There are dozens of recognizable brands in the illegal streaming market, all jostling for position in a chaotic market where trademarks are copied even more readily than movies or live TV streams.

In Latin America, one brand stands out more than most, and not just because it has a bright orange logo. Believed to operate out of China, illegal streaming service Magis TV is consumed via a now ubiquitous Android app, made available on hundreds of websites, including those operated by a very large network of resellers.

Rightsholders in the United States consider Magis TV a priority threat yet despite various enforcement measures in multiple countries, the service remains stubbornly online.

Law Enforcement Operation in Colombia

On the back of action in Ecuador , Bolivia, Brazil and Argentina in recent months, police in Colombia targeted people involved in the supply of Magis TV earlier this week.

Information released by the Attorney General’s Office indicates that two brothers, arrested after being tracked by the Specialized Directorate Against Computer Crimes, had been providing access to illegal TV streams under the brands ‘Magis TV’ and ‘Magis Oficial.’

In common with the majority of similar cases, the pair stand accused of violating the intellectual property rights of multinational entertainment companies.

While operations like these aren’t especially rare, the charges faced by the brothers go beyond copyright infringement.

Piracy and Malicious Software Charges

“The brothers Juan Diego and José Daniel Santacruz Benavidez were arrested following investigations carried out by the CTI and the National Police in Pasto (Nariño). These people were brought before a judge and charged with the crimes of violation of copyright and use of malicious software,” the official statement reads.

“Those interested in acquiring these tools, called ‘Magis TV’ and ‘Magis Official’, accessed two websites to download them and thus access the audiovisual offer; however, they also installed malicious software on their devices that enabled the camera, alerted about the user’s geolocation, and facilitated the transmission of personal data, photographs and videos, to external storage.”

As previously reported , cybersecurity firm ESET previously linked Magis TV to malware and botnets. As far as we’re aware, these data exfiltration claims are new but since the Magis TV app comes in many shapes and sizes, there’s no one-size-fits-all analysis that applies across the board.

Malware Claims Gain Credibility in Colombia

Rightsholders have fully embraced malware warnings as part of their deterrent messaging in recent years. Unfortunately, the manner in which those claims are delivered meets a credibility crisis that’s difficult to overcome.

On one hand, malware and similar issues are portrayed as incredibly serious for consumers. Yet when other piracy risks are discussed in parallel – such as being arrested by the police for simply watching pirate IPTV – the emphasis is suddenly back on a comparatively minor crime for which the police continually find the resources.

The end result is a stream of pirates prosecuted for copyright infringement or fraud repeatedly hitting the headlines. Meanwhile, prosecutions for spreading malware, stealing identities, and other serious offenses, are completely non-existent.

Through this action, malware warnings have just become instantly more credible; they may even find support among the public.

Enforcement Action in Ecuador

The war against Magis TV in Ecuador has been underway for some time, with numerous blocking orders attempting to prevent access to dozens, if not hundreds of websites.

Information released by police on Wednesday announced the arrest of a man in the province of Guayas, said to be behind “one of the largest illegal streaming providers.” When contacted by local publication Primicias seeking clarification, police confirmed that this operation also targeted Magis TV.

A short video posted to X by Ecuadorian Police, is a reminder that the IT Crowd’s parody of ‘Piracy, It’s a Crime’ just a few years ago, is now just one restless finger away from becoming reality.

An Extra.ec report published late Wednesday identifies Javier Eduardo López Cassan as the man arrested. He’s described as an “administrator of Magis TV” but what that means here is unclear. Resellers commonly have their own Magis TV-branded websites while others sell via social media; 51-year-old Cassan sold via WhatsApp and other platforms, police confirmed.

In any event, police weren’t taking anything for granted, as the video shows.

“More than 20 agents from different units participated in the operation, including the National Cybercrime Unit, the G3 Tactical Group of Guayaquil, plus Criminalistics and the Law Enforcement Unit (UMO). According to the Judiciary, López Cassan already had a criminal record for concealing stolen objects and had two legal proceedings for failure to comply with alimony obligations,” the publication reported.

Whether copyright charges will feature in this case isn’t made clear but according to the authorities, cybercrime offenses most certainly will. Cassan is facing charges of ‘unauthorized access to a computer, telematic or telecommunications system,’ which carries a potential sentence of between three and five years in prison.

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

There are dozens of recognizable brands in the illegal streaming market, all jostling for position in a chaotic market where trademarks are copied even more readily than movies or live TV streams.

In Latin America, one brand stands out more than most, and not just because it has a bright orange logo. Believed to operate out of China, illegal streaming service Magis TV is consumed via a now ubiquitous Android app, made available on hundreds of websites, including those operated by a very large network of resellers.

Rightsholders in the United States consider Magis TV a priority threat yet despite various enforcement measures in multiple countries, the service remains stubbornly online.

Law Enforcement Operation in Colombia

On the back of action in Ecuador , Bolivia, Brazil and Argentina in recent months, police in Colombia targeted people involved in the supply of Magis TV earlier this week.

Information released by the Attorney General’s Office indicates that two brothers, arrested after being tracked by the Specialized Directorate Against Computer Crimes, had been providing access to illegal TV streams under the brands ‘Magis TV’ and ‘Magis Oficial.’

In common with the majority of similar cases, the pair stand accused of violating the intellectual property rights of multinational entertainment companies.

While operations like these aren’t especially rare, the charges faced by the brothers go beyond copyright infringement.

