Last September, Apple removed popular music streaming app Musi from its App Store, affecting millions of users.

Apple’s action didn’t come as a complete surprise. Music industry groups had been trying to take Musi down for months, branding it a ‘parasitic’ app that skirts the rules.

Delisting from the App Store put the future of Musi directly at risk. The company initially hoped to resolve the matter with Apple behind closed doors, but since the tech giant was unwilling to reverse its decision, Musi took the matter to court.

“Backchannel Scheme”

Musi claimed that the App Store removal was the result of “backroom conversations” between Apple and key music industry players. The app developer alleged this was an “unfair” and “tainted” removal process designed to put it out of business.

Musi hoped for a quick reinstatement and requested a preliminary injunction to put the app back in the App Store while the lawsuit was pending. That attempt failed, however.

In January, a California federal court denied the preliminary injunction, ruling that Apple did not act unreasonably or in bad faith when it removed the app following complaints from music industry players and YouTube.

The order meant that the case would continue without Musi being available in the App Store. And a new filing submitted by Apple, shows that the company has absolutely no intention to change its mind.

Apple Returns Fire

In a motion for sanctions filed yesterday at the California court, Apple requests sanctions against Musi for false or misleading allegations, which include the remarks concerning the “backchannel scheme”.

According to Apple, discovery in this case clearly revealed that there were no backroom deals but Musi nonetheless included these claims in its amended complaint.

“[D]iscovery thoroughly disproved Musi’s baseless conspiracy theory that Apple schemed to eliminate the Musi app from the App Store to benefit ‘friends’ in the music industry,” Apple notes.

“To make matters worse, Musi attempted to give its falsehoods a veneer of truth by provisionally redacting many allegations and misrepresenting to the Court that those allegations reflected information Apple produced in discovery.”

These alleged misrepresentations are sanctionable, Apple argues. The tech giant reiterates that it received numerous complaints about Musi from various parties and dismisses the notion of a backchannel scheme.

Apple: ‘Musi Impersonated UMG’

Adding to the purported misrepresentations in the complaint, Apple adds further color by alleging that Musi previously impersonated UMG executive Jason Miller, to get reinstated in the App Store.

“Apple previously removed Musi’s app from the App Store and Musi only regained access in 2020 by fraudulently impersonating a complainant,” Apple writes.

Exhibits shared by Apple show that Musi informed Apple that a complaint from UMG was resolved, citing communications with jasonmiller@umusic.solar-secure.com. Musi founder Aaron Wojnowski forwarded this email chain to Apple, which seemingly confirmed this.

Follow-up communications between Apple and Universal Music painted a different picture. UMG informed Apple that the email was “fraudulent,” that Jason Miller had no record of sending it, and the email address used was not a UMG address.

“It appears that the app developer created a false email to misrepresent compliance on behalf of Universal. Therefore, the claim should not be closed and the app should be removed immediately,” UMG explained at the time.

Making matters worse, in July 2020 UMG informed Apple of another instance where the same fraudulent ‘Jason Miller’ email address was allegedly used to file a false copyright claim against a different app, Yokee.

Despite the alleged impersonation, Musi remained available in the App Store until last year. However, according to Apple, the alleged impersonation is further evidence of a pattern of dishonesty, which warrants sanctions.

It is now up to the court to review the evidence and decide whether it proves that Musi did indeed cross the line and if sanctions are warranted. Meanwhile, Apple’s motion to dismiss the entire case also remains pending.

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A copy of Apple’s memorandum supporting its motion for sanctions, filed at the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, is available here (pdf)

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

Originally the home of The Pirate Bay, Sweden has a long and well documented history when it comes to online piracy.

As in other countries, however, many Swedish pirates have made the switch from relatively cumbersome torrents to on-demand streaming. That includes pirate IPTV services.

According to recent estimates, some 700,000 Swedish households have access to illegal IPTV services. These subscriptions are sold at a very low cost, making them substantially cheaper than the official plans offered by local streaming services such as Viaplay.

Sweden’s IPTV Crackdown

Viaplay and other rightsholders have grown increasingly worried about this trend and these concerns have reached lawmakers too. Earlier this year, Swedish Minister of Culture, Parisa Liljestrand, said that the authorities started looking into a possible ban on viewing pirate IPTV streams.

Punishing pirate IPTV viewers en masse is a novel concept that may be difficult to roll out in practice. Legally, it may be possible, as the Court of Justice of the European Union previously ruled that consumption of pirate streams is illegal. However, since there is no public information available on who these subscribers are, tracking them down may prove challenging.

Meanwhile, rightsholders were working on a more direct approach. Earlier this year, rightsholders including Viaplay, TV4, and Discovery took legal action in court to order local ISP Telenor to block access to the popular local IPTV service NordicOne, or N1 for short.

Court Issues Broad IPTV Blocking Order

After reviewing the complaint, the Patent and Market Court in Stockholm ordered Telenor to immediately block its subscribers’ access to the NordicOne IPTV service. Failure to comply carries a potential fine of 500,000 SEK ($50,000 USD).

