 08:13:21
⦿ ‘JYSK’ | TV shows | 520+ releases since March 23 | Last release Nov 23, 2023 08:20:39

TF is informed that some groups may have gone dark simply out of an abundance of caution. That may or may not include all or none of the above. It’s also possible that the groups have nothing to release. Furthermore, there are many other global groups with no obvious links to Danish content or Denmark that also stopped releasing on November 21. The reasons for this are unknown but holidays in the United States may play a role.

In an information vacuum, rumors are extremely common but if the authorities and/or Rights Alliance used intelligence obtained in other operations to infiltrate Scene groups or their affiliates, it wouldn’t be a surprise. It wouldn’t be surprise to hear that any group downtime was directly linked to turkey and/or alcohol consumption either but in any event, the next couple of weeks should prove informative.

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

According to data published by the UK’s Office for National Statistics, UK residents made 15.6 million visits to Spain in 2022, with holidays the most popular reason.

Whether Brits are on a two-week vacation or embedded within the ex-pat community, there’s a tendency to appreciate things less available at home, sunshine in particular.

For many, however, a longing for British things has created opportunities for those prepared to meet the demand. By offering BBC and ITV channels, for example, pirate IPTV services have become very popular indeed but since the packages offer much more, they’re almost a must for bars and restaurants in tourist areas.

Social Media Sales Attract Attention

According to information released by Spain’s National Police on Monday, a broadcaster’s representative filed a complaint after spotting a profile on social media platforms offering pirate IPTV subscriptions. Those packages granted access to sporting events to which the broadcaster holds the rights.

Officers assigned to the Technological Crimes Group of the Provincial Judicial Police Brigade of Alicante launched an investigation to identify the person behind those accounts.

Investigation: Key Findings

Benidorm is a seaside resort on Spain’s east coast. It’s a popular destination for tourists from the UK, including those who enjoy watching live football at local bars, often courtesy of IPTV packages.

Police investigators say they located several ads offering the subscriptions for sale. In one of the ads it was claimed that the person offering them had been “supplying IPTV to bars and restaurants in Benidorm for ten years, with support 24 hours a day, seven days a week.”

Police say the subscriptions were on sale for as little as £7 up to a maximum of £50, presumably based on subscription length and the content on offer. At least one package provided access to 594 channels, including those belonging to the broadcaster behind the original complaint.

Other findings led investigators to conclude that the person offering the subscriptions was from the UK and his target audience likely consisted of English speakers in Spain.

“During the investigation, police officers verified that the payments made were destined for a bank account in the United Kingdom and, in addition to sporting events, offered access to English, Scottish and Irish channels. For this reason, the audience to which the television offer was directed was of British or English-speaking origin,” police reveal.

“After various police efforts, the agents verified that the person who seemed to be behind the scheme was a British citizen who was linked to various bank accounts and who had his own Internet server to offer the services. The man had a home address in Benidorm and made continuous trips from the United Kingdom to the Alicante town.”

Policía Nacional Arrest Brit in Benidorm

After obtaining permission from a local court, police raided the man’s home in Benidorm. During the search, officers found two IPTV devices, a mobile phone, and a laptop. It’s alleged that an application open on the laptop allowed the man to control the IPTV services he offered on social media and at the time of the police intervention, he was offering several dozen, including some in Spain.

An inspection of the suspect’s mobile phone revealed various apps for accessing “banking entities” in the UK. Officers were only able to access one of those apps but found that the suspect had made transactions worth over £9,500. Many additional transactions were found by other means.

“[A]fter the officers of the Technological Crimes Group analyzed a payment platform through which the detainee charged for subscriptions, they verified that the person involved had allegedly received nearly 5,500 payments for the subscriptions, the majority in pounds sterling and about 200 payments in euros. The amount exceeded 185,000 pounds sterling and about 6,500 euros,” police note.