Piracy and Malicious Software Charges

“The brothers Juan Diego and José Daniel Santacruz Benavidez were arrested following investigations carried out by the CTI and the National Police in Pasto (Nariño). These people were brought before a judge and charged with the crimes of violation of copyright and use of malicious software,” the official statement reads.

“Those interested in acquiring these tools, called ‘Magis TV’ and ‘Magis Official’, accessed two websites to download them and thus access the audiovisual offer; however, they also installed malicious software on their devices that enabled the camera, alerted about the user’s geolocation, and facilitated the transmission of personal data, photographs and videos, to external storage.”

As previously reported , cybersecurity firm ESET previously linked Magis TV to malware and botnets. As far as we’re aware, these data exfiltration claims are new but since the Magis TV app comes in many shapes and sizes, there’s no one-size-fits-all analysis that applies across the board.

Malware Claims Gain Credibility in Colombia

Rightsholders have fully embraced malware warnings as part of their deterrent messaging in recent years. Unfortunately, the manner in which those claims are delivered meets a credibility crisis that’s difficult to overcome.

On one hand, malware and similar issues are portrayed as incredibly serious for consumers. Yet when other piracy risks are discussed in parallel – such as being arrested by the police for simply watching pirate IPTV – the emphasis is suddenly back on a comparatively minor crime for which the police continually find the resources.

The end result is a stream of pirates prosecuted for copyright infringement or fraud repeatedly hitting the headlines. Meanwhile, prosecutions for spreading malware, stealing identities, and other serious offenses, are completely non-existent.

Through this action, malware warnings have just become instantly more credible; they may even find support among the public.

Enforcement Action in Ecuador

The war against Magis TV in Ecuador has been underway for some time, with numerous blocking orders attempting to prevent access to dozens, if not hundreds of websites.

Information released by police on Wednesday announced the arrest of a man in the province of Guayas, said to be behind “one of the largest illegal streaming providers.” When contacted by local publication Primicias seeking clarification, police confirmed that this operation also targeted Magis TV.

A short video posted to X by Ecuadorian Police, is a reminder that the IT Crowd’s parody of ‘Piracy, It’s a Crime’ just a few years ago, is now just one restless finger away from becoming reality.

An Extra.ec report published late Wednesday identifies Javier Eduardo López Cassan as the man arrested. He’s described as an “administrator of Magis TV” but what that means here is unclear. Resellers commonly have their own Magis TV-branded websites while others sell via social media; 51-year-old Cassan sold via WhatsApp and other platforms, police confirmed.

In any event, police weren’t taking anything for granted, as the video shows.

“More than 20 agents from different units participated in the operation, including the National Cybercrime Unit, the G3 Tactical Group of Guayaquil, plus Criminalistics and the Law Enforcement Unit (UMO). According to the Judiciary, López Cassan already had a criminal record for concealing stolen objects and had two legal proceedings for failure to comply with alimony obligations,” the publication reported.

Whether copyright charges will feature in this case isn’t made clear but according to the authorities, cybercrime offenses most certainly will. Cassan is facing charges of ‘unauthorized access to a computer, telematic or telecommunications system,’ which carries a potential sentence of between three and five years in prison.

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

There are dozens of recognizable brands in the illegal streaming market, all jostling for position in a chaotic market where trademarks are copied even more readily than movies or live TV streams.

In Latin America, one brand stands out more than most, and not just because it has a bright orange logo. Believed to operate out of China, illegal streaming service Magis TV is consumed via a now ubiquitous Android app, made available on hundreds of websites, including those operated by a very large network of resellers.

Rightsholders in the United States consider Magis TV a priority threat yet despite various enforcement measures in multiple countries, the service remains stubbornly online.

Law Enforcement Operation in Colombia

On the back of action in Ecuador , Bolivia, Brazil and Argentina in recent months, police in Colombia targeted people involved in the supply of Magis TV earlier this week.

Information released by the Attorney General’s Office indicates that two brothers, arrested after being tracked by the Specialized Directorate Against Computer Crimes, had been providing access to illegal TV streams under the brands ‘Magis TV’ and ‘Magis Oficial.’

In common with the majority of similar cases, the pair stand accused of violating the intellectual property rights of multinational entertainment companies.

While operations like these aren’t especially rare, the charges faced by the brothers go beyond copyright infringement.

Piracy and Malicious Software Charges

“The brothers Juan Diego and José Daniel Santacruz Benavidez were arrested following investigations carried out by the CTI and the National Police in Pasto (Nariño). These people were brought before a judge and charged with the crimes of violation of copyright and use of malicious software,” the official statement reads.

“Those interested in acquiring these tools, called ‘Magis TV’ and ‘Magis Official’, accessed two websites to download them and thus access the audiovisual offer; however, they also installed malicious software on their devices that enabled the camera, alerted about the user’s geolocation, and facilitated the transmission of personal data, photographs and videos, to external storage.”

As previously reported , cybersecurity firm ESET previously linked Magis TV to malware and botnets. As far as we’re aware, these data exfiltration claims are new but since the Magis TV app comes in many shapes and sizes, there’s no one-size-fits-all analysis that applies across the board.

Malware Claims Gain Credibility in Colombia

Rightsholders have fully embraced malware warnings as part of their deterrent messaging in recent years. Unfortunately, the manner in which those claims are delivered meets a credibility crisis that’s difficult to overcome.

