Joint UK-French investigation alleges group advertised small-boat crossings of Channel on social media

Four Vietnamese nationals have been arrested in London after an investigation into alleged people smugglers advertising small-boat crossings of the Channel on Facebook.

The joint UK-French investigation alleges the group shared posts aimed at the Vietnamese community and charged migrants thousands of pounds to make the crossing.

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Each year the Office of the United States Trade Representative ( USTR ) publishes a new update of its Special 301 Report, highlighting countries that fail to live up to U.S copyright protection standards.

The annual overview is meant to urge foreign governments to improve policy and legislation in favor of U.S. copyright holders.

The process has shown itself to be an effective diplomatic tool and has helped to kick-start copyright reforms around the globe. Not all governments are equally susceptible to critique and Canada once described the process as flawed . Still, no country wants to be included in the list.

2024 Special 301 Report

USTR’s latest Special 301 Report , published yesterday, features considerable overlap with previous editions. The ‘Priority Watch List’ countries remain unchanged; they are Argentina, Chile, China, India, Indonesia, Russia, and Venezuela.

The reported issues range from high levels of online piracy to problems with trademark protection. Inadequate legal protections, enforcement shortcomings, and other trade barriers are frequently mentioned too.

These priority threats are followed by regular Watch List countries, twenty in total. They include United States’ neighbors, Canada and Mexico, as well as Brazil, Bulgaria, Egypt, and Vietnam.

The inclusion of Vietnam doesn’t come as a surprise since it’s been on the Watch List for a few years now . According to reports from rightsholders, the piracy problem has only worsened since then.

‘Online Piracy Haven’

The USTR’s report is partly based on these rightsholder complaints. They include a detailed submission from IIPA earlier this year , which characterized the Asian country as the leading global exporter of piracy services.

“Vietnam has become a leading global exporter of piracy services and Vietnamese operators have been associated with some of the world’s most pervasive piracy websites, causing significant damage to both the local and international marketplaces,” IIPA wrote.

The country is considered ‘home’ to problematic sites and services such as Fmovies, AniWave, 123movies, 2embed, BestBuyIPTV, and Y2mate, which have many millions of monthly users globally. Rightsholders repeatedly report these problems to local authorities but apparently with little effect.

Earlier this week there appeared to be somewhat of a breakthrough when the operator of “BestBuyIPTV” received a suspended prison sentence from a local court. However, the popular IPTV service remains online and despite rightsholder celebrations, it’s uncertain whether the relatively mild sentence will have any deterrent effect.

‘Leading Source of Online Piracy’

What’s clear, however, is that Vietnam is a high-priority country for anti-piracy efforts. While that didn’t translate into a “Priority Watch List” label, USTR’s Special 301 listing for Vietnam is becoming more concrete.

The Trade Representative starts by acknowledging that Vietnam has taken steps to improve its copyright law. Other positive signs include an increase in raids and seizures of counterfeit goods and increased enforcement. However, piracy remains a problem.

“Vietnam has increasingly become a leading source of online piracy, including through online piracy services that capitalize on the widespread use of illicit streaming devices and applications,” USTR writes.

“Vietnam currently hosts some of the most popular piracy sites and services in the world that target a global audience,” the Special 301 Report adds.

The language in USTR’s report is more robust than last year when there was no mention of Vietnam’s leading role in online piracy. And that’s not the only change either; complaints about the lack of enforcement are sharpened too.

Vietnam’s Failure to Deter Online Piracy

In recent years the major Hollywood studios have made a series of criminal referrals backed up by their own investigations, but responses from the authorities leave a lot to be desired.

“Despite having criminal laws imposing substantial fines and years of incarceration for copyright and trademark infringement, Vietnam has almost no criminal investigations or prosecutions,” USTR writes.

“Stakeholders note there has yet to be a single criminal conviction for a copyright offense in Vietnam, as a criminal investigation against the operators of Phimmoi.net has stalled and Vietnamese authorities have not addressed other criminal complaints submitted by stakeholders.”

USTR’s enforcement comments are somewhat dated as they were written before the recent conviction of a ‘BestBuyIPTV’ operator. That said, one suspended prison sentence after a four-year legal process seems unlikely to change much.

Vietnam mostly relies on administrative enforcement actions, but they have failed to stop the large pirate sites and services from operating. The MPA and ACE had limited success by privately taking action against 2Embed and Zoro.to, but ‘ successors ‘ of both platforms remain active today.

According to the USTR, these private actions are no substitute for full-fledged criminal prosecutions.

“[A] few successful efforts by stakeholders to negotiate directly with operators of piracy sites to shut down the sites are no substitute for enforcement actions and criminal prosecutions by government authorities,” USTR writes.

Reading between the lines, it’s clear that the U.S. would like Vietnam to step up its anti-piracy efforts significantly. While things have been slowly moving in that direction recently, the critique will likely remain, at least until some big fish are caught.

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A copy of the USTR’s full 2024 Special 301 Report is available here (pdf)

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

Speaking to experts and people on the ground in Pas de Calais reveals a different narrative to that told by Rishi Sunak

The people from Vietnam trying to get to England on small boats across the Channel stand out from the rest of those drawn to the Pas de Calais coastline.