“Market and Consumer” Offenses

Police say a 62-year-old British man stands accused of intellectual property offenses, specifically those related to the market and consumers. That terminology suggests an eye on events back in 2019 that didn’t go exactly to plan.

Following complaints by top-tier football league, LaLiga, more than 50 people in the Alicante area appeared in court for showing LaLiga matches in bars and restaurants either via illegal IPTV packages, or official subscriptions designed for residential use.

After some of those individuals were found guilty, a criminal court in Alicante found that showing the matches in public wasn’t an intellectual property crime. That led to acquittals and the reversal of earlier guilty verdicts on the basis that “football does not have the character of a literary, scientific or artistic work” so copyright did not apply.

Cases against several bars in Valencia also failed to convince the court of intellectual property crimes. Instead, the court found that a minor crime related to the market and consumers had been committed.

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

This week marks the one-year anniversary of the United States government’s crackdown on Z-Library , one of the world’s largest shadow libraries.

With legal proceedings underway in the United States, authorities have not given up trying to take Z-Library down. One of the site’s primary login domains, singlelogin.me, was seized alongside other domains early May this year.

Users were encouraged to switch to singlelogin.re, which remains operational today. The domain is supported by a laundry list of additional domains, subdomains, nameservers, and a maze of physical and virtual network infrastructure designed to keep the site alive in the event of new seizures.

It’s possible those new systems are being put to the test at this very moment.

New Domain Seizures With Overseas Assistance

In a move that coincides with the one-year anniversary of 2022’s tumultuous events, a few hours ago nameservers controlled by the US Department of Justice began handling queries for two new domains. According to the seizure notice, Singlelogin.click and IPFS.cat were both connected to Z-Library.

The image below shows how the domains transitioned from nameservers determined by their owners, to nameservers run by law enforcement authorities in the United States.

Visitors to those domains today are greeted by the FBI seizure banner in the image below. The white graphic to the right reveals the involvement of the Bundeskriminalamt , Austria’s Criminal Intelligence Service, which serves as a national and international contact point for police cooperation in criminal matters.

The blue and red logo to the left is a reference to C4, Austria’s Cybercrime Competence Center in Vienna.

It Started With Two Domain Seizures, Dozens More On the Way

To our knowledge, the first domain – Singlelogin.click – hadn’t been widely or obviously publicized. However, with similar structure, functionality and an almost identical technical profile to other singlelogin.* variants, including those still in operation, the FBI appears to have had no problems scooping it up.

At this point we originally intended to offer some detail on the IPFS.cat domain, but bigger news is literally breaking right now.

We’re supplying the following list of domains on the basis we believe they have already been seized or are about to be seized. Normally we would check each one to be absolutely sure, but the list is growing by the minute and we have no immediate prospect of keeping up.

The most significant seizure thus far is another singlelogin variant, singlelogin.site. Z-Library’s main domain, singlelogin.re, is currently intact but that could change at any moment.

Update: Another of Z-Library’s main domains, singlelogin.asia, has also been seized.

List of likely Z-Library linked domain seizures (TBC)

singlelogin.asia
singlelogin.click
singlelogin.site
ipfs.cat
resist.tel
vietnamese-books.org
uzbek-books.org
urdu-books.org
ukrainian-books.org
turkish-books.org
thai-books.org
tamil-books.org
swedish-books.org
spanish-books.org
slovenian-books.org
slovak-books.org
serbian-books.org
russian-books.org
portuguese-books.org
polish-books.org
persian-books.org
pashto-books.org
norwegian-books.org
mongolian-books.org
marathi-books.org
malayalam-books.org
lithuanian-books.org
latvian-books.org
latin-books.org
kyrgyz-books.org
korean-books.org
kazakh-books.org
japanese-books.org
italian-books.org
indonesian-books.org
hungarian-books.org
hindi-books.org
hebrew-books.org
greek-books.org
german-books.org
georgian-books.org
fr-books.org
finnish-books.org
dutchbooks.org
danish-books.org
czechbooks.org
croatian-books.org
chamorro-books.org
catalan-books.org
bulgarian-books.org
bengali-books.org
belarusian-books.org
azerbaijani-books.org
arabic-books.org
afrikaans-books.org

Early November 2022, at first dozens then eventually hundreds of Z-Library domains were seized by the Department of Justice. With two alleged Z-Library operators already detained in Argentina, rendering Z-Library inoperable was a primary goal. The question now is whether the United States government has returned to finish the job.