Skånska Dagbladet reports that the court deemed the blocking order appropriate, effective, and proportional. Telenor must block a list of specific domains associated with NordicOne, including ‘clientsportals.com’, ‘n1ip.tv’, ‘ptv.is’, and must also block any future domains used by the service upon notification.

The order against Telenor remains valid for three years and further reports suggest that it doesn’t come in isolation. According to Dagens Media, Tele2 and Tre have been ordered to implement similar blocking measures.

Through these blockades, Viaplay, Discovery and TV4 hope that IPTV subscribers will give up on their pirate habits, switching to official subscriptions instead. While some may indeed give up facing these blockades, others seek workarounds.

Cat and Mouse

Over the past days, Swedes complained bitterly about the blockades through online forums and messaging apps, while searching for workarounds. In the popular Flashback forums, for example, several people share new URLs through which they can regain access.

Others mention other known workarounds, including the use of VPN services and alternative DNS resolvers. The effectiveness of alternative DNS resolvers suggests that the blocking measures are implemented primarily through the ISPs’ DNS servers.

NordiskIPTV, likely a reseller service that was caught up in the blocking action, posted a public message pointing users to new portal URLs. Alternatively, they also mention VPNs as a workaround.

This cat-and-mouse game is not new; it is illustrative of the responses we have seen to blocking measures over the past fifteen years. The question now is whether Viaplay and the other rightsholders will take action in response.

The court order allows rightsholders to add additional domain names to the blocking order, but VPNs and alternative DNS providers are not covered.

Recently, rightsholders in other countries, including France , have applied for blocking orders against DNS providers such as Google and Cloudflare, and VPN providers have become a target too . Whether we will see the same in Sweden has yet to be seen.

It’s clear, however, that the blocking scope in Europe is gradually expanding. And if it’s up to some rightsholders, even web browsers should be subject to blocking orders.

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

Attempts to significantly downplay the scale of the piracy problems faced by major European football leagues, are simply at odds with the facts on the ground.

They’re also just as unhelpful as the staggering annual loss estimates spouted by rightsholders.

These figures have a tendency to become ‘fact’ after endless repetition, before being built upon and defended to the very last man, in blood if that becomes necessary.

Seemingly powerless to curtail piracy in any meaningful way, major European leagues are combining increasingly bitter rhetoric with threats against intermediaries, while tearing up what was left of the anti-piracy rule book.

With their backs against the wall and so much at stake, some quite reasonably argue that a new approach was desperately needed. For those caught in the crossfire, new does not mean improved. It means seemingly random websites failing to load while from the opposite direction, perfectly functioning websites receiving no visits. For some businesses, it means tens of thousands of euros in reported losses.

Three Months of Disbelief

In Spain, where a power blackout made global headlines this week, mainstream media outlets seem strangely disinterested in the deliberate blackouts inflicted on companies doing business on the internet. Cloudflare, Vercel, GitHub, Amazon, and thousands of innocent internet users and businesses, have been subjected to blocking several times each week, every week. Since February.

Under the authority of a local court order , obtained by LaLiga and Telefonica, IP addresses linked to pirate services are being blocked en masse by local ISPs. The stated aim is to prevent access to pirated live sports streams, but the same IP addresses are also used by thousands of ordinary people and businesses .

Having seen this type of crisis loom on the horizon many times before, at the beginning it seemed that LaLiga’s determination to be heard could’ve resulted in a few shared IP addresses being blocked, effectively for demonstration purposes. While not without risk, a properly calibrated shock and a small amount of panic may have been just enough to break the deadlock.

After 90 days of blocking pirates and anything else in the way, there’s no real panic; just outrage and disappointment at the lack of concern shown by the authorities to those negatively affected. Of course, everything is subject to sudden change in volatile environments; blocking Twitch IP addresses on Saturday seemed unlikely to have had a calming effect.

Yesterday’s blocking wave was once again immaculately documented by hayahora.futbol . Datta confirms that most blocking targeted IP addresses operated by United States-based companies, including Cloudflare, Vercel, and QUIC.cloud.

Providing Transparency

The service provided by hayahora.futbol records blocking in Spain that would otherwise thrive in the shadows. There is no transparency requirement under law but if there’s a case for mandatory transparency, there is no better example than this.

Vercel, which publicly confirmed it would work with LaLiga to prevent its service being blocked again, may be disappointed that at least one ISP still hasn’t deactivated its original blocks (76.76.21.142 / 66.33.60.129) .

Much of the pain yesterday was shouldered by Cloudflare, as partial data obtained from Hayahoro for some of Saturday’s blocking clearly shows.

And it’s going to get worse. Much worse. In fact, escalation is underway right now. No holds barred.

After EUIPO Meetings, ‘All Firewood Thrown on The Grill’

Site Reliability Engineer Sergio Conde works at Tiny Bird Co ., one of the companies whose business was suddenly interrupted following the recent blocking of Vercel IP addresses.

