The global recording industry portrays itself as a dynamic and successful business that’s either fighting an existential crisis right now, or sounding the alarm for the next one looming on the horizon.

Considering the upheaval caused by Napster, its predecessors, and the demise of the lucrative album format, concerns of another technological surprise creating havoc aren’t entirely unreasonable.

Yet to a background of recovery and then impressive year-on-year growth since 2014, imagery of an industry teetering on the brink wouldn’t be the easiest sell.

Credit: IFPI Global Music Report 2024

IFPI certainly hasn’t forgotten about piracy but, compared to its video industry counterparts, the last two or three years have been relatively quiet. Looking towards the horizon, maybe it’s just the calm before the storm.

The current number one piracy threat according to IFPI is stream-ripping; on the horizon, abusive use of generative AI. No need for formal introductions, IFPI says they know each other already.

Piracy Wars: ‘Abusive’ Use of AI

The seminar Digital Music Piracy: New Trends and Practical Approaches took place before the holidays in Bulgaria. Organized by the Bulgarian Association of Music Producers (BAMP), in partnership with IFPI and the Cybercrime Directorate at the Directorate General of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, discussion centered on the latest trends in digital investigation and evidence collection methods.

Those in attendance included Catherine Lloyd, senior legal advisor to IFPI. In a subsequent interview with BTA.bg , Lloyd cited abusive use of AI as a significant threat to the industry.

“Record labels and artists have been using AI for years as a tool to enhance the creative process and collaborate on unique and cutting-edge projects. When AI is used responsibly to enhance human artistry, it can bring incredible creative possibilities,” Lloyd said.

“However, the emergence of generative AI presents a new and rapidly evolving challenge. If generative AI developers can use music without permission in their models to create clones or products that compete directly with the original works, then this creates a fundamental problem for the music ecosystem and threatens its long-term sustainability.”

Voicing Concerns

Another major concern for IFPI is the rapid rise of voice cloning. In 2023, IFPI added ‘AI Vocal Cloning’ as a new category in its annual overview of ‘notorious’ piracy markets submitted to the Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR).

The focus was on Voicify.ai, an AI-powered service that enables users to create new versions of existing songs on YouTube accompanied by the cloned voices of stars including Bruno Mars, Eminem, and Taylor Swift. The USTR declined to include the service in its final report and in February 2024, affiliated UK music industry group BPI threatened the service – now renamed ‘Jammable’ – with legal action.

There has been no further news on that front and the site remains operational. In November, Danish anti-piracy group Rights Alliance forced ElevenLabs to remove a voice clone of David Bateson. The British/Danish actor appears in the game Hitman as the voice of Agent 47 who, somewhat ironically, is a clone himself.

Stream-Ripping and Generative AI

The roller-coaster of current and emerging piracy threats is nothing new for IFPI. As downloading of ‘physical’ MP3-based tracks from peer-to-peer networks finally began to subside, in no small part assisted by the rise of legal streaming platforms like Spotify, a new foe had already emerged.

The battle was long, complicated, and dragged on for years and years, but eventually YouTube and the music industry found common ground . Today, YouTube payments worth billions of dollars every year help to smooth things over.

Yet as predictably as night follows day, the world’s largest open repository of publicly accessible copyrighted music on YouTube, now acts as the main source of fuel for stream-ripping aficionados of all kinds.

“In addition to AI, stream-ripping sites remain a significant threat to piracy in the music industry and have become the most common way to illegally download music. The music industry has been fighting stream-ripping sites through legal action, including blocking access to such sites,” IFPI’s senior legal counsel explained.

ISP Blocking and Shunning a Fair Fight

Dozens of stream-ripping platforms are currently blocked by ISPs all around the world. Many use the open source ripping software youtube-dl to easily download music from YouTube. The platform has only minimal anti-piracy protection or, according to some, effectively no protection at all.

As far as we know the developers of youtube-dl have faced no legal action. The same holds true for YouTube, which may be as leaky as a sieve, but a multi-billion-dollar sieve nonetheless. There has been no legal action against GitHub either, the Microsoft owned developer platform where youtube-dl remains available for download, even today. Instead, IFPI sued German web-hosting company Uberspace from where youtube-dl was available for download.

In November, the Hamburg Court of Appeal ruled against youtube-dl’s former hosting provider, holding it liable for supposed violations of YouTube’s copyright protection measures, despite YouTube playing no part in the case.

“The software in question has enabled countless streaming ripping services to steal music from legitimate, licensed platforms and to take away revenue from artists and rights holders,” Lloyd added, noting that the stream-ripping threat of today is already complicit in the new AI threat looming on the horizon.

“Piracy via stream-ripping sites is a problem – not only for individual users who download content to their devices, but also in the context of AI, as these services are likely used to obtain training data and create cover versions.”