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

A study published in September by the European Union Intellectual Property Office found that by late 2022, each internet user in the EU accessed websites offering pirated content at a rate of around 10 times per month .

Estonia and Latvia were called out as Europe’s most prolific infringers with around 25 accesses per user per month. German citizens and their Italian counterparts were highlighted as among the best behaved; 7.5 accesses per user per month, or roughly one pirate site visit every four days.

Yet when it comes to overall piracy rates and movie piracy in particular, no country in Europe can match the level of restraint shown in Poland. Not only do the Poles pirate less overall than any other country in the bloc, its citizens lead Europe on exposure to legal services.

The European average for buying from the internet or a pay TV platform in 2022 was just over four people in every ten ( pdf ) . Poland managed almost six in ten (59%), the best in Europe. All France had to show after 15 of years of monitoring, fining, and trying to reeducate pirates, was just three out of ten, the worst rate in Europe.

Poland Steps Up Piracy Crackdown

Last November, officers from Poland’s Central Bureau for Combatting Cybercrime (CBZC) arrested a then-28-year-old man on suspicion of connections to local platform, Zaukaj.vip. In January 2023, a 33-year-old believed to be the site’s founder was arrested and charged with fraud offenses dating back to February 2020.

A separate investigation began in May 2020 and ran until June 2023. The Department for Combating Economic Crime in Kraków, under the supervision of the District Prosecutor’s Office in Lublin, targeted the operators of Ogladaj.to (Watch.to) for illegally distributing movies and TV shows online.

According to information provided by police this week, the service was well organized and utilized content obtained from suppliers in Russia and Ukraine. Ogladaj’s outward appearance was somewhat typical of a web-based streaming service and the content itself appears to have been embedded in a YouTube-style player.

With just 25,000 visits per month, on face value Ogladaj’s traffic levels seem a little low to warrant three years’ worth of investigation resources, at least when compared to other locally-significant platforms.

For perspective, Poland-focused streaming site CDA-HD.cc receives around 1.7 million visits per month while Filman.cc, a site that claims to be registered as a legal business in Poland ( 1 ) , receives over 10 million.

Huge Losses to Rights Holders

Despite what appears to be a somewhat limited audience, police claim that Ogladaj caused losses to rightsholders in the region of PLN 15 million ($3,615,777).

Customers reportedly paid for subscriptions by redeeming vouchers bought online, although just days after police wrapped up their investigation (and seemingly before any arrests were made) customer complaints about an inaccessible service had already begun to appear online .

Interestingly, the streaming service also accepted cryptocurrency payments. Police say these were processed through a crypto exchange office allegedly operated by one of the suspects.

In October police arrested a 36-year-old man, described as the founder of Ogladaj, at an apartment in Gdynia, northern Poland. On the same day, a 38-year-old IT specialist was detained in Lower Silesia. Both men were subsequently charged with crimes in connection with the unlawful distribution of copyrighted content.

There was some other stuff too.

“Internet portal with erotic advertising”

The report released by Małopolska police says that officers became aware that the alleged founder of Ogladaj was also responsible for creating an “internet portal with erotic advertising.” The arrested 38-year-old provided technical support for both websites, police say.

“During a search of the suspects’ places of residence, the electronic equipment they used was seized. In addition, money in various currencies, funds in accounts, luxury cars, as well as high-quality sports equipment, silver bars and gold collector coins were seized from the suspects for future fines,” the report reads.