In common with a growing number of computer and coding experts suddenly thrown into the cruel world of pirate site blocking, he now appears to be taking a much closer interest in events playing out in his country.

Conde’s monitoring of blocking by Spain’s major ISPs today leaves little doubt that LaLiga’s priority is the protection of its soccer clubs, period.

The current crisis didn’t begin overnight, and the dangers were clearly visible. Yet in its midst, no authority – competent or otherwise – seems to have the power to end the collateral damage. That all authorities seem to lack even the basic will to encourage moderation to avoid collateral damage, is nothing short of extraordinary.

Discussion Before the Storm

A conference titled The Impact of Piracy on the Audiovisual Industry took place on January 29 at the Madrid headquarters of the Spanish Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. In attendance to present the European Union Intellectual Property Office’s (EUIPO) latest piracy facts and figures, Harrie Temmink had only bad news for Spain.

Piracy figures are not only rising again in Spain, they’re doing so at a rate faster than seen elsewhere in Europe. Many Spaniards believe that if piracy is only for personal use, that is acceptable. As a result, around 21% admit to knowingly consuming pirated content, with a stubborn 6% vowing to always consume pirated content, no matter what.

The Digital Services Act (DSA) is expected to play a wider role in the fight against online piracy. Temmink described the Directive as one of the “greatest triumphs” in the battle against piracy and noted that it “makes all online platforms safer and more reliable for users.”

How to prevent anti-piracy work that can make all sites instantly less reliable, including those that have nothing whatsoever to do with the DSA, will probably need more time to think through. However, the issue of IP address blocking was raised during the conference by Lara Pérez-Caminha, the president of the Association of Independent Film Distributors (Adicine).

Noting that LaLiga and Movistar worked extremely hard to obtain a court order to block IP addresses to protect live sports, having something similar to protect the film industry could prove beneficial, Pérez-Caminha said.

Within Days, LaLiga Blocks Cloudflare

Days after this event for the film industry, LaLiga started a campaign that continues today; blocking IP addresses used by pirate sites that are also used by innocent parties.

On March 28, LaLiga reported that it had attended a meeting in Madrid, to “share relevant information on how the illegal distribution of sports content is carried out and how business models surrounding this criminal activity operate.” Also in attendance, representatives from the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO), and members of the European Parliament.

Any claim that those in attendance had no knowledge of events playing out in Spain fail to appreciate the depth of the EU’s influence on regulatory matters. Yet while the public announcement addressed the impact of live sports piracy and emphasized that collaboration with the EU will address the challenges ahead, the elephant in the room was nowhere to be seen, or heard.

Not only was the crisis facing ordinary members of the public and business communities never mentioned, the announcement boiled down to just two issues: protect live sports and immediately compel intermediaries to action.

No commentary addressed the importance of safeguarding the rights of citizens and other businesses in the EU.

Actions Speak Louder

It would be naive to expect a warts-and-all press release that addressed positives and potential negatives that could help or harm the fight against piracy. There’s always a need to discuss such matters in private and some things are clearly better left at the negotiating table, not aired for the entertainment of the media.

Whether the situation was mentioned, or not mentioned, is impossible to say. Arguably, that isn’t the test that matters. Whatever was said, or not said, only the actions post March 30 can demonstrate whether LaLiga felt more or less restrained by the EU, at least in the event any opinion was made clear either way.

Perhaps the issue was mentioned last week, we really don’t know.

If it was discussed at all, there was no restraining effect observed today during the Real Madrid match. That the effort appears to have been doubled over yesterday’s action, raises more questions on top of existing concerns.

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

Online piracy is a constant headache for copyright holders; one that’s particularly difficult to beat.

Due to those who run pirate sites often ignoring takedown requests, copyright holders also target search engines and other online platforms that inadvertently help users to find pirated content.

Search engine removals are not new and Google has documented this process for more than a decade. Initially, the company only received a few thousand removal requests per day, but this number has grown spectacularly over the years.

Link-Busters: Breaking Takedown Records

Copyright holders typically outsource this work to third-party companies that scan the web for links to pirated material. Link-Busters is one of these companies, one that has swiftly dominated the market in terms of output.

Domiciled in Amsterdam, Netherlands, Link-Busters has been in business for more than a decade. When sending a few million takedowns per year just a few years ago, it barely stood out. Today it can reach those numbers in a matter of hours.

Google’s transparency report reveals that the takedown company has just reached a new milestone after reporting its three billionth pirate URL to Google. This is up from ‘just’ one billion last July , which was already a record number for a reporting agency.

Today, Link-Busters is responsible for sending more than half of all takedown requests received by Google. Since the search engine started counting takedown notices in 2012, it has processed a little over 12 billion reported URLs, of which roughly a quarter appeared in the Dutch company’s requests.