Who Controls The Market? Those Who Understand Music

It’s not difficult to see why IFPI is concerned. Restricting access or providing licenses to use music as training data may be its only chance of preventing unprecedented competition from which it earns no revenue, in a market where its members currently account for the majority of all business.

Interestingly, the arrival of significant competition can often have a depressant effect on pricing, as market participants jostle for market share. Yet even in the unlikely event that AI creations are able to compete with humans in a musical sense, a reminder; in today’s market consumers effectively pay the same regardless of whether a track is a world-class smash hit or an affront to the discount bins.

So with no competition on price, the fight against a tsunami of AI-generated music will boil down to quality, originality, and the ability to be seen and heard above more background noise than ever before. When the floodgates eventually open, music fans will be heard crying out for something they may have taken for granted but now need more than ever before: human curation.

Meet the new boss…

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

As one of the oldest sports live-streaming portals, Rojadirecta has been thorn in the side of sports organizations for well over a decade.

The linking site, operated by a Spanish company Puerto 80 Projects and its owner Igor Seoane, initially had a good track record when it came to legal battles.

Rojadirecta famously had its domain name returned after it was seized by the US Government years ago. In addition, the site successfully fought off copyright holders in court .

Rojadirecta tried to achieve an equally positive result when it challenged a Danish site blocking order. But that didn’t go as planned.

Rojadirecta Challenges Danish Site Blocking

In 2009, anti-piracy group Rights Alliance , in conjunction with LaLiga, obtained a site-blocking injunction against Rojadirecta in Denmark. While the site wasn’t sued directly, it did intervene in the case, which initially failed. The court ordered ISP Telenor to block access to the sports streaming site.

Rojadirecta didn’t give up easily and appealed the interim decision. The streaming site pointed out that it offered links to legally available streams. In addition, it stressed that users were required to tick a box, indicating that submitted streams were not infringing any copyrights.

The Court of Appeal upheld the lower court’s preliminary ruling in 2020. According to the ruling, it is likely that Rojadirecta violates the rights of the Spanish football league. Citing jurisprudence from the European Court of Justice, including the Filmspeler case, site blocking is therefore warranted.

Are Live-Streams Copyrighted?

With the blocking measures firmly in place, the case was eventually heard on its merits. This wasn’t a straightforward matter, as copyright protection for live sports broadcasts is an area of copyright law that has not been extensively tested in court.

In 2022, the Frederiksberg court confirmed that LaLiga indeed holds copyright over the production and recording of the live football matches. In addition, the court confirmed that Rojadirecta infringed these copyrights.

By recognizing live sports broadcasts as copyrighted works in the first case of this kind in Europe, the court established that site blocking can be used as a legal tool to combat live sports piracy.

Rojadirecta also appealed this decision, but the company eventually failed to show up in court. Without a defense, the Eastern High Court therefore dismissed the appeal earlier this month, making the decision final.

Landmark Case

To outsiders, copyright eligibility for live sports may seem like a technicality. However, for rightsholders this was a vital decision, which effectively determined the effectiveness of their anti-piracy arsenal going forward. Understandably, they are pleased with the outcome.

Commenting on the outcome, Rights Alliance director Maria Fredenslund stresses that this is a great result. Not just for LaLiga, but also for other rightsholders of live sports streaming events.

“With a final verdict in the case, we have the court’s word that rights to show football are subject to copyright and can therefore be protected,” Fredenslund says.

“We therefore look forward to using the decision as a starting point to achieve better protection of live content in Denmark and also hope that the case can pave the way for similar initiatives in other European countries,” she adds.

Javier Tebas, President of LaLiga, hopes that this decision will resonate across other European countries. He encourages legislators, judges, and institutions to step up their efforts to protect rightsholders from live-streaming piracy.

“By adapting regulatory frameworks and fostering international alliances, we can ensure that the rights of all stakeholders in the sports ecosystem are respected and protected,” Tebas says.

TorrentFreak reached out to Rojadirecta’s operator to hear his side of the story. Seoane did not immediately respond.

This has been a rough month for the sports live-stream linking site on multiple fronts. After Spain’s Supreme Court previously held Seoane and his company liable for copyright infringement, a Spanish court ruled that they have to pay Mediapro 31.6 million euros in damages.

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

In the post-Napster, pre-YouTube world of 2004, a peculiar TV miniseries began to circulate online.

The main character in The Scene went by the nickname Drosan. He was a member of a piracy release group called CPX and soon found himself up to his neck in drama after selling leaked movies to contacts in Asia.

Blurred Lines: Fiction & Fact Combine

While entertained and intrigued by the storyline, the show’s target pirate audience became more suspicious with every passing episode. Conspiracy theories were shared back and forth, gaining traction thanks to the discovery of on-screen ‘evidence’ and perceived hints and clues.

Were The Scene’s video files acting as bait to identify pirates in the now-booming BitTorrent community? Was the storyline about to coincide with real world events, a major bust perhaps, with viewers somehow implicated in a forthcoming crackdown?