On one hand, malware and similar issues are portrayed as incredibly serious for consumers. Yet when other piracy risks are discussed in parallel – such as being arrested by the police for simply watching pirate IPTV – the emphasis is suddenly back on a comparatively minor crime for which the police continually find the resources.

The end result is a stream of pirates prosecuted for copyright infringement or fraud repeatedly hitting the headlines. Meanwhile, prosecutions for spreading malware, stealing identities, and other serious offenses, are completely non-existent.

Through this action, malware warnings have just become instantly more credible; they may even find support among the public.

Enforcement Action in Ecuador

The war against Magis TV in Ecuador has been underway for some time, with numerous blocking orders attempting to prevent access to dozens, if not hundreds of websites.

Information released by police on Wednesday announced the arrest of a man in the province of Guayas, said to be behind “one of the largest illegal streaming providers.” When contacted by local publication Primicias seeking clarification, police confirmed that this operation also targeted Magis TV.

A short video posted to X by Ecuadorian Police, is a reminder that the IT Crowd’s parody of ‘Piracy, It’s a Crime’ just a few years ago, is now just one restless finger away from becoming reality.

An Extra.ec report published late Wednesday identifies Javier Eduardo López Cassan as the man arrested. He’s described as an “administrator of Magis TV” but what that means here is unclear. Resellers commonly have their own Magis TV-branded websites while others sell via social media; 51-year-old Cassan sold via WhatsApp and other platforms, police confirmed.

In any event, police weren’t taking anything for granted, as the video shows.

“More than 20 agents from different units participated in the operation, including the National Cybercrime Unit, the G3 Tactical Group of Guayaquil, plus Criminalistics and the Law Enforcement Unit (UMO). According to the Judiciary, López Cassan already had a criminal record for concealing stolen objects and had two legal proceedings for failure to comply with alimony obligations,” the publication reported.

Whether copyright charges will feature in this case isn’t made clear but according to the authorities, cybercrime offenses most certainly will. Cassan is facing charges of ‘unauthorized access to a computer, telematic or telecommunications system,’ which carries a potential sentence of between three and five years in prison.

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

After eight years of unprecedented uptime and reliability, the collapse and eventual demise of pirate streaming giant FMovies looked much like the demise of any other.

Cracks first started to emerge in June 2024 when the site stopped updating with new content. A few weeks later in mid-July, FMovies disappeared entirely, without any explanation from its operators or indeed anyone else. An announcement at the end of August confirmed what many had suspected, however.

The Motion Picture Association (MPA) and anti-piracy coalition Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) revealed that they had collaborated with Hanoi Police to shut down the FMovies operation, which included ‘sister’ sites AniWave, Bflixz, Flixtorz, Movies7, and Myflixer.

According to ACE, the FMovies empire was the largest piracy ring in the world , attracting more than 6.7 billion visits between January 2023 and June 2024 alone. Charles Rivkin, MPA CEO and Chairman of ACE, described the dismantling of FMovies as “a stunning victory for casts, crews, writers, directors, studios, and the creative community across the globe.”

Authorities in Vietnam Break Silence

The MPA/ACE announcement late August contained praise for Vietnamese authorities but no official statement from them. Initial reports late August didn’t provide details on any arrests either, but it later transpired that two people connected to FMovies had been detained.

After more than two months of silence, local authorities have now released additional information on the investigation and the two men previously arrested. They also confirm that a decision has been made to prosecute the case and both suspects.

The Investigation and Identification of Suspects

Responding to allegations made by the Hollywood studios, the Economic Police Department, in coordination with departments of the Hanoi City Police, launched an investigation to confirm the suspects’ identities and relevant background information.

Police say that documents and other evidence was obtained to clarify the suspects’ operational methods and to confirm their roles in the FMovies operation.

Hanoi City Police now confirm the following:

• Suspect 1: Phan Thanh Cong, 34, is a resident of Mo Lao ward, Ha Dong district, Hanoi.

He is described as the “mastermind, leader, creator, operator, and manager” of the “FMovies website system” which allegedly offered almost 50,000 films to the public, in many cases violating MPA members’ rights.

Authorities also reveal that the suspect was “administratively disciplined for similar behavior” in the past, but the offending was not described in detail.

• Suspect 2: Nguyen Tuan Anh, also 34 and a resident of Mo Lao ward, Ha Dong district, Hanoi, is described as an accomplice/assistant.

It’s claimed he was responsible for illegally copying around 50,000 films and posting them to FMovies and its ‘sister’ websites. In many cases, this violated MPA members’ rights.

Other Findings of the Investigation

According to local police, the offending began in 2016, with the suspects illegally earning “hundreds of thousands of US dollars” before the operation was shut down in August 2024. The authorities claim that during questioning, both men confessed in full to all alleged crimes.

The Investigation Police Agency at Hanoi City Police says it has issued a decision to prosecute the case. Phan Thanh Cong and Nguyen Tuan Anh will be prosecuted for infringement of copyright and related rights under Clause 2, Section 225, Penal Code 2015. What that means for those arrested is currently unclear; the necessary details are yet to be released and almost everything turns on those details.

Commercial Scale Offending?

Section 225 relates to the unlawful copying and/or distribution of infringing copies of audiovisual works, without obtaining permission from rightsholders, on a ‘commercial scale’. That term is not clearly defined. Instead, indications are given in terms of illegal profits, such as VND 50,000,000 (just under $US2,000) or damage to rightsholders of VND 100,000,000 (just under US$4,000).

Profits of “hundreds of thousands of US dollars” does seem to qualify but any predictions on how things might eventually play out would be pure guesswork at this stage and most likely unhelpful.