Protecting Publishers in a Proxy Battle

These impressive figures stand out even more when considering that Link-Busters’ notices are largely sent on behalf of publishers. These include Penguin Random House, HarperCollins, Taylor & Francis, Hachette, all of which have been clients for many years.

The recent increase in takedown notices started to take shape in the fall of 2023, right around the time when the U.S. Government announced its criminal prosecution of Z-Library. This doesn’t appear to be a coincidence.

The Z-Library crackdown took down many of the site’s domain names, but it also spurred the launch of alternative platforms, including Anna’s Archive. And when Z-Library returned with hundreds of new domain names, each with millions of URLs, the need for enforcement action increased.

Paired with ongoing site blocking efforts, this resulted in an ongoing battle against proxies and alternative domains that continues to this day. A few weeks ago, Link-Busters was averaging more than 70 million reported URLs per week, which translates to 10 million per day.

Responses

Given this remarkable track record, we have reached out to Link-Busters on several occasions, hoping to get additional background and context on its achievements. Thus far, we’ve never received a response.

Luckily for Link-Busters, Google does respond to its takedown requests. Of all URLs reported, more than 2.6 billion were removed from Google search. Another 351 million have yet to appear in Google search, but were preemptively blacklisted.

Google refused to take down 19 million URLs (0.6%) and 21 million reported links (0.7%) were duplicates. This is a pretty decent track record in terms of accuracy.

Whether Link-Busters will continue to report a staggering number of pirate URLs will, ironically enough, largely depend on the survival rate of the pirate book libraries it targets. If these sites stop responding to the takedown efforts by launching new domains, potential targets will eventually disappear.

Thus far, however, there is no sign that Link-Busters will be out of business anytime soon.

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

When site-blocking is publicized by those who acquire an injunction, attention tends to be carefully drawn towards key messaging.

Being seen to take action against piracy is a public reminder to pirate sites and suppliers that rightsholders are always watching. At the top of the supply chain that’s unlikely to act as a deterrent but lower down, where resellers and the public are much more exposed, even a pause for thought could prove useful.

In broad terms, anti-piracy announcements in this context are more easily framed as regular advertising. New and improved, whatever couldn’t be wiped away last time will now meet our toughest formula yet. So capitulate now, because we are going nowhere.

Blocking in Belgium

News of yet another blocking order in Belgium early April, obtained by DAZN and 12th Player, arrived via local media. No misdirection, just facts that combined to form an interesting, credible account of progress via a new type of injunction.

Notable was a not-so-veiled warning for DNS providers. Among the few details of the order made public was confirmation that it included penalties of €100,000 per day for any DNS provider that failed to prevent access to around 100+ streaming sites. Having responded to similar orders to block DNS in France and Portugal by leaving those countries, OpenDNS left Belgium too .

The new order was described as “the first of its kind,” and a “real step forward” in the fight against piracy. But was that the work of the marketing department or a measured fact-based assessment?

Court Order RR/25/00020: Game Changer or the Same Game?

Filed on March 25, 2025, by S.R.L. The 12th Player and DAZN Limited at the Chamber of Presidential Competence in Brussels, the petition for ISP and third-party DNS blocking establishes the fundamentals on well-trodden ground.

The applicants hold the necessary rights to the content in question and to a background of rising infringement in Belgium and an alleged piracy rate nearing 50%, they requested an order to disrupt the supply of infringing content.

The subsequent order dated March 28, 2025, spends almost no time on the first group of respondents; local ISPs VOO, Orange Belgium, Proximus, Telenet, and DIGI Communications Belgium. With their cooperation already established, the Court describes how users turn to alternative DNS providers to circumvent the ISPs’ blocking measures.

[T]he Complainants rightly argue that in order for domain name blocking measures to be effective, it is essential to target not only Internet access providers, but also providers of alternative domain name resolution systems providing their services in Belgium. Legal doctrine and case law confirm that the notion of intermediary is broadly defined.

The intermediaries in question – Cloudflare, Google LLC and Google Ireland Ltd, Cisco Systems and Cisco OpenDNS – form the second category of respondents. It’s understood that Cloudflare, Google, and Cisco opposed their involvement in the petition on various grounds. The specifics are absent from the order but suffice to say, all objections against blocking were rejected.

The Proposed Measures

DAZN’s claim that the order is a “real step forward” is supported by permission from the Court to compel blocking by third party DNS services. This type of blocking has been ordered previously, notably against Cloudflare in Italy and more recently at the request of Canal+ in France , but as a mainstream tool it’s still in its infancy.

History has shown that having gained momentum in one or two key member states, measures like these spread more quickly to others in the bloc. Approval in Belgium makes that much more likely.

Belgium already has experience of so-called ‘static blocking’ against stationary targets but is a relative newcomer to the ‘dynamic blocking’ requested here. Injunctions like these bake in flexibility from the start in preparation for various pirate countermeasures.

As clarified in the order: “The aim is to target not only the domain names identified in the request, but also any domain names circumventing the blocking measures, via redirects and/or mirror sites and/or ‘copycats’. The blocking measures will therefore be regularly updated.”