Perhaps more urgently, were some pirate sites actually honeypots set up by the feds and, if so, which ones were safe? In that paranoia-soaked, mostly VPN-less era, the honeypot theory made perfect sense. Two decades later, could the same hold true?

Bogus Pirate Portals

After constantly hearing about pirate IPTV providers in the media, it’s inevitable that some people will want to try things out for themselves. For those with no experience, search engine results are unpredictable at best and there’s always a risk of spending money and getting nothing in return.

Launched last year in the UK, the BeStreamWise anti-piracy campaign showed how regular people blindly handed over their names, addresses, and credit card details, for a streaming service that didn’t even exist . Yet, according to a Repubblica report published on Sunday, potential IPTV subscription buyers in Italy face something much worse.

“If you’re thinking of subscribing to a pirate site, if you dream of watching football matches, dramas, films, and TV shows for just a handful of euros a year, take into account that not everything will end smoothly,” the report begins.

“For a year, law enforcement has deployed a weapon capable of disrupting the plans of [pirate IPTV] customers. The pirate site that asks you to share your name and surname, including your personal credit card, could actually be the subject of investigators.”

Since the rest of what promises to be a big story sits behind a subscription paywall , once again it’s time to hand over credit card details to online strangers and then hope for the best.

Completely Indistinguishable Fakes

Experienced IPTV subscribers report that a good quality pirate service can be mistaken for the real thing. The article claims that bogus pirate IPTV portals operated by law enforcement are so perfect, they’re “completely indistinguishable” from real pirate sites. So with the initial deception a success, what now?

“For a year now, there have been decoy sites (created by law enforcement) on the Internet that have a specific goal: to attract ordinary users by acquiring proof of their illegitimate conduct,” the report notes.

“In the hands of investigators, there are thus hundreds of names of Italians who have tried to enjoy Serie A or the best fiction, but without subscribing legally to DAZN, Sky, Infinity.”

The report strongly implies that these sites exist to lure in unsuspecting customers, gather evidence of wrongdoing, then use self-provided names and addresses to issue fines. It doesn’t state that directly but most reasonable readers seem likely to draw that conclusion.

“The initiative by law enforcement is part of a specific strategy that is very popular with both DAZN and Serie A,” the piece continues, adding: “[T]hey are calling for fines – from 500 to 5,000 euros – for ordinary people who do not pay a regular subscription.”

Uphold The Law

The revelation that those employed to uphold the law are using deception to encourage new offenses, sounds like a pretty big story. A 2022 analysis ( pdf ) of so-called sting operations and entrapment defenses in Italy, Europe, and the United States, notes the following:

“Art. 55 of the Italian code of criminal procedure provides that the Judicial Police has the duty to ‘prevent crimes from being carried to further consequences, search for the perpetrators, carry out the necessary acts to secure evidence and collect whatever else may be useful under the law.’

“For this reason, without reform, there is no room in Art. 55 c.p.p. to include ‘inciting to committing a crime’ among public officials’ functions, as, under Italian law, a duty to prevent further consequences stands, and it forbids any kind of instigation conduct.”

More fundamentally, perhaps, is whether a crime has been committed at all. In two cases handled by different judges this year, 23 pirate IPTV subscribers were acquitted due to there being no evidence of a crime. The general principle that criminal law should not be invoked when another branch of law can be used to solve an issue was applied here; all defendants received small administrative fines of 150 euros instead.

No Source Stated or Implied

In summary, we have an unsourced claim that bogus pirate IPTV portals, designed to deceive “ordinary people” (the term is used twice in the article), have been operated by law enforcement in Italy for the last year. The alleged purpose is to gather evidence in support of an administrative offense punishable by a 150 euro fine, if indeed any offenses were even committed by the hundreds of people reportedly identified.

On the balance of probabilities, the scenario as portrayed seems unlikely at best. If the storyline had appeared in The Scene back in 2004, the conspiracy theorists may have struggled with the lack of substance, but that alone rules nothing out.

Incidentally, the creators of The Scene denied having an agenda; the idea that the show was “some kind of anti-piracy propaganda is truly silly,” director Mitchell Reichgut later said. Some still had their suspicions and not entirely without cause.

It later transpired that one of the people behind the show was Bruce Forest, a long-time member of the secretive piracy community known as The Scene , from where the show obtained its name. Forest, the self-styled Prince of Darknet , later admitted that for much of the time he’d also been working undercover for the entertainment industry.

“I guess you can call me a true double agent,” he said. “I lead a very comfortable double life.”

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

At the end of every year, we take a look at the most-downloaded TV shows among torrenting pirates.

For several years in a row, the list was headed by Game of Thrones , but that reign came to an after the final season.