The framework of penalties is complicated and varies according to the scale and nature of the offending, which isn’t straightforward either. Fines seeem to vary from VND 50,000,000 (just under US$2,000) to VND 300,000,000 (just under US$12,000) and a non-custodial sentence, up to VND 1,000,000,000 (just under US$395,000) and a custodial sentence of between six months and three years, depending on the presence of any specified aggravating factors.

Yet as Phan Thanh Cong apparently knows from experience, the authorities might prefer to impose administrative measures. We just don’t know and the information being made available right now is simply insufficient. It’s possible that MPA/ACE have a clearer idea, but it’s highly unlikely any public comments will be made during an ongoing prosecution.

Letter of Thanks Sent From U.S. to Vietnam

What happens moving forward in this process is clearly very important to the United States and the studios in particular.

A police video released in connection with the news above skims the following letter. We had to stitch it back together to make it readable, but the sentiment is clear; the United States is very grateful for the assistance and at least thus far, satisfied with the direction of the relationship and the case.

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

After eight years of unprecedented uptime and reliability, the collapse and eventual demise of pirate streaming giant FMovies looked much like the demise of any other.

Cracks first started to emerge in June 2024 when the site stopped updating with new content. A few weeks later in mid-July, FMovies disappeared entirely, without any explanation from its operators or indeed anyone else. An announcement at the end of August confirmed what many had suspected, however.

The Motion Picture Association (MPA) and anti-piracy coalition Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) revealed that they had collaborated with Hanoi Police to shut down the FMovies operation, which included ‘sister’ sites AniWave, Bflixz, Flixtorz, Movies7, and Myflixer.

According to ACE, the FMovies empire was the largest piracy ring in the world , attracting more than 6.7 billion visits between January 2023 and June 2024 alone. Charles Rivkin, MPA CEO and Chairman of ACE, described the dismantling of FMovies as “a stunning victory for casts, crews, writers, directors, studios, and the creative community across the globe.”

Authorities in Vietnam Break Silence

The MPA/ACE announcement late August contained praise for Vietnamese authorities but no official statement from them. Initial reports late August didn’t provide details on any arrests either, but it later transpired that two people connected to FMovies had been detained.

After more than two months of silence, local authorities have now released additional information on the investigation and the two men previously arrested. They also confirm that a decision has been made to prosecute the case and both suspects.

The Investigation and Identification of Suspects

Responding to allegations made by the Hollywood studios, the Economic Police Department, in coordination with departments of the Hanoi City Police, launched an investigation to confirm the suspects’ identities and relevant background information.

Police say that documents and other evidence was obtained to clarify the suspects’ operational methods and to confirm their roles in the FMovies operation.

Hanoi City Police now confirm the following:

• Suspect 1: Phan Thanh Cong, 34, is a resident of Mo Lao ward, Ha Dong district, Hanoi.

He is described as the “mastermind, leader, creator, operator, and manager” of the “FMovies website system” which allegedly offered almost 50,000 films to the public, in many cases violating MPA members’ rights.

Authorities also reveal that the suspect was “administratively disciplined for similar behavior” in the past, but the offending was not described in detail.

• Suspect 2: Nguyen Tuan Anh, also 34 and a resident of Mo Lao ward, Ha Dong district, Hanoi, is described as an accomplice/assistant.

It’s claimed he was responsible for illegally copying around 50,000 films and posting them to FMovies and its ‘sister’ websites. In many cases, this violated MPA members’ rights.

Other Findings of the Investigation

According to local police, the offending began in 2016, with the suspects illegally earning “hundreds of thousands of US dollars” before the operation was shut down in August 2024. The authorities claim that during questioning, both men confessed in full to all alleged crimes.

The Investigation Police Agency at Hanoi City Police says it has issued a decision to prosecute the case. Phan Thanh Cong and Nguyen Tuan Anh will be prosecuted for infringement of copyright and related rights under Clause 2, Section 225, Penal Code 2015. What that means for those arrested is currently unclear; the necessary details are yet to be released and almost everything turns on those details.

Commercial Scale Offending?

Section 225 relates to the unlawful copying and/or distribution of infringing copies of audiovisual works, without obtaining permission from rightsholders, on a ‘commercial scale’. That term is not clearly defined. Instead, indications are given in terms of illegal profits, such as VND 50,000,000 (just under $US2,000) or damage to rightsholders of VND 100,000,000 (just under US$4,000).

Profits of “hundreds of thousands of US dollars” does seem to qualify but any predictions on how things might eventually play out would be pure guesswork at this stage and most likely unhelpful.

The framework of penalties is complicated and varies according to the scale and nature of the offending, which isn’t straightforward either. Fines seeem to vary from VND 50,000,000 (just under US$2,000) to VND 300,000,000 (just under US$12,000) and a non-custodial sentence, up to VND 1,000,000,000 (just under US$395,000) and a custodial sentence of between six months and three years, depending on the presence of any specified aggravating factors.

Yet as Phan Thanh Cong apparently knows from experience, the authorities might prefer to impose administrative measures. We just don’t know and the information being made available right now is simply insufficient. It’s possible that MPA/ACE have a clearer idea, but it’s highly unlikely any public comments will be made during an ongoing prosecution.

Letter of Thanks Sent From U.S. to Vietnam

What happens moving forward in this process is clearly very important to the United States and the studios in particular.