Confidential Pirate Trademarks

Attention then turns to a ‘confidential’ aspect of the order dealing with the issue of blocking sites based on their appearance.

More specifically, sites that lack an individual identity of their own but gain popularity through the use of ‘pirate trademarks’, usually familiar logos and/or domains containing recognizable site names.

Already part of injunctions in countries including the UK and Australia , targeting new sites based on their use of already familiar ‘pirate’ brands, usually offering the same content, took surprisingly long to arrive.

An inevitable response to some piracy groups turning to mass production of sites to frustrate blocking, mitigate search engine downranking, and in some cases to usurp trust in another brand for malicious purposes , brand-based blocking can suppress a range of time-consuming irritants.

Brand-blocking wasn’t advertised as a plus by DAZN but as part of a package, it does indeed amount to another step forward.

The Balance of Interests

With events currently playing out in Spain suggesting that basic rights and freedoms exist only with caveats , faith may need to be restored in balance of interests tests.

That being said, the Court indicates “that after weighing up the interests, rights and freedoms at stake, including the general interest, the facts and, where applicable, the documents on which the applicant relies are such as to reasonably justify the provisional measures requested.”

The Court arrived at the following conclusions:

• Users are in no way deprived of access to the content concerned on legal offers;
• Blocking targets are structurally infringing and do not host any legal content;
• The blocking measures requested constitute a proportionate and effective response
• Impact of measures limited to the violations observed

Blocking Notices

Anyone visiting one of the blocked sites within the court’s jurisdiction should be diverted to a blocking page. The page should provide information to explain why a visit to a pirate site didn’t produce the expected result.

Pirate site redirects should lead to a government website, but in some cases users may find themselves worrying about attackers instead.

How many visitors see the official piracy warning rather than a broken website is unknown; the same certificate issue has persisted for several weeks, leading to a warning that the government’s website could steal citizens’ personal information.

Those who look a little closer might notice that the server has been given a fun name to brighten visitors’ day. Or maybe it’s a cunning way to boost trademark awareness; we may never know. In any event, duties to address these issues are clearly allocated, so along with being monitored, there’s much to draw comfort from.

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

Following its launch in 2016, Fmovies presented a major threat to Hollywood and after years online, it was one that seemed near impossible to defeat.

The site’s operators were linked to dozens of popular pirate sites, together generating billions of visits annually.

While the MPA’s anti-piracy flagship ACE tied the operation to Vietnam early on, an effective shutdown proved to be unusually complicated. In addition to gathering intelligence, Hollywood’s diplomatic powers were required to force a breakthrough.

Last summer, these efforts paid off handsomely; or so it appeared. After the main Fmovies site fell apart in July , related streaming portals including Bflix, Aniwave, and Zorox fell like dominoes in the weeks after, with ACE taking partial credit for the closures.

The enforcement action didn’t stop there. Vietnamese authorities eventually arrested two suspects in the case; Phan Thành Công, who allegedly ran Fmovies between 2016 and 2024, and Nguyen Tuan Anh, an accomplice who allegedly uploaded 50,000 videos.

The arrests, paired with follow-up confessions by both men, appeared to be great news for Hollywood and other rightsholders. However, the question remained whether others would be deterred from operating similar piracy rings in Vietnam.

USTR: Vietnam Perceived as a Piracy Haven

Earlier this week, the Office of the United States Trade Representative ( USTR ) published its latest Special 301 Report, highlighting countries that fail to live up to U.S. copyright protection standards. Despite the Fmovies crackdown, Vietnam remains a prime concern.

The USTR writes that Vietnam remains on its “Watch List” since there has been little or no progress on many other intellectual property concerns. At the same time, doubts remain over the effectiveness of local anti-piracy prosecutions.

The USTR highlights two successful criminal convictions last year; one against the operator of BestBuyIPTV , and another targeting the admins of Bilutv.net, Tvhayh.org, and Hiss.pro. While these convictions were rare for Vietnam, they resulted in relatively mild suspended sentences.

These prosecutions don’t appear to have sent shockwaves to other pirate site operators in the country, USTR notes, adding that Vietnam is seen as a piracy haven.

“[E]ven with recent law enforcement actions, Vietnam remains a leading source of online piracy and continues to host some of the most popular English-language copyright infringement sites and services in the world, targeting a global audience,” USTR writes.

“The operators of these sites and services are believed to operate from Vietnam in part because of the perception that the country is a haven for online piracy.”

Stunning Victory or Token Gesture?

The MPA and ACE previously characterized the Fmovies shutdown as a “stunning victory” but they too must be frustrated with the lack of change in the local piracy landscape. Just a few months ago, the MPA listed Hianime and 2embed as notorious pirate operations; both sites are believed to operate from Vietnam.

At the same time, there are serious doubts that prosecutions will lead to convictions that are sufficient to deter other pirate site operators. This includes the prospect of financial penalties that may seem low relative to the scale of the operation.