In the years that followed, Disney+ releases stepped in to fill the void, with ‘Wandavision’ and ‘The Mandalorian’ taking wins in 2020 and 2021 respectively. This takeover didn’t last very long, however, as HBO Max’s ‘Game of Thrones’ prequel ‘House of the Dragon’ snatched the title in 2022 .

With no dragon-themed series in the mix, HBO’s post-apocalyptic drama ‘The Last of Us’ snatched the title last year . That change didn’t last, however, as the Dragons came out on top again this year.

While ‘House of the Dragon’ faced stiff competition from ‘Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power’ two years ago, it easily secured the top spot this year. Surprisingly, Amazon’s Tolkien-inspired series barely cracked the top 10.

Amazon did get an entry in the top three with The Boys in second place, followed by Disney’s historical drama series Shōgun.

Interestingly, all other entries in the top 10, including Netflix’s massively popular animated series Arcane, come from major streaming platforms. This marks a shift from last year when no Netflix shows made the list.

Last year, we theorized that, as the leading streaming service, Netflix was less susceptible to ‘complementary’ piracy than its competitors. That argument may still hold, but Netflix certainly isn’t immune to it.

In closing, we should note that the chart is based on BitTorrent traffic, which represents a small portion of the piracy landscape. Most people use streaming sites and services nowadays, which generally do not report viewing stats.

—

Below we have compiled a list of the most-torrented TV shows worldwide released in 2024 (per episode). The ranking is estimated based on sample data from several sources, including I Know . Anime series are not included.

The full list of all ‘most pirated’ shows is as follows:

– 2024: House of the Dragon
– 2023: The Last of Us
– 2022: House of The Dragon
– 2021: Wandavision
– 2020: The Mandalorian
– 2019: Game of Thrones
– 2018: The Walking Dead
– 2017: Game of Thrones
– 2016: Game of Thrones
– 2015: Game of Thrones
– 2014: Game of Thrones
– 2013: Game of Thrones
– 2012: Game of Thrones
– 2011: Dexter
– 2010: Lost
– 2009: Heroes
– 2008: Lost
– 2007: Heroes

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

Rightsholders see Italy’s elaborate ‘ Piracy Shield ‘ system as the future of anti-piracy efforts.

The broad blocking powers it provides certainly made an impact this year but not all news was positive.

Multiple reports of overblocking included mishaps where the anti-piracy system blocked access to Google Drive and other legitimate sites and services . An incident just after launch saw a Cloudflare IP-address blocked which rendered many legitimate websites inaccessible.

Cloudflare’s Piracy Shield Responsibilities

Cloudflare wasn’t only targeted inadvertently. Earlier this year, football league Serie A filed a complaint against the company at the Court of Milan, an attempt to compel Cloudflare’s participation in the novel anti-piracy system.

Cloudflare was able to fend off this approach after the court concluded that it lacked authority to compel Cloudflare to join the Piracy Shield program. Serie A’s subsequent appeal turned things around, however.

On appeal, the Court of Milan concluded that Cloudflare’s services are instrumental in enabling the illegal streaming of football matches, since they allow users to bypass the Piracy Shield blocks imposed by AGCOM.

The court sees this as a “causal contribution” to copyright infringement, which is sufficient to establish legal responsibility and compel Cloudflare to take action.

“Both Cloudflare’s causal contribution to the reported offenses through its services, and its refusal to prevent the violations despite the warning issued by the rightsholders, are established,” the Court of Milan writes (loosely translated) .

All Cloudflare Services

The Court of Milan’s decision prohibits Cloudflare from resolving domain names and routing internet traffic to IP addresses of all services present on the “Piracy Shield” system. This also applies to future domains and aliases used by these pirate services.

The order applies to Cloudflare’s content delivery network (CDN), DNS services, and reverse proxy services. The order also mentions Cloudflare’s free VPN among the targets, likely referring to the WARP service.

If any of the targeted pirate streaming providers use Cloudflare’s services to infringe on Serie A’s copyrights, the company Cloudflare must stop providing CDN, authoritative DNS, and reverse proxy services to these customers.

( Note: This is an Italian court order and Cloudflare previously used geotargeting to block sites only in Italy . It may respond similarly here, but terminating customer accounts only in Italy might be more complicated. )

Finally, the order further includes a data disclosure component, under which Cloudflare must identify customers who use Cloudflare’s services to offer pirated streams. This should help Serie A to track down those responsible.

The data disclosure section also covers information related to the ‘VPN’ and alternative public DNS services, where these relate to the IPTV platforms identified in the case. That covers traffic volume and connection logs, including IP-addresses and timestamps.

In theory, that could also cover data on people who accessed these services using Cloudflare’s VPN and DNS resolver.

‘Crucial Ruling’

Law firms Studio Previti and SPTech Legal , who represented Serie A and several intervening parties, are pleased with the outcome. In a press release, they state that the order highlights Cloudflare’s responsibility as a third-party intermediary and access provider.