A police video released in connection with the news above skims the following letter. We had to stitch it back together to make it readable, but the sentiment is clear; the United States is very grateful for the assistance and at least thus far, satisfied with the direction of the relationship and the case.

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

After eight years of unprecedented uptime and reliability, the collapse and eventual demise of pirate streaming giant FMovies looked much like the demise of any other.

Cracks first started to emerge in June 2024 when the site stopped updating with new content. A few weeks later in mid-July, FMovies disappeared entirely, without any explanation from its operators or indeed anyone else. An announcement at the end of August confirmed what many had suspected, however.

The Motion Picture Association (MPA) and anti-piracy coalition Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) revealed that they had collaborated with Hanoi Police to shut down the FMovies operation, which included ‘sister’ sites AniWave, Bflixz, Flixtorz, Movies7, and Myflixer.

According to ACE, the FMovies empire was the largest piracy ring in the world , attracting more than 6.7 billion visits between January 2023 and June 2024 alone. Charles Rivkin, MPA CEO and Chairman of ACE, described the dismantling of FMovies as “a stunning victory for casts, crews, writers, directors, studios, and the creative community across the globe.”

Authorities in Vietnam Break Silence

The MPA/ACE announcement late August contained praise for Vietnamese authorities but no official statement from them. Initial reports late August didn’t provide details on any arrests either, but it later transpired that two people connected to FMovies had been detained.

After more than two months of silence, local authorities have now released additional information on the investigation and the two men previously arrested. They also confirm that a decision has been made to prosecute the case and both suspects.

The Investigation and Identification of Suspects

Responding to allegations made by the Hollywood studios, the Economic Police Department, in coordination with departments of the Hanoi City Police, launched an investigation to confirm the suspects’ identities and relevant background information.

Police say that documents and other evidence was obtained to clarify the suspects’ operational methods and to confirm their roles in the FMovies operation.

Hanoi City Police now confirm the following:

• Suspect 1: Phan Thanh Cong, 34, is a resident of Mo Lao ward, Ha Dong district, Hanoi.

He is described as the “mastermind, leader, creator, operator, and manager” of the “FMovies website system” which allegedly offered almost 50,000 films to the public, in many cases violating MPA members’ rights.

Authorities also reveal that the suspect was “administratively disciplined for similar behavior” in the past, but the offending was not described in detail.

• Suspect 2: Nguyen Tuan Anh, also 34 and a resident of Mo Lao ward, Ha Dong district, Hanoi, is described as an accomplice/assistant.

It’s claimed he was responsible for illegally copying around 50,000 films and posting them to FMovies and its ‘sister’ websites. In many cases, this violated MPA members’ rights.

Other Findings of the Investigation

According to local police, the offending began in 2016, with the suspects illegally earning “hundreds of thousands of US dollars” before the operation was shut down in August 2024. The authorities claim that during questioning, both men confessed in full to all alleged crimes.

The Investigation Police Agency at Hanoi City Police says it has issued a decision to prosecute the case. Phan Thanh Cong and Nguyen Tuan Anh will be prosecuted for infringement of copyright and related rights under Clause 2, Section 225, Penal Code 2015. What that means for those arrested is currently unclear; the necessary details are yet to be released and almost everything turns on those details.

Commercial Scale Offending?

Section 225 relates to the unlawful copying and/or distribution of infringing copies of audiovisual works, without obtaining permission from rightsholders, on a ‘commercial scale’. That term is not clearly defined. Instead, indications are given in terms of illegal profits, such as VND 50,000,000 (just under $US2,000) or damage to rightsholders of VND 100,000,000 (just under US$4,000).

Profits of “hundreds of thousands of US dollars” does seem to qualify but any predictions on how things might eventually play out would be pure guesswork at this stage and most likely unhelpful.

The framework of penalties is complicated and varies according to the scale and nature of the offending, which isn’t straightforward either. Fines seeem to vary from VND 50,000,000 (just under US$2,000) to VND 300,000,000 (just under US$12,000) and a non-custodial sentence, up to VND 1,000,000,000 (just under US$395,000) and a custodial sentence of between six months and three years, depending on the presence of any specified aggravating factors.

Yet as Phan Thanh Cong apparently knows from experience, the authorities might prefer to impose administrative measures. We just don’t know and the information being made available right now is simply insufficient. It’s possible that MPA/ACE have a clearer idea, but it’s highly unlikely any public comments will be made during an ongoing prosecution.

Letter of Thanks Sent From U.S. to Vietnam

What happens moving forward in this process is clearly very important to the United States and the studios in particular.

A police video released in connection with the news above skims the following letter. We had to stitch it back together to make it readable, but the sentiment is clear; the United States is very grateful for the assistance and at least thus far, satisfied with the direction of the relationship and the case.

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

For most of 2024, major football leagues in Spain and Italy have regularly used the media to criticize and then publicly threaten Google. Rightsholders have always criticized Google but this feels a bit different.

More recently, flare-ups have coincided with rightsholders demanding that Google implements new, controversial anti-piracy measures, such as remotely deleting apps from users’ phones. Whether any discussions take place in private is unclear. But from the outside, subsequent one-sided criticism of Google’s response to piracy via the media, suggests that differences still exist.

Recent Allegations

Criticism rose again via Italian media during October, with headlines such as ‘ TV rights and piracy, Serie A ready to sue Google ‘ and variations thereof. The common theme in these reports are allegations that Google receives takedown notices from football league Serie A but then ignores them; all part of a reluctance to collaborate on anti-piracy matters in general, the allegations claim.