The USTR sees the challenges ahead, and it urges Vietnam to step up its enforcement game. This includes more prosecutions of pirate site operators as well as tougher punishments, including prison sentences and steep fines.

“In order to have a deterrent effect, Vietnam enforcement authorities should bring more criminal cases against significant piracy sites and consider seeking prison sentences, monetary fines, and other criminal penalties at the higher levels that are available under Vietnamese law,” USTR writes.

This recommendation must be music to the ears of the MPA and the Hollywood group did indeed welcome the USTR report.

“The MPA commends the team at USTR and its interagency partners for identifying harmful practices, combating copyright infringement in foreign markets, and renewing its commitment to countering digital piracy worldwide,” MPA CEO Charles Rivkin says.

MPA’s comments don’t mention Vietnam or the Fmovies case, however. This is understandable, as there are likely diplomatic talks in progress behind the scenes. While the U.S. has recently shown that playing offense can be one strategy to get things done, sometimes a more subtle approach can still be preferred.

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A copy of the USTR’s full 2025 Special 301 Report is available here (pdf) .

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

In 2015, Portugal’s General Inspectorate of Cultural Activities (IGAC) finalized an agreement hailed as a groundbreaking development in the fight against online piracy.

A multi-industry memorandum of understanding saw rightsholders, anti-piracy group MAPINET, ISP group Apritel, and DNS.pt, the organization responsible for .PT domains, team up with advertising companies and consumer groups to fight piracy – together.

Based on reports from rightsholders, MAPINET filed monthly complaints to IGAC and within 15 days, ISPs voluntarily blocked pirate sites and advertisers took measures to prevent ad placement.

The Pirate Bay had been previously blocked by court order, but with judicial oversight no longer a requirement under the voluntary program, progress was swift. Within weeks major torrent sites including KickassTorrents, ExtraTorrent, Isohunt, YTS and RARBG, were blocked, along with streaming portals Watchseries, Primewire, and many more besides.

Portugal was on a roll and impressing powerful rightsholders with its reported efficiency.

Portugal’s Success Promoted to Spain and France

In 2016, it was reported that the Portuguese model was considered so effective that Hollywood had begun promoting it to other countries, including Spain and France. After just six months, 330 sites were on the blocklist and according to rightsholders, Portugal’s program was receiving international recognition for its streamlined blocking process.

Noting a “special efficiency” based on results versus costs of litigation, visits to pirate sites had been reportedly slashed by “ at least 60% ” already. In 2017, a study commissioned by the then-MPAA reported that usage of the top 250 pirate sites in Portugal had decreased 9.3 percent overall , while a control group showed that the same sites enjoyed a 30.8 percent increase in usage globally.

In 2019, the MoU was amended to allow for swift blocking of pirated streams of live sporting events, meaning that Portugal had access to the full range of blocking instruments; static, dynamic, and live. New law that came into force in 2022 added regulatory authority (IGAC) to the existing voluntary program and formalized obligations for intermediaries to address removal of infringing content.

Portugal Keeps on Blocking

Our most recent view of blocking activity in Portugal dates back to last November. Since official information isn’t made available to the public, reliance is placed on third-party resources’ best estimates.

The table of around 3,000 domains blocked since 2015 at the end of this article is likely incomplete. However, in light of Apritel’s statement concerning what it claims is a disastrous piracy situation in the country, the details are important when trying to process the bigger picture.

Apritel begins by reporting on data previously published by the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO); 288,000 households in Portugal access paid piracy services (including pirate IPTV) every month, and around one million citizens have at some point consumed pirated content.

“Sports content leads the way in inappropriate consumption: 48% in the EU and 54% in Portugal,” Apritel explains, referencing the percentage of the population that have consumed pirated live sports streams at least once.

The telecoms group continues with additional information sourced from EU reports and covers the now-common talking points about the nature of pirate sites; the security risks faced by the people who use them, for example. Yet the thing that stands out most is actually notable for its puzzling absence.

Gold Standard Blocking System, Zero Mention of Blocking

Depending on the occasion, site-blocking is sometimes described as “just one of the tools in a broader anti-piracy toolbox” or more often one of the most essential tools available to rightsholders, period.

Portugal is as decorated as they come in respect of site blocking; if there was an Oscar for DNS tampering, Portugal would’ve received one a decade ago. Yet when describing the dire piracy situation in the country, Apritel doesn’t mention site blocking directly at all. The closest it gets is with a comment about VPNs noting that it’s “essential that no one gets left out.”

Instead, Apritel calls for urgent reform of the “Portuguese legislative framework and current practices by the competent authorities,” based on four fundamental points.

• Raising awareness among users of the illegality and risks of piracy;
• Systematically identifying/penalizing illegal exploitation of content via streaming/IPTV;
• Notifying and warning consumers as a first deterrent measure;
• Applying simple and swift financial sanctions to repeat offenders.