“This decision represents a crucial step in the battle against digital piracy,” Lawyer Lorenzo Pinci writes in a detailed overview of the order.

“Not only because it constitutes the first interpretative ruling of Law 93/2023 and the functioning of the ‘Piracy Shield’ platform, but also because it established Cloudflare’s role as an intermediary and provider of network access services utilized to facilitate piracy.”

Cloudflare did not respond to our request for comment at the time of publication, but it’s clear that the order is a massive setback for the company, which sees itself mostly as a passive intermediary.

The court ordered Cloudflare to cover the costs of the proceeding and if it doesn’t implement the blocking requirements in time, an additional fine of €10,000 per day will apply.

—

A copy of the order, as issued by the Court of Milan, is available here ( pdf, Italian ).

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

Two years after its debut in 2005, Rojadirecta faced legal action in Spain for providing links to unlicensed sports streams. Rojadirecta was adamant that under existing law the site operated legally and steadfastly refused to shut down.

In 2009, that position was endorsed by a district court and then upheld by a provincial court after rightsholders filed an appeal.

Despite the losing streak, rightsholders subsequently convinced the Department of Homeland Security to seize two of Rojadirecta’s domain names; under mounting legal pressure, DHS eventually gave them back . A shifting legal landscape and unwavering rightsholder pressure ensured that successive wins like these would soon become a thing of the past.

Mediapro Delivers a Significant Blow

In 2016, Puerto 80 Projects SL – the Spanish company behind Rojadirecta – was found liable for violating the intellectual property rights of broadcaster Mediapro. Rojadirecta’s subsequent appeal failed in 2018, effectively ending the site’s ability to service any further visitors from Spain.

Despite landing a significant win, Mediapro wasn’t entirely happy with the outcome. The Commercial Court of A Coruña ruled that liability for Rojadirecta’s infringement lay with Puerto 80 Projects SL, a company run by Igor Seoane, the man who had operated Rojadirecta from the very beginning. With piracy battles becoming ever more bitter, Mediapro wanted to see Seoane personally on the hook.

Supreme Court Confirms Joint Liability

In 2022, Mediapro’s persistence paid off. Spain’s Supreme Court ruled that Puerto 80 Projects SL, and company owner/Rojadirecta operator Igor Seoane, could be held jointly liable.

Commercial Court No. 2 of A Coruña has now determined the amount of compensation to be paid to Mediapro, for infringement carried out a decade ago during the 2014/2015 football season.

With the commercial entity and its owner confirmed liable, on Friday the Court ordered Puerto 80 and owner Seoane to pay Mediapro 31.6 million euros (US$33m), with Puerto 80 and Seoane jointly liable for 15.6 million euros (US$16.3m) of the total award.

Believed to be the most significant award ever handed down in a Spanish case of its kind, the figure is said to represent how much it would’ve cost to obtain a license to show the content legally.

Mediapro Welcomes Decision

Rojadirecta has been facilitating access to unlicensed content in Spain for almost 20 years, primarily through links that allow users to watch live sports content that’s ordinarily available on pay TV platforms in exchange for a fee.

On the consumer side, Rojadirecta has always been available for free, something that undoubtedly plays a significant part in its enduring popularity even today. It’s alleged that Puerto 80’s business model has generated millions of euros from both regular advertising and affiliate commissions earned by diverting visitors to sports betting websites.

Criminal Prosecution For Same Conduct

In parallel, Puerto 80 and Igor Seoane are also fighting a criminal prosecution pursued by Mediapro and LaLiga. The companies claim that Seoane continues to unlawfully benefit from ongoing infringement by providing access to illegal streams via Rojadirecta.

The matter is still in its early stages but with a demand for a four-year prison sentence, the prosecutor clearly means business. Mediapro and LaLiga are demanding a six-year prison sentence, alleging that Rojadirecta continues to operate illegally outside Spain.

Puerto 80 and its owner should have deposited a bond of 4.15 million euros to cover future liabilities, the prosecutor said, noting the ‘special economic significance’ of the profits and damages alleged in the case.

Citing expert reports from 2022, ElMundo reports that in 2022, just one of the company’s accounts reportedly showed income of more than 11 million euros.

Rojadirecta Was Created to Solve a Problem

According to an ABC report ( paywall ), a then 21-year-old Seoane was inspired to launch Rojadirecta one afternoon; he wanted to watch his team (Barca) play but didn’t really feel like going to the bar where pay-per-view events are often shown. “There has to be another way to do it,” he thought.

Two decades later, ABC notes that Seoane – who speaks English, Portuguese, and Galician fluently, and is able to “get by” in French and Italian – is rarely seen in public, except during various Rojadirecta-related trials he has to attend.