To a background of Google receiving its 10 billionth URL removal request just over a week ago, and limited complaints along similar lines from elsewhere, ignoring takedown notices seems unlikely. At the very least, it’s lacking context in the bigger picture.

Transparency Helps to Settle Disputes

Details of specific complaints haven’t been made public but multiple reports state that Serie A’s complaints relate to Google’s alleged failures in the current season, which started mid-August. The table below shows takedown notices filed by Serie A or appointed agents between May 26 and September 23, 2024.

Serie A appears to use more than one account when filing takedown notices, including Lega Nazionale Professionisti Serie A and Liga Nacional de Fütbol Profesional , which we’ll return to in a moment.

The complaint at the bottom of the table dated May 26 was sent before the season began but is relevant in the bigger picture. It requested the removal of 84 URLs, of which Google deleted 12% from search results. Since the remaining 88% of URLs in the notice did not actually exist in Google’s search indexes when the notice was sent, removal was impossible.

Google Processes Unnecessarily Confusing Complaints

Here’s where things become unnecessarily complicated. The May 26 takedown notice was sent by an agent; more specifically a company called Sportian, the anti-piracy company previously known as LaLiga Tech, owned by top tier Spanish football league, LaLiga. The full takedown notice, courtesy of the Lumen Database , can be viewed here with a sample of the not-in-index URLs shown below.

At the time of writing, a total of 3,530 individual requests filed with Google under the Liga Nacional de Fútbol Profesional account have requested the removal of 437,524 URLs. Google went on to remove 49.8% of that total, could not remove 23.3% because they did not exist in its indexes and a further 3.3% because the same URLs were duplicates of previously reported links.

The issue here is that Liga Nacional de Fútbol Profesional isn’t a reference to Serie A; it’s actually Sportiva using the full name of Spanish football league LaLiga in its unlikely capacity as a takedown agent for Serie A.

While there doesn’t appear to be anything nefarious going on here, takedown fraud thrives on convoluted situations not dissimilar to this. If given time to do its job, Google often identifies abuses and prevents them from doing damage.

Despite a hall of mirrors, Google still processed the notices and also took down whatever it was able to take down. According to Google data on all of Serie A accounts mentioned earlier, 70.2% of all URLs requested for takedown do not exist in its search indexes so are impossible to delete .

Season Begins With a Change of Tactics

The Serie A notices dated Aug 22 , Aug 27 , and September 3 , were not sent to Google from its usual accounts. Instead, they were filed by SP Tech, the law firm/anti-piracy company behind the Piracy Shield platform.

Those three notices contain just 12 URLs in total, of which Google removed none.

After sending takedown notices listing specific URLs and infringing content as required under the DMCA, there’s a very clear switch here to domain-based takedown notices that appear to identify no infringing content at all.

Indeed, while these domains appear to link to sites that may well offer IPTV packages containing Serie A matches, the DMCA states that takedown notices must contain sufficient information for the recipient to identify and remove the infringing content.

Clash of Legal Requirements

Under Law n. 93 of 14 July 2023, which has been in force in Italy since August 8, 2023, service providers and ISPs are required to block or otherwise prevent access to infringing content within 30 minutes of receiving an instruction from Piracy Shield; a system to which Google is not currently connected.

Even if Google deindexed the domains in Serie A’s notices, that wouldn’t prevent access to any IPTV streams. That’s something this law does not consider. These are blocking and deindexing orders made with no judicial oversight, that have shown to be erroneous on several occasions, with Google itself blocked in error a matter of weeks ago.

The exact reasons for Google currently rejecting domain-only takedown/deindexing demands are unknown. In the UK and the Netherlands, Google has been deindexing entire pirate sites since 2021 . The difference is that rightsholders in both countries previously obtained court orders that provide a legal basis for ISP blocking. Google isn’t even mentioned in those orders, but it cooperates because due process requirements have been met.

In Italy, purely on the word of a rightsholder, who may or may not know the difference between Google Drive and a pirate site on any given day, companies like Google are expected to blindly and immediately follow orders. Thirty minutes is a timeframe that encourages no checks whatsoever, the consequences of which have been widely publicized.

Called Out in Public

Resistance, it appears, can lead to blanket accusations of doing almost nothing to assist rightsholders. As highlighted above, Google does process takedown notices; however, depending on the takedown account held up as proof, Google can be shown to be mostly or even totally non-compliant. The Sp Tech account shown below, which was introduced only recently, is one such example.

Describing Google as generally non-compliant, or even “grossly negligent” according to a recent comment, simply isn’t true. Serie A has another account at Google that’s been in use since January 2019. Over more than five years, Serie A filed 56,847 individual takedown notices that together requested the removal of 1,194,826 URLs.

Of that total, 65.5% of the URLs did not exist in Google search , meaning it was impossible to remove them . Google removed 27.9% of the URLs as requested, leaving duplicate URLs already dealt with and 5.4% for which Google took no action.

While that sounds like a minimum compliance rate of 95%, attention will inevitably focus on the remaining 5% and why those weren’t removed as well. There are many reasons behind Google’s refusals to take action, including protecting innocent parties from abusive or simply careless takedown demands.

That Google continues to do that, even while being publicly disparaged for its apparent failings, is commendable. That it prevented Serie A from deindexing its own website on October 27, is ironic, to put it mildly.

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

For most of 2024, major football leagues in Spain and Italy have regularly used the media to criticize and then publicly threaten Google. Rightsholders have always criticized Google but this feels a bit different.