They are notably young, many just teenagers. They tend to stick together and eschew the attention of the aid workers offering food and water down at the beach or in the forests where they sleep at night.

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The joint press release issued Monday by the Premier League and Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) was unusual right from the start.

Published early on Monday, even the timing was a break from the norm, but the content was even more surprising. Following criminal referrals by the Premier League and ACE, an operator of BestBuyIPTV – a platform that has appeared on the USTR’s Notorious Markets report for the past five years – had been convicted at the People’s Court of Hanoi.

For a country where criminal referrals have traditionally disappeared into the ether, that could be a very big deal.

Sentencing Details Are Somewhat Puzzling

The press release clearly identifies Le Hai Nam as “the operator” of BestBuyIPTV. He entered a guilty plea and was sentenced to 30 months in prison and ordered to pay the equivalent of $4,000. Whether that was a straightforward fine or something else isn’t clear, but more than $24,000 in illegal profits were identified, confiscated, and then seized by the state, while $12,000 in restitution was paid according to the indictment.

Having learned more about the case and its challenges since Monday, the conviction seems to represent a minor miracle in itself. In isolation, however, there’s an irreconcilable gap between the scale of the infringing and the punishment handed down.

For reasons that aren’t addressed, the court suspended the entire sentence, i.e no prison time at all. Assuming the restitution was split 50/50, that’s $6,000 each for the Premier League and ACE, while $24,000 – the bulk of funds – simply evaporated into the public purse. It’s a baffling situation, but clearly the conviction is the main prize here; it could be priceless.

Legal Process Took Four Years

Information made available to TorrentFreak suggests that the Premier League filed a complaint with authorities in June or July 2020, requesting an investigation and criminal prosecution of not one, but two Vietnamese nationals, one of which was Le Hai Nam.

The other, whose name we’ll refrain from revealing here, was considered the operator of BestBuyIPTV while Nam appears to have controlled the restreaming side of the business. Communications with customers show involvement in both reselling and direct sales, however.

Estimates of how much BestBuyIPTV was making overall were not made available to us, but a third party estimate provides some basis to throw some figures into the air to compare with the $14,000 paid in restitution.

In common with similar services who use subscriber numbers as part of their marketing, BestBuyIPTV’s homepage boasted 900,000 subscribers, between 10,000 and 12,000 resellers, and around 2,000 restreaming affiliates. If we assume these figures are highly inflated and then broadly avoid counting revenues twice, a conservative estimate would run to a seven-figure sum, and quite possibly eight.

The other remarkable aspect to this case can be viewed from two different directions. Either there was a complete lack of awareness on the security front, or maybe none of those involved actually cared. Given the technical skills on display concerning the service itself, the former seems to be out of the question. That leaves the latter, and probably one of the easier identifications for the Premier League in recent years.

Of course, that’s just a small part of the puzzle; gathering evidence to support convictions is painstaking work and more may be needed to bring this particular battle to an end.

Official Admits Manga Piracy Problem

As regularly reported over the past few years, Vietnam is home to some of the world’s largest pirate sites. In the United States, with site-blocking legislation back on the political agenda, the spotlight is on FMovies , one of the world’s leading movie and TV show streaming sites.

For some time, however, copyright holders in Japan have been reporting several other Vietnam-based or Vietnam-operated platforms responsible for staggering levels of piracy. They specialize in Japanese comics, known as manga, and local cartoons, better known as anime.

After recently renewing an anti-piracy partnership with Hollywood, publishers and anti-piracy group CODA are independently working flat out to solve what at times has looked like an unsolvable problem. However, unusual comments published in local media may suggest some light on the horizon.

Hundreds of Millions of Dollars

Pham Hoang Hai is the director of the Radio, Television and Electronic Information Testing Center, which operates within the Department of Broadcasting and Electronic Information under the Ministry of Information and Communications.

In comments published recently in local media, Hai said that around 100 websites are known to offer football matches illegally in Vietnam, together responsible for around 1.5 billion views in the 2022/2023 season. He also commented on sites dealing in other content, around 200 generating around 120 million views. And then something else, which as far as we know is the first public comment that acknowledges the scale of manga piracy traceable to Vietnam.

“Recently, we discovered a number of websites with servers located abroad that violate comic book copyrights,” Hai said .

“There have been a number of Japanese organizations working with the Ministry of Information and Communications, reporting comic book violations. Wars in cyberspace have caused hundreds of millions of dollars in damage to copyright owners.”

In isolation, that may not sound like a particularly important comment and with no context, a suspended sentence and measly restitution could easily be dismissed on the same grounds. Only time will tell whether these seeds will grow into something more substantial but in Vietnam, where signs of progress are extremely rare, any achievement in the right direction holds significant value.

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

In recent years, copyright holders have paid close attention to a growing number of large piracy services with connections to Vietnam.

Popular brands including Fmovies, AniWave, 123movies, BestBuyIPTV, 2embed, and Y2mate are all linked to the Asian country, which was recently branded a ‘piracy haven’ .