“In some of them he has appeared disguised, with a showy curly wig and glasses. Thus, he has been described as the ‘Galician without a face’, an anonymity that gave rise to various myths about his place of residence, among some Internet users who considered him a kind of ‘Robin Hood’, capable of bringing football back to its fans.”

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

The legal saga of News-Service Europe ( NSE ) and anti-piracy group BREIN has taken another dramatic turn.

Once a titan in the Usenet world, NSE was forced to shut down in 2011 after BREIN took legal action on behalf of the movie and music industries.

In its initial verdict, the Court of Amsterdam concluded that NSE willingly facilitated online piracy through its services. As a result, the company was ordered to remove all copyrighted content and filter future posts for possible copyright infringements.

According to the Usenet provider, this filtering requirement would’ve been too costly to implement so it shut down its service but appealed the case.

NSE Wins Appeal

After several more years of litigation, the Amsterdam appeals court ruled that NSE wasn’t liable for users’ pirating activities after all, but NSE was required to offer a responsive and effective notice and takedown procedure, possibly with additional measures.

Unhappy with the outcome, BREIN decided to take the matter to the Dutch Supreme Court. While NSE was no longer a threat, the case could prove crucial for many other Usenet providers.

Last year, the Supreme Court confirmed that the Usenet provider shouldn’t be held liable for pirating users. The fact that NSE had a decent takedown procedure and no apparent knowledge of infringement, weighed in its favor.

The Court also confirmed that NSE didn’t curate any content, nor did it specifically promote copyright infringement.

NSE Sues BREIN for Millions in Damages

NSE’s victory was bittersweet; its operation had long been shut down due to BREIN’s legal pressure. Now, after years of legal battles and a final vindication, NSE is back in court once again.

In a lawsuit filed today, NSE demands damages from BREIN that could potentially reach millions of euros.

According to NSE, BREIN’s lawsuit essentially forced the service to shut down, even though the case was appealed. As a result, the entire team lost their jobs and the company’s owners faced expensive legal bills.

Although the court’s requirements led to the shutdown, NSE sees BREIN as the main instigator, because the anti-piracy group didn’t want to wait for the appeal to play out.

“BREIN deliberately made it impossible for us to continue,” NSE co-founder and former CEO Patrick Schreurs says. “BREIN decided not to wait for the appeal and to force us to comply with the verdict immediately. That was completely unnecessary. We have always found that incomprehensible.”

NSE co-founder Wierd Bonthuis, who previously served as CFO, notes that the Supreme Court confirmed that BREIN was wrong. To fully set the record straight, the Usenet provider now seeks full compensation.

“The confirmation of the highest Dutch court is a great first step towards complete justice. This will happen if BREIN fully compensates us for the damage that its stubbornness has caused,” Bonthuis says.

“We look forward to the verdict in the case filed today with great confidence,” he adds.

BREIN Sheds a Different Light on the Case

BREIN has not yet seen the summons, but in an initial response it believes that NSE was never able to simply restart its original service. Instead, it should have taken measures against the enormous amount of unauthorized content on its servers.

The parties never finalized discussions on what an effective takedown policy would entail. Instead of engaging in court-mandated negotiations, BREIN director Bastiaan van Ramshorst says that NSE decided to shut down its service.

“BREIN awaits the summons in confidence. The fact remains that all that copyright-protected content, including films, TV series, books, games and software, made it attractive for consumers to take out a subscription with a commercial Usenet provider.

“The loss of profit by not being able to offer illegally offered protected content of others is of course no basis for a lawsuit,” Van Ramshorst adds.

All in all it’s clear that, after more than 15 years, the newly filed lawsuit adds yet another chapter to what is already one of the longest running piracy lawsuits in history.

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

Library Genesis ( LibGen ) is one of the oldest shadow libraries on the Internet, offering free access to millions of books and academic papers for which people would otherwise have to pay.

The site’s origins reportedly trace back to the Soviet Union’s underground publishing culture ‘samizdat,’ which was used to bypass state censorship in the last century.

LibGen launched around 2008 as a digital version of the same concept. In addition to bypassing ‘local’ censorship, it’s widely used to circumvent the paywalls of major international publishing companies, serving as a popular ‘pirate’ site for (text)books and academic works.

Rightsholders have attempted to take the site offline several times over the years, both through direct lawsuits and site blocking injunctions . While the site hasn’t thrown in the towel just yet, the site today is a shadow of its former glory.

Domain Name Seizures and Suspensions

In recent weeks, several LibGen domain names were taken offline. Some simply stopped resolving, while others were handed over to publishers and replaced by a notice explaining that the domains were seized as part of legal action.

For example, library.lol now shows the notice below. The same applies to libgen.fun, libgen.space, and booksdl.org.

“ This website has been shut down and its domain name turned over to educational publishers by court order .”

Other domains are inaccessible because they were deactivated, or suspended by domain registries or registrars. This includes LibGen.rs, which previously served as one of the site’s main domains.