The total value of the seized property is estimated at PLN 1,000,000, around $240,700, but whether all of that is attributable to the piracy operation becomes unclear when other potential crimes enter the equation.

“[The suspects] will also be held responsible for deriving financial benefits from prostitution,” police add, with no further detail.

Suspects Must Not Flee

A third suspect in the case is described as a 30-year-old man who sold Ogladaj vouchers on his own website. If found guilty, police says the suspects face up to five years in prison.

The men were released and placed under police supervision, which includes a ban on them leaving the country. Given the rather unusual events of 2020, which saw one of the world’s most wanted pirates suddenly vanish into thin air , that doesn’t come as a surprise.

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

DMCA subpoena applications filed at courts in the United States provide a relatively inexpensive mechanism for compelling intermediaries to hand over the personal details of allegedly-infringing users.

Since Cloudflare offers reverse proxy services to websites as part of its free tier, most subpoena applications filed in the United States target the company. They typically seek disclosure of pirate site operators’ personal details, and it’s not uncommon to see a dozen domains feature in one application or more in a bundle filed at the same time.

As revealed in our report last month , South Korea’s Naver Webtoon filed a single application containing over 350 ‘pirate’ domains, easily the highest number we’ve seen in recent years, possibly the most ever.

After remaining silent for several months, late last week Naver Webtoon issued a press release. It claimed that after obtaining the subpoena and taking unspecified action, the company “halted the activities of 150 overseas illegal sites.”

That’s an eye-catching figure because in many cases Cloudflare has little useful information to pass on. It also represents a level of success currently enjoyed by no other rightsholders using the same process, which is highly unusual. That alone warrants a closer look but first, a brief summary of key statements in the release.

Naver Webtoon’s Key Statements

– After three months of hard work by Naver Webtoon, about 150 overseas illegal sites stopped operating. This is the result of Naver Webtoon’s action to issue a ‘Subpoena’ through a U.S. court, the first in the webtoon industry.

– Illegal site operator information, such as address, email, and payment details, is essential information for tracking and arrest. Subpoenas also have the effect of discouraging the activities of illegal site operators.

– According to the traffic statistics site ‘Similar Web’, the annual user traffic to about 150 illegal sites affected by Naver Webtoon’s action is approximately 2.5 billion.

– Naver Webtoon plans to share the information on illegal site operators obtained this time with investigative agencies and respond strictly with a zero-tolerance policy.

Right off the bat it’s worth highlighting that the subpoena listed 360 domain names, not 360 sites. To illustrate why that’s so important, one of the sites targeted appears to have begun life as ‘Newtoki’ but then registered subsequent domains that also include a number; newtoki1, newtoki2, newtoki3, etc.

A total of 19 of these variants appeared in the subpoena, as low as newtoki17.org and as high as newtoki310.com. There appears to be at least another 100 domains in a similar format, hundreds in total (some apparently owned by an anti-piracy company), but none functioning as a pirate site. Persistence may have paid off here, but there are nearly always more domains than sites and that can significantly distort perceived outcomes.

That being said, a bigger and perhaps more straightforward win may justify the campaign in its own right.

Closure of Just One Site Suggests Campaign Paid Off

Aquamanga.com was one of two sites mentioned specifically by Naver Webtoon following its press release last week.

Traffic to Aquamanga was significant to say the least. SimilarWeb data reveals a site receiving considerable traffic on an upwards trajectory; 61 million visits in September, up from 52.6m in July.

We’ve seen no evidence to show the site has reappeared under a different domain, and information suggests that the deterrent effect mentioned by Naver Webtoon may have done its job in this case. Overall, the closure of Aquamanga seems to be the highlight of the campaign and since it accounts for three quarters of a billion visits, understandably so.

Another Big Closure But Less Satisfactory Outcome

Another site that received a direct mention from Naver was Flamescans.org. The popular scanlation site was also doing well; SimilarWeb data for August and September shows between 18.1m and 18.7m visits per month, progress that was halted when the site suddenly went offline.