BestBuyIPTV Conviction

To curb this trend, western rightsholders have been working with local authorities to bring local investigations and enforcement efforts up to par. While this process takes time, there was a breakthrough last week.

The People’s Court of Hanoi handed BestBuyIPTV operator Le Hai Nam a 30-month suspended prison sentence. In addition, the man must pay the equivalent of $4,000 in local currency, after having paid $12,000 in restitution previously.

BestBuyIPTV is known as one of the most popular IPTV services. The subscription platform has been repeatedly called out as a notorious piracy market by the US Trade Representative, as recently as this year.

The defendant reportedly pleaded guilty to his role in the BestBuyIPTV operation. While a copy of the verdict is not immediately available, a release shared by rightsholders attributed the following quote to the Hanoi court Judge.

“The defendant has violated the provisions of the law which protect the copyright and related rights of the Motion Picture Association’s members and the English Premier League,” Judge Le Hai Yen said.

According to the Judge, these types of crimes are a danger to society and should be strictly enforced and prosecuted, to send a deterrent to other operators of pirate sites and services.

First Ever Online Piracy Conviction

The prosecution follows referrals from the Premier League and Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment ( ACE ), who note that this is the first-ever online piracy conviction in Vietnam.

The rightsholders see last week’s conviction as an important milestone that will set a precedent in Vietnam. It’s a clear signal that online pirate sites and services won’t be tolerated, they say.

“This result should serve as a stark warning to anyone involved in the illegal supply of Premier League streams in Vietnam. It is the result of a strong partnership between the Vietnamese authorities and local law enforcement, ACE and the Premier League,” says Kevin Plumb, Premier League’s General Counsel.

Karyn Temple, MPA’s Senior Executive Vice President, shares this view and hopes that the Vietnamese authorities will move onto other high profile targets next, which could include the popular streaming site Fmovies .

“We eagerly await similar action from Vietnamese law enforcement on other longstanding priority targets engaged in digital piracy on a global scale,” Temple notes, without explicitly naming any.

BestBuyIPTV is Online?

Interestingly, the BestBuyIPTV threat may not be completely dealt with yet. MPA previously called out the ‘Bestbuyiptv.biz’ domain in relation to the popular service, which remains online today.

“BestBuyIPTV is extremely popular in the United States & Europe,” MPA wrote at the time, adding that “the operators are located in Vietnam.”

It’s possible that other operators of the service managed the service online, which would put the conviction’s deterrent effect in doubt. Or was the sentenced operator perhaps linked to another BestBuyIPTV service?

We have asked the MPA for clarification, as its press release makes no mention of this, and will update the article when an official response comes in.

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

It has gone from the sidelines of American sport to become a competitive global phenomenon that might one day make the Olympics. We meet the international teams bringing the cheer

When photographer Christian Sinibaldi first visited world champion cheerleaders London’s Unity Allstars Black , in January 2020, he had no expectations. In fact, he admits , he had “a few stigmas associated with cheerleaders”. What he learned that day surprised him. “I loved the energy, the connection between people,” he says. It kickstarted a fascination that would take him around the world to capture a sport on the cusp of global popularity, a project that took him from the markets of Ho Chi Minh City to the tunnels of Lagos stadium.

Cheerleading has long been associated with high school movies and glittery sideline entertainment, but it has a rich history – one that has fascinated me since I cheered at high school in the 90s. My master’s thesis was an ethnography of cheerleading, following a squad throughout a season. For my doctoral dissertation, I wrote a cultural history of the sport. Cheerleading began in the US in the late 19th century, growing out of the civil war and finding a place among the sidelines of elite all-male higher education institutions. There were almost no women cheerleaders until men went to war in the 40s. In the latter half of the 20th century it was feminised and sexualised, before evolving into a competitive athletic endeavour of its own as a result of second wave feminism. It has since been further democratised and radicalised – there are squads of all ages and genders, advocating for all manner of social justice causes.

Main image: junior members of Kazakhstan’s Cheer Republic team perform in Independence Square in the capital city, Astana, in front of the Hazrat Sultan mosque. Above: members of Athens’ Amazons cheerleading team practise in the seaside suburb of Vouliagmeni

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Truong My Lan set up fake loan applications to withdraw money from Saigon Commercial Bank over a decade

A property tycoon has been sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in Vietnam’s history, with an estimated $27bn (£21.5bn) in damages.

A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defence arguments by Truong My Lan, the chair of the major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade.

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Vo Van Thuong has resigned after just over a year, as the country continues its ‘blazing furnace’ anti-corruption drive

Vietnam’s government has announced the resignation of its second president in as many years amid an anti-corruption drive, sparking concerns for the country’s political stability.

President Vo Van Thuong’s alleged “violations and flaws have negatively affected public perception, as well as the reputation of the party and the state”, state media reported on Wednesday, citing an announcement from the Central Committee of the Communist party of Vietnam. No further details of any alleged violations were released.

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Le constructeur automobile vietnamien Vinfast lance son propre réseau de recharge pour ses voitures. Il veut en plus développer l’entreprise, nommée V-Green, dans le monde entier.