These seizures don’t come as a complete surprise. In September, a New York federal court ordered the operators of LibGen to pay $30 million in copyright infringement damages. This order came with an injunction, urging domain name services to hand over the site’s domain names.

The publishers, including Cengage, McGraw Hill, and Pearson Education, might have a hard time recouping the damages. However, the domain name seizures will certainly have an impact. This will be lasting too, as the injunction also targets all ‘future’ domains.

New Blocking Order in Germany

The U.S. court order is effective, but not all registrars and registries appear to have taken action, at least not yet. The popular libgen.li domain remains accessible, but the publishers are also taking action to address this and other remaining domains.

This week, Germany’s “Clearing Body for Copyright on the Internet” ( CUII ) issued a new blocking order targeting LibGen. The order was requested by publishers whose names remain redacted. The domain names have not been published either, but they likely include the main ones.

According to data gathered by the third-party transparency portal CUIIListe , ISPs have started blocking Libgen.li, libgen.gs, and libgen.is, as well as the deactivated libgen.rs domain.

CUII’s blocking order follows a familiar format. Under a voluntary agreement between rightsholders and ISPs, the clearing body carefully reviews whether a target site is indeed structurally infringing. That was the case here.

“The request for a recommendation to block the LIBGEN website is justified. The website is a structurally copyright infringing website. There is a clear copyright violation. The blocking is reasonable and proportionate,” CUII writes.

LibGen isn’t the first shadow library to be blocked in Germany. Earlier this year, Sci-Hub was blocked using the same procedure. The full German blocklist now contains 24 pirate sites.

What’s Next?

Pirate sites are ultimately expected to encounter these types of issues and many respond by registering new domain names. That said, LibGen’s owners have been rather quiet lately.

The lack of communication doesn’t come as a complete surprise. At the beginning of the year, the site already appeared to have some internal struggles, as the person in charge of the site’s coding had been ‘ inactive’ for some time.

As far as we know, the site isn’t actively managed as it once was. The homepage still promotes a domain name that is no longer active, for example. Whether the site will eventually break down completely is unknown, but the publishers will do everything they can to frustrate its operation.

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

As a TV broadcaster, Sky has an exceptional view of the legal subscription TV market and how the illegal IPTV market encroaches on that.

As an ISP that supplies 20% of the market, Sky’s view of its own customers using Sky Broadband to pirate Sky’s pay TV content is a persistent irritant that comes with the territory.

Sky’s involvement in ISP blocking orders has traditionally meant complying with injunctions obtained by groups including the MPA and RIAA. Along with its main ISP rivals including market leader BT (28%), roughly on-par competitor Virgin Media (20%), and TalkTalk (12.5%), over the years Sky has blocked thousands of domains to protect content owned by others.

Sky Tests Blocking to Protect Its Own Content

In the summer of 2023, Sky obtained a blocking injunction at the High Court to protect content it broadcasts on its own TV channels. Sky’s targets included BunnyStream, Enigma Streams, GenIPTV, CatIPTV, GoTVMix, and IPTVMain , none of which warmed to the idea of being blocked. Sky’s blocking measures faced pirate countermeasures, most visibly through the use of endless subdomains generated at will, which Sky also went on to block on an unprecedented scale , with a predictable response each time.

On November 12, 2024, Sky obtained an extension to its original order, the second since the summer of 2023. With BT, EE, Plusnet, TalkTalk, and Virgin Media listed once again, there was no change among the respondents. The list of targets, which includes static promotional/sales websites and underlying pirate IPTV services, reads as follows:

BunnyStream; CatIPTV; EnigmaStreams; GenIPTV; GoTVMix; IPTVMAIN; FastIP.tv; IP-TV.uk; IPTV-King.co.uk; IPTVSubscribe.uk; IPTV-UK.digital; KemoIPTV.tv; UKChannels.co.uk; UKIPTVMedia.co; TheSkyIPTV.shop; and Calmahub.live

All of Sky’s initial targets appear to have survived unprecedented levels of ISP blocking so are now appearing once again. Why that’s the case isn’t mentioned in the High Court order, and the same applies to other confidential aspects of the case to prevent circumvention. Fortunately, not everything is shrouded in darkness.

Dynamic and Static Blocking

The order allows Sky to conduct Dynamic Blocking of IP addresses associated with the IPTV platforms’ servers. Once Sky becomes aware of a server it needs to block, IP address information can be sent to the respondent ISPs for blocking in real-time.

Blocking takes place during specific Blocking Windows based on detection of unauthorized broadcasts of Sky Channels (table below), or various conditions listed in a confidential schedule.

The IP addresses are unblocked at the conclusion of each Blocking Window , the durations of which are confidential.

Non-Exclusive List of ‘Trigger’ Channels

Under the order, Static Blocking of URLs and Fully Qualified Domain Names (FQDNs) associated with the IPTV services’ websites is permanent.