“Thank you to all of our community members for their continued support. Unfortunately, this site has discontinued all services related to the function and content hosted as of October 19, 2023. We appreciate your steadfast engagement and commitment to us through the years,” a notice on the homepage reads.

While the quality of the ‘artwork’ accompanying the goodbye message won’t keep Webtoon’s artists up at night, it strongly implies that things might not be over just yet.

The image above shows Flamescans to the left of the goodbye message and Flame-Comics to the right. They appear identical and show that while domains are important, they’re not as important as sites.

Interestingly, a bitcoin address on the Flamescans.org domain marked “Anonymous Donations” has received a total of 0.00000000 BTC ($0.00) thus far. It’s possible that pirate frugality and relatively complicated crypto transactions aren’t the best mix.

Also listed in the subpoena but still online are five ‘Agitoon’ .xyz domains beginning agit571 and ending agit577.xyz. They carry the same epilepsy-inducing gambling advertising previously seen on the now-shuttered Noonoo TV .

Naver Webtoon says that in addition to sending direct warnings to “selected” illegal sites, it also works to undermine their ability to do business. Domain registrars, hosting companies, ISPs, social media platforms and payment services are among the potential targets.

Due to these efforts, 23 unnamed sites witnessed a 30% fall in traffic in October when compared to July, the company reports.

‘Good News’ For the Entire Webtoon Industry

Summing up, Naver Webtoon says that its anti-piracy work isn’t just good for the company, it’s good for everyone involved in webtoons.

“This achievement is helpful not only to Naver Webtoon but also to the entire webtoon industry, which is suffering damage from illegal webtoon sites,” says Kim Gyu-nam, Naver Webtoon’s legal affairs chief and anti-piracy task force leader.

“The platform will do its best to eradicate illegal webtoons. We will continue to actively take all possible measures.”

Given the constantly shifting nature of many pirate sites, especially those that operate multiple domains and/or move to new ones hoping to evade various measures, it’s difficult to determine whether Naver Webtoon really did shut down 150 sites. In its press release it actually notes that “about 150 sites were completely deleted or temporarily suspended operations ” which does change things somewhat.

Still, if putting domains out of action was part of the mission, that seems to have been quite effective. The image below shows a screenshot/preview image of every domain in the subpoena. In the majority of cases, those with no image are out of action.

Whether any have moved to new domains is another question, but none will have welcomed the disruption and won’t welcome the future disruption Naver Webtoon is already promising.

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

An announcement by Spain’s National Police (Policía Nacional) this morning was in many respects nothing out of the ordinary.

In common with almost every country with a movie and TV show market to protect, Spain regularly conducts operations to shut down or disrupt local pirate IPTV services. The operation detailed in a press release this morning, distributed via official police website Policia.es and the Ministry of the Interior’s website at Interior.gob.es, seems significant.

Investigation Began Last Year

The authorities say they began investigating the “criminal organization” in February 2022. From operations centers in Alicante and Seville, the suspects allegedly provided “fraudulent multimedia content” via IPTV by installing “fraudulent applications” on customers’ devices, including set-top boxes, smart TVs, and mobile phones. As a result, movies, TV shows, and live sporting events, were available at a rate much lower than the legitimate market price.

“The organization offered illegal services through a telecommunications consulting company that had a solid marketing structure at its service,” police explained.

“The members of the criminal network were in the provinces of Alicante, Malaga, and Valladolid, and their function was to market fraudulent services, maximizing the number of potential clients to be obtained while causing serious economic damage to the main victims of this type of illegal activity.”

Police carried out raids on four locations in Spain and a total of eight people were arrested; Valladolid (3), Alicante (3), Málaga (1) and Seville (1). All stand accused of serious crimes including membership of a criminal organization and intellectual property offenses.

Police say the suspects had a “high degree of technological specialization” which allowed them to remotely manage clients who subscribed to sports audiovisual content. The suspects’ “entire IT infrastructure” was dismantled, police report.