More recently, flare-ups have coincided with rightsholders demanding that Google implements new, controversial anti-piracy measures, such as remotely deleting apps from users’ phones. Whether any discussions take place in private is unclear. But from the outside, subsequent one-sided criticism of Google’s response to piracy via the media, suggests that differences still exist.

Recent Allegations

Criticism rose again via Italian media during October, with headlines such as ‘ TV rights and piracy, Serie A ready to sue Google ‘ and variations thereof. The common theme in these reports are allegations that Google receives takedown notices from football league Serie A but then ignores them; all part of a reluctance to collaborate on anti-piracy matters in general, the allegations claim.

To a background of Google receiving its 10 billionth URL removal request just over a week ago, and limited complaints along similar lines from elsewhere, ignoring takedown notices seems unlikely. At the very least, it’s lacking context in the bigger picture.

Transparency Helps to Settle Disputes

Details of specific complaints haven’t been made public but multiple reports state that Serie A’s complaints relate to Google’s alleged failures in the current season, which started mid-August. The table below shows takedown notices filed by Serie A or appointed agents between May 26 and September 23, 2024.

Serie A appears to use more than one account when filing takedown notices, including Lega Nazionale Professionisti Serie A and Liga Nacional de Fütbol Profesional , which we’ll return to in a moment.

The complaint at the bottom of the table dated May 26 was sent before the season began but is relevant in the bigger picture. It requested the removal of 84 URLs, of which Google deleted 12% from search results. Since the remaining 88% of URLs in the notice did not actually exist in Google’s search indexes when the notice was sent, removal was impossible.

Google Processes Unnecessarily Confusing Complaints

Here’s where things become unnecessarily complicated. The May 26 takedown notice was sent by an agent; more specifically a company called Sportian, the anti-piracy company previously known as LaLiga Tech, owned by top tier Spanish football league, LaLiga. The full takedown notice, courtesy of the Lumen Database , can be viewed here with a sample of the not-in-index URLs shown below.

At the time of writing, a total of 3,530 individual requests filed with Google under the Liga Nacional de Fútbol Profesional account have requested the removal of 437,524 URLs. Google went on to remove 49.8% of that total, could not remove 23.3% because they did not exist in its indexes and a further 3.3% because the same URLs were duplicates of previously reported links.

The issue here is that Liga Nacional de Fútbol Profesional isn’t a reference to Serie A; it’s actually Sportiva using the full name of Spanish football league LaLiga in its unlikely capacity as a takedown agent for Serie A.

While there doesn’t appear to be anything nefarious going on here, takedown fraud thrives on convoluted situations not dissimilar to this. If given time to do its job, Google often identifies abuses and prevents them from doing damage.

Despite a hall of mirrors, Google still processed the notices and also took down whatever it was able to take down. According to Google data on all of Serie A accounts mentioned earlier, 70.2% of all URLs requested for takedown do not exist in its search indexes so are impossible to delete .

Season Begins With a Change of Tactics

The Serie A notices dated Aug 22 , Aug 27 , and September 3 , were not sent to Google from its usual accounts. Instead, they were filed by SP Tech, the law firm/anti-piracy company behind the Piracy Shield platform.

Those three notices contain just 12 URLs in total, of which Google removed none.

After sending takedown notices listing specific URLs and infringing content as required under the DMCA, there’s a very clear switch here to domain-based takedown notices that appear to identify no infringing content at all.

Indeed, while these domains appear to link to sites that may well offer IPTV packages containing Serie A matches, the DMCA states that takedown notices must contain sufficient information for the recipient to identify and remove the infringing content.

Clash of Legal Requirements

Under Law n. 93 of 14 July 2023, which has been in force in Italy since August 8, 2023, service providers and ISPs are required to block or otherwise prevent access to infringing content within 30 minutes of receiving an instruction from Piracy Shield; a system to which Google is not currently connected.

Even if Google deindexed the domains in Serie A’s notices, that wouldn’t prevent access to any IPTV streams. That’s something this law does not consider. These are blocking and deindexing orders made with no judicial oversight, that have shown to be erroneous on several occasions, with Google itself blocked in error a matter of weeks ago.

The exact reasons for Google currently rejecting domain-only takedown/deindexing demands are unknown. In the UK and the Netherlands, Google has been deindexing entire pirate sites since 2021 . The difference is that rightsholders in both countries previously obtained court orders that provide a legal basis for ISP blocking. Google isn’t even mentioned in those orders, but it cooperates because due process requirements have been met.

In Italy, purely on the word of a rightsholder, who may or may not know the difference between Google Drive and a pirate site on any given day, companies like Google are expected to blindly and immediately follow orders. Thirty minutes is a timeframe that encourages no checks whatsoever, the consequences of which have been widely publicized.

Called Out in Public

Resistance, it appears, can lead to blanket accusations of doing almost nothing to assist rightsholders. As highlighted above, Google does process takedown notices; however, depending on the takedown account held up as proof, Google can be shown to be mostly or even totally non-compliant. The Sp Tech account shown below, which was introduced only recently, is one such example.

Describing Google as generally non-compliant, or even “grossly negligent” according to a recent comment, simply isn’t true. Serie A has another account at Google that’s been in use since January 2019. Over more than five years, Serie A filed 56,847 individual takedown notices that together requested the removal of 1,194,826 URLs.