Sky is authorized to detect and instantly notify the ISPs of IP addresses for Dynamic Blocking and URLs/FQDNs for Static Blocking if certain conditions are met. They include use of an IP address to broadcast public linear audiovisual footage of any Sky Channel during an unspecified Monitoring Period , or use that meets one or more detection conditions specified in a confidential schedule.

The order allows Sky to notify the ISPs of any URL or FQDN for Static Blocking if its “sole or predominant purpose is to enable or facilitate access to a Target Website.” Due to the confidentiality aspects of this and previous orders, specific examples aren’t provided.

However, this could be a measure to limit the usefulness of generating thousands of new subdomains to circumvent blocking. Previously the IPTV providers appeared to utilize wildcard certificates to generate FQDNs such as those shown below.

It may have been the case that if infringing activity only ever took place on subdomains, only those subdomains could be legally blocked. With an infinite supply of subdomains available at zero cost, generating more subdomains wasn’t a problem.

Here, however, a main domain would qualify as having the “sole or predominant purpose” of facilitating access to a pirate service. That means domains and subdomains could be blocked permanently, forcing the purchase of a whole new domain that when deployed would ultimately fare no better.

IP Blocking, URL Blocking, DNS Blocking, Deep Packet Inspection

Each ISP is required to implement blocking based on the type requested and the availability of existing specialist tools.

British Telecommunications (BT)

The section of the order detailing how blocking should be carried out is more complicated than one might expect, largely due to the unique position of British Telecommunications Plc and companies operating within the BT Group. These include the ISP most people know as BT, telecoms brand EE, and the ISP Plusnet, both of which are listed as separate respondents in the blocking order.

BT Group subsidiary Openreach Limited operates the Openreach digital network through which the ISP BT supplies internet connectivity to customers. The Openreach network is also used by over 680 other companies selling broadband and telecoms services, including Plusnet and EE. The blocking order lacks clarity, but it appears that BT’s residential-type customers are handled using BT’s Cleanfeed filtering/blocking system, while ‘wholesale’ customers have access to a lesser-known BT blocking/filtering system called RedCard .

When Dynamic Blocking is required by the order, ISP BT must block by IP address. Customers to which the RedCard system applies must also block by IP address. When applying Static Blocking , BT must apply Cleanfeed for customers using its fixed-line and mobile networks, using technical means including;

● IP address blocking and IP address re-routing at the core network level
● Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) based blocking utilizing at least summary analysis
● DNS blocking for customers using BT’s own DNS servers.

EE Limited

When applying Dynamic Blocking , EE must use IP address blocking for customers on their fixed line network (EE Home line) and mobile network, including hosted Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNOs). This applies to customers using RedCard or any equivalent system EE may choose to deploy.

For Static Blocking , EE must use Cleanfeed for fixed line and mobile network customers (including MVNOs). Technical means include;

● IP address blocking and IP address re-routing for every address reported by Sky
● Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) based blocking utilizing at least summary analysis
● DNS blocking for customers using EE’s own DNS servers.

Plusnet

When applying Dynamic Blocking , Plusnet must use IP address blocking for customers to which RedCard applies.

When applying Static Blocking for customers to which Cleanfeed applies, the technical means include:

● IP address blocking and IP address re-routing for every address reported by Sky
● Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) based blocking utilizing at least summary analysis
● DNS blocking for customers using Plusnet’s own DNS servers.

TalkTalk

The instructions for TalkTalk make no references to static or dynamic blocking. The order instead mentions StreamShield, a blocking/filtering system operated by TalkTalk since ~2006. When StreamShield is applied the technical means is URL blocking for each and every URL notified by Sky. When ‘blackholing’ is applied, the technical means is IP address blocking for each IP address notified by Sky.

TalkTalk appears to be the only ISP where blocking measures are limited by volume. For all UK blocking orders that require TalkTalk to implement blocking, a limit of 10,000 simultaneous IP addresses applies.

Virgin Media, Sky, Google

Instructions for Virgin Media do not refer to static or dynamic blocking. The order instead mentions Web Blocker 3, a blocking/filtering system operated by Virgin. When Web Blocker 3 or blackholing is applied, the technical means is IP address blocking.

Sky is the applicant in this process, not a respondent, but appears to have volunteered for blocking duties on its own behalf. Sky will use its own Hawkeye system to carry out IP address blocking.

Google also receives no mention in the court order but TorrentFreak can confirm that the company is voluntarily removing IPTV providers’ domains from search results. That has already had the effect of ‘promoting’ sites publishing reviews of the IPTV providers’ services into the top slots, and will probably lead to scammers exploiting the vacuum to rip off unsuspecting consumers.

In general terms, however, this enhanced blocking order will make life more complex for providers. End users already using VPNs to access these services, on the other hand, will most likely remain completely unaffected.

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