Since site-blocking measures aren’t directly addressed, to what extent they had an effect is difficult to say. That being said, it seems safe to assume that regardless of performance, a blocking program once described as the model for others to follow, simply wasn’t effective enough to prevent a new piracy crisis. If indeed the last one ever went away.

Punishing Pirates

What Portugal should do now, Apritel says, is put pirate consumers under pressure; warnings to begin, then sanctions for consumers who repeatedly don’t get the message.

“Several European countries — Germany, Spain, France, Greece, Denmark and Italy — have already implemented effective ‘Cease & Desist’ systems, with different models, which consist of formal warnings to consumers, supervised by competent authorities,” Apritel explains.

“In Portugal, this function would be the responsibility of the Inspectorate-General for Cultural Activities (IGAC), never that of electronic communications operators, as is wrongly believed. The data shows that illegal consumption per capita is significantly lower in countries that have adopted these tools. Why is this not being done here as well?”

The above caveat ‘with different models’ is worth a brief explanation. France has operated a system of warnings and sanctions for the past 15 years. Greece passed new law only recently but seems keen to start fining IPTV pirates as quickly as possible.

Italy passed new law in 2023 which supports small fines for an initial offense, increasing to 5,000 euros maximum for repeat offenders. At the time of writing, there are no reports of fines having been issued but pirate IPTV users are likely to be the first targets. Fines of around 70 euros are expected.

To our knowledge, Germany and Denmark have no comparable warning/fine systems in place for tackling piracy; what both have in common (Germany in particular) are histories of aggressive rightsholders using existing copyright law to squeeze cash settlements from the public.

Uptake of Legal Services Was Impressive

Apparently timed to coincide with the blocking of major pirate sites, in October 2015 and after a long wait, Netflix finally launched in Portugal. Estimates in 2023 suggested that around 4.5 million people in Portugal were consuming legal content from legitimate services, with Netflix easily the most popular.

The Streaming Platform Barometer – BStream – is a regular study to monitor the awareness and consumption of on-demand streaming services in Portugal. The most recent edition reported early February 2025 found that 52% of Portuguese people (15+ years old) are now consuming content via streaming platforms, the highest figure since the study began.

While this year’s figure shows a 10% increase over that reported in 2021, it represents growth over last year of just one percentage point; the market is slowing down.

Prices Travel in One Direction

When Netflix launched in Portugal in 2015, a basic single screen subscription cost €7.99 per month; two screen HD cost €9.99, and a premium plan of four screens in Ultra HD cost €11.99. That’s a lot more than the zero paid out when visiting pirate sites, so considering the millions who subsequently went legal, that’s not bad at all.

Due to the imposition of advertising and other shifts in service, direct comparisons today are less straightforward. However, the base subscription now costs €8.99, the ‘standard’ plan costs €12.99, and the ‘Premium’ plan costs €17.99, up from €15.99 at the last increase. Netflix also charges €4.99 for any additional viewers who aren’t under the same roof; when added together, the pressure appears to be on those who lightened the load by sharing the costs.

Consumers obtaining dramatic cost reductions via alternative means is apparently a concern once again. Depending on who receives the money, fines seem unlikely to increase consumers’ disposable income, or make them more receptive to industry outreach.

More blocking?

Consisting of blocking data compiled and publicly made available by sitesbloqueados.pt (offline at the time of writing), the ~3,000 domains in the table below should be considered an incomplete set. The list may also contain a relatively small number of domains blocked for reasons other than piracy. We have already removed around 300 domains blocked for gambling reasons, but we may not have identified them all.

No domains blocked in the last six months are included, and we understand that relatively few domains were added between November 2023 and November 2024

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

The internet has made video entertainment more accessible than ever before. With plenty of legal streaming services releasing new content every week, there’s no shortage of options.

While this is good news, choice brings its own difficulties. Because there are a myriad of legal options available today, paying several monthly subscription fees can become a costly endeavor. As a result, pirate streaming sites and services are thriving.

Hollywood and other copyright holders are trying to tackle this problem through enforcement. This has resulted in both large crackdowns and smaller successes, but new threats are always lurking around the corner. Sometimes they pop up in unexpected places.

A Piracy Optimized Browser?

Browser app Seekee has attracted quite a lot of attention recently, particularly on social media where people have noticed that the app is surprisingly good at accessing pirated content.

The app advertises itself as a fast and safe browser with built-in AI capabilities. While that sounds intriguing, the true appeal appears to lie in its entertainment offering, which is accessible via a single click on the “movies and series” and “animes” tabs.

These tabs take users to an overview of trending content, which can be watched instantly. There’s no indication that Seekee hosts any of the content it links to, but videos from third-party pirated sources are conveniently organized.

In fact, trying to find links to legal alternatives is quite a challenge. When we searched for “The Last of Us”, we had to scroll down past a list of pirate sources, before the Wikipedia and IMDb entries finally appeared .

For good measure, users can also watch the offerings listed by streaming platform, including Netflix, Prime Video, and Max, but links to these official services are not presented anywhere near the top of results.