Massive Damage to Rightsholders

Before revealing the financial losses suffered by legitimate rightsholders, the police statement notes that while the criminal organization has been dismantled, those who subscribe to pirate services “are an active party in causing damage to the main victims of these activities through well-known loss of profits.”

In other words, members of the public who subscribed are partly responsible for the losses incurred by rightsholders. By any standard, the scale of the losses reported by police this morning are considerable.

“[W]ell-known loss of profits…refers to the profits that the injured parties no longer receive as a consequence of the criminal activities investigated, which can be estimated at 366,250,000 euros.”

Anyone familiar with copyright-related losses will be aware that major rightsholders always go big on potential losses. They certainly look good in headlines like this one.

Any figure can be justified with the right approach and since the numbers are hypothetical, the best a sensible argument to the contrary will ever achieve is the production of a smaller, more boring number.

Calming Calculations

Whether €366m in losses sounded reasonable or simply got everyone very, very excited this morning is unclear. According to dozens of local media outlets and increasingly those further afield, that number was reported by police and the government so needs no further scrutiny.

According to police the-now dismantled service had 18,300 subscribers. So, if the total losses are €366 million, each individual subscriber to the service caused losses to rightsholders of €20,000. Inflation strikes again?

On Second Thoughts….

Visitors to the press release made available on Policia.es this morning saw the text as it appears in the image below. Those who visit the site right now will notice that small but pretty important edits have taken place, as confirmed by the current text at this URL vs the copy from this morning as it appears in Google’s cache .

If this was a sudden recalculation at the last minute, that raises the question of why the new figure is actually unreasonably low . If it was a plain error, that’s a human trait that none of us can avoid; what we can do is take it on the chin and publish a transparent correction.

That doesn’t appear to have happened here and that is already causing significant problems. As things standard, the truth can only be found buried away in an invisible edit. The media, on the other hand, simply printed what they were given, presumably based at least partly on trust ( 1 , 2 ,3)

If the big loss claim isn’t a fact on Wikipedia already, it will be soon. From there, anything can happen, and probably will. The Ministry of the Interior, meanwhile, is yet to change its mind .

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

For Georgia’s 3.7 million citizens, the European mainland lies just over the Black Sea. For the determined, EU membership is also visible on the western horizon; those who look to the north see little except Russia.

The European Union’s preparations to welcome Georgia into the bloc are both meticulous and extraordinarily complicated. Several dedicated websites detail various aspects of vision and planning , yet barely manage to scratch the surface of the challenges ahead.

These include the monumental task of managing the withdrawal symptoms of a nation almost totally reliant on pirated media for their daily entertainment fix.

Pressure From Both the United States and EU

Among hundreds of other conditions and caveats spanning almost every aspect of life in Georgia, EU membership and a headline piracy rate of 90%+ complement each other like oil and water. Something will have to give and for the United States, that day can’t arrive soon enough.

In a 2019 letter sent from the other side of the Atlantic, the Motion Picture Association politely suggested that Georgia needed to take piracy a little more seriously. Two of the country’s largest pirate sites, Adjaranet.com and iMovies.cc, were called out by name as particularly problematic.

It would take another three years but in August 2022, seemingly out of nowhere, local media began reporting the sudden demise of both sites. With Adjaranet and iMovies simultaneously offline “due to maintenance” the finger of blame quickly pointed towards the European Union.

On August 24, 2022, Georgia’s Communications Commission (ComCom) suggested that warnings from the United States were the driving force behind recent events.

“The Motion Picture Association of America, whose members include Disney, Warner Brothers, Universal Pictures, Sony, Paramount Pictures and Netflix, expressed concerns about Georgian sites hosting pirated movies and warned that failure to eliminate the problem could lead to sanctions against the country, which would include delays or complete cancellation of world premieres of movies and TV shows in Georgia,” ComCom announced.