The videos we checked were being streamed from the unknown h5.swplayer.com domain and similar variants. In addition to subtitles and original audio, many videos are also available with Portuguese and Spanish audio. This may explain why the app is particularly popular in Latin America, both on social media and in the press .

Google Play & iOS App Store

When we started writing this article, the Seekee app had five million downloads in the Google Play store, most of which were added this month. However, it appears that this exposure turned out to be too much. The app was deleted without explanation , possibly following rightsholder complaints. APK versions are still floating around, however.

Update: a new Seekee appeared in the Play Store. As noted below, there are many reasons to avoid these types of apps, including copyright, privacy, and security.

In the iOS store, Seekee remains available for now, listed as a fast and safe browser with intelligent search, AI creation, and multimedia processing. That includes the aforementioned streaming options.

“Easily search for movies and TV resources across the entire network and get accurate and reliable results. With a massive library updated daily, you can seamlessly access entertainment anytime, anywhere,” the iOS listing reads.

The app is published by the Chinese company Xiji Information Technology Co., Ltd, which also has a web presence with a privacy policy and user agreement. We reached out to the company requesting additional information on its unique offering, but we didn’t hear back.

At What Cost?

Aside from copyright concerns, using new apps from unknown developers always comes with risks. In this case, the privacy policy mentions that users have to give up a lot of information, including the following selection of data;

Advertising IDs, cookies, identifiers, IP addresses, social media IDs and profile pictures, IMEI/OAID, GAID numbers, IMSI numbers, MAC addresses, serial numbers, system versions and types, ROM versions, Android versions, Android ID, Space ID, SIM card operator and region, screen display information, device model name, activation time, network operator, connection type, hardware details, sales channels, CPU data, storage info, battery usage, screen resolution, temperature, camera model, and wake/unlock frequency.

Again, that’s just a selection, there is more . And that’s only what is disclosed, there may be more dangerous things going on in the background.

This is a lot of data, and it may very well explain why the app is free; the user and their data are the product.

It is hardly groundbreaking for apps like these to attract millions of users, with help from social media. However, the people who fall for the hype should be aware of the potential risks, dangers, and trade-offs, especially if they are not bombarded by ads.

At the end of the day, someone is making money from the app. In this case, it’s not the people who make the films, series and anime, but some unknown people in a land far, far away.

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

Spotify has certainly come a long way since it allowed us to hand out free invite codes to its beta launch 16 years ago.

With over 600 million monthly active users, across over 180 markets, it is now the world’s most popular music streaming service by a significant margin.

The streaming giant has always positioned itself as a competitor to pirate services, but its success also relied on pirates. In the early days, Spotify allegedly used MP3s from The Pirate Bay to populate its beta service. The notorious Swedish torrent site was instrumental in other ways too.

“If Pirate Bay had not existed or made such a mess in the market, I don’t think Spotify would have seen the light of day. You wouldn’t get the licenses you wanted,” former Sony BMG CEO Per Sundin said a few years ago.

Pirates are Adversaries Now

Today, Spotify is the largest Swedish company according to some metrics, with a market cap of more than $120 billion. The days when it flirted with pirates are long gone and the company is actively shutting down sites and services that bypass its technical restrictions.

The music service doesn’t go after general pirate sites, but focuses on services and tools that target its own product. This includes sellers of premium codes, as well as tools that allow Spotify users to download tracks into their own devices.

These are not typical pirates, as they rely on Spotify’s legal service to function. However, the streaming service clearly isn’t happy with these creative uses of its platform, and regularly sends legal takedown notices in response.

Spotify Dismantles Download Browser Extension

This week, Spotify targeted a Chrome extension that allowed users to download decrypted tracks in high-quality audio formats, including the associated metadata. Fittingly named “ SpotifyDL “, it has been available though GitHub for a few months.

The extension bypassed Spotify’s “PlayPlay” DRM to tackle Spotify’s encryption. It seemed to work as intended, allowing users to download tracks, playlists, or albums with relative ease.

Spotify wasn’t happy with this and the company previously requested GitHub to remove the “un-playplay” code that was used to bypass its decryption. However, the SpotifyDL extension remained functional, until it too was targeted.

The takedown notice doesn’t go into much detail; it simply mentions that the entire repository is infringing and should therefore be removed.

The repository wasn’t removed in its entirety. Before taking action, GitHub allowed developer “cycyrild” to make changes so it would no longer be deemed a problem. In response, cycyrild removed the PlayPlay source code, effectively rendering the extension useless.

“Following a DMCA Takedown Notice from Spotify, I have been forced to remove the source code for the PlayPlay CDM,” the developer writes.

While it is understandable that Spotify wants to protect its rights, and those of its main partners, the company’s shift in focus when it comes to ‘pirates’ is noteworthy.

Similar to Netflix and other streaming services that promised to convert pirates into paying customers, for Spotify, there’s an increasing focus on the challenge ‘pirates’ present, rather than the opportunity.

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