“The American film studios expressed their hope that the Communications Commission would soon help clear the Georgian online space from pirated movies and TV shows,” the Commission added.

Two Years of Negotiations With Pirates

Whether Hollywood envisioned Georgia’s somewhat unorthodox response to its warnings is unclear. In its August 2022 announcement, ComCom revealed that for more than two years, in the wake of the MPA’s letter, it had been “intensively communicating” with websites offering pirated audiovisual content.

The owners of those sites were given precisely two years to bring content displayed on their platforms “in line with legislation” and when some failed to respond, ComCom says it reminded their hosting providers of their obligations.

After blame fell on the EU and then Hollywood following ComCom’s announcement, another potential culprit entered the frame, one much closer to home. Just a week before the shutdowns, local cinema chain Cavea launched Cavea Plus , Georgia’s first and only legal streaming service. Its initially limited catalog reportedly included content supplied by Warner and HBO.

Streaming Pioneer, Hollywood Partner

The pioneering launch of Cavea Plus was an incredibly brave move in a piracy-saturated market, something acknowledged by Cavea Plus manager Salome Kuprashvili in the weeks leading up to the launch. The “harsh reality” in Georgia, Kuprashvili said, is that piracy accounts for “100% of the market.” With the benefit of hindsight, her follow-on comment takes on new light.

“We cannot solve this problem with our own resources, but we are in active cooperation with international as well as local governmental and non-governmental organizations,” Kuprashvili added.

Three months after the launch of Cavea Plus, the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment welcomed its latest member, the 42nd to date.

“Cavea Plus shares ACE’s deep understanding that piracy poses a direct threat to the media and entertainment industry, and we are pleased to welcome them to our global network,” said Charles Rivkin, Chairman and CEO of the MPA and chairman of ACE.

The announcement also revealed that ACE and Cavea had a “long history” of working together to fight piracy in Georgia. Adjaranet.com and iMovies.cc weren’t mentioned by name but ACE did refer to one in the past tense; “The biggest piracy site drew about 11 million monthly visits,” ACE noted.

Adjaranet.com and iMovies.cc Get Officially Shut Down

In an announcement Wednesday, ACE said that after working closely with Georgia’s Ministry of Finance, the two largest illegal streaming sites in the country have now been shut down.

“Over the past two years, adjaranet.com has amassed 140 million visits. During the same period, imovies.cc has attracted nearly 64 million visits,” ACE revealed.

Jan van Voorn, head of ACE and the MPA’s Global Content Protection Chief, thanked Georgian authorities and acknowledged the assistance of one of its own members.

“ACE appreciates the hard work of the Georgian Ministry of Finance and the Anti-Piracy Center of Georgia in the successful closure of these two criminal operations that undermine jobs and growth throughout the Georgian creative sector. Our partnership with Cavea Plus, a key member of ACE in the Caucasus region, has helped ensure a coordinated approach to protecting copyright.”

More Work Needed to Beat Georgia’s Pirates

Within two days of Adjaranet.com’s claimed shutdown in 2022, a similar site with similar domain had already appeared to take up the slack, at least until Adjaranet.com apparently came back from the dead.

With around 6.7 million visits per month, Adjaranet.to does a fairly convincing impression of Adjaranet.com, as it appeared in the weeks before its initial disappearance last year. Others, including Adjaranet.bet, and several iMovies.cc clones receive less traffic, but even 180k visits per month is significant in a country of less than four million.

The “harsh reality” mentioned by Cavea Plus manager Salome Kuprashvili may have been eased by the double shutdowns of Adjaranet and iMovies but in more general terms, the overall picture in Georgia can only be truly appreciated after viewing the list of most-visited entertainment websites.

Such a list is available from Semrush and it reveals a market almost completely dominated by pirate sites, with only a few notable legal outliers.

That’s not only terrible for development of a domestic market crying out for local movies and TV shows, but also a potentially significant roadblock to EU membership.

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