Of that total, 65.5% of the URLs did not exist in Google search , meaning it was impossible to remove them . Google removed 27.9% of the URLs as requested, leaving duplicate URLs already dealt with and 5.4% for which Google took no action.

While that sounds like a minimum compliance rate of 95%, attention will inevitably focus on the remaining 5% and why those weren’t removed as well. There are many reasons behind Google’s refusals to take action, including protecting innocent parties from abusive or simply careless takedown demands.

That Google continues to do that, even while being publicly disparaged for its apparent failings, is commendable. That it prevented Serie A from deindexing its own website on October 27, is ironic, to put it mildly.

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

For most of 2024, major football leagues in Spain and Italy have regularly used the media to criticize and then publicly threaten Google. Rightsholders have always criticized Google but this feels a bit different.

More recently, flare-ups have coincided with rightsholders demanding that Google implements new, controversial anti-piracy measures, such as remotely deleting apps from users’ phones. Whether any discussions take place in private is unclear. But from the outside, subsequent one-sided criticism of Google’s response to piracy via the media, suggests that differences still exist.

Recent Allegations

Criticism rose again via Italian media during October, with headlines such as ‘ TV rights and piracy, Serie A ready to sue Google ‘ and variations thereof. The common theme in these reports are allegations that Google receives takedown notices from football league Serie A but then ignores them; all part of a reluctance to collaborate on anti-piracy matters in general, the allegations claim.

To a background of Google receiving its 10 billionth URL removal request just over a week ago, and limited complaints along similar lines from elsewhere, ignoring takedown notices seems unlikely. At the very least, it’s lacking context in the bigger picture.

Transparency Helps to Settle Disputes

Details of specific complaints haven’t been made public but multiple reports state that Serie A’s complaints relate to Google’s alleged failures in the current season, which started mid-August. The table below shows takedown notices filed by Serie A or appointed agents between May 26 and September 23, 2024.

Serie A appears to use more than one account when filing takedown notices, including Lega Nazionale Professionisti Serie A and Liga Nacional de Fütbol Profesional , which we’ll return to in a moment.

The complaint at the bottom of the table dated May 26 was sent before the season began but is relevant in the bigger picture. It requested the removal of 84 URLs, of which Google deleted 12% from search results. Since the remaining 88% of URLs in the notice did not actually exist in Google’s search indexes when the notice was sent, removal was impossible.

Google Processes Unnecessarily Confusing Complaints

Here’s where things become unnecessarily complicated. The May 26 takedown notice was sent by an agent; more specifically a company called Sportian, the anti-piracy company previously known as LaLiga Tech, owned by top tier Spanish football league, LaLiga. The full takedown notice, courtesy of the Lumen Database , can be viewed here with a sample of the not-in-index URLs shown below.

At the time of writing, a total of 3,530 individual requests filed with Google under the Liga Nacional de Fútbol Profesional account have requested the removal of 437,524 URLs. Google went on to remove 49.8% of that total, could not remove 23.3% because they did not exist in its indexes and a further 3.3% because the same URLs were duplicates of previously reported links.

The issue here is that Liga Nacional de Fútbol Profesional isn’t a reference to Serie A; it’s actually Sportiva using the full name of Spanish football league LaLiga in its unlikely capacity as a takedown agent for Serie A.

While there doesn’t appear to be anything nefarious going on here, takedown fraud thrives on convoluted situations not dissimilar to this. If given time to do its job, Google often identifies abuses and prevents them from doing damage.

Despite a hall of mirrors, Google still processed the notices and also took down whatever it was able to take down. According to Google data on all of Serie A accounts mentioned earlier, 70.2% of all URLs requested for takedown do not exist in its search indexes so are impossible to delete .

Season Begins With a Change of Tactics

The Serie A notices dated Aug 22 , Aug 27 , and September 3 , were not sent to Google from its usual accounts. Instead, they were filed by SP Tech, the law firm/anti-piracy company behind the Piracy Shield platform.

Those three notices contain just 12 URLs in total, of which Google removed none.

After sending takedown notices listing specific URLs and infringing content as required under the DMCA, there’s a very clear switch here to domain-based takedown notices that appear to identify no infringing content at all.

Indeed, while these domains appear to link to sites that may well offer IPTV packages containing Serie A matches, the DMCA states that takedown notices must contain sufficient information for the recipient to identify and remove the infringing content.

Clash of Legal Requirements

Under Law n. 93 of 14 July 2023, which has been in force in Italy since August 8, 2023, service providers and ISPs are required to block or otherwise prevent access to infringing content within 30 minutes of receiving an instruction from Piracy Shield; a system to which Google is not currently connected.

Even if Google deindexed the domains in Serie A’s notices, that wouldn’t prevent access to any IPTV streams. That’s something this law does not consider. These are blocking and deindexing orders made with no judicial oversight, that have shown to be erroneous on several occasions, with Google itself blocked in error a matter of weeks ago.

The exact reasons for Google currently rejecting domain-only takedown/deindexing demands are unknown. In the UK and the Netherlands, Google has been deindexing entire pirate sites since 2021 . The difference is that rightsholders in both countries previously obtained court orders that provide a legal basis for ISP blocking. Google isn’t even mentioned in those orders, but it cooperates because due process requirements have been met.

In Italy, purely on the word of a rightsholder, who may or may not know the difference between Google Drive and a pirate site on any given day, companies like Google are expected to blindly and immediately follow orders. Thirty minutes is a timeframe that encourages no checks whatsoever, the consequences of which have been widely publicized.

Called Out in Public

Resistance, it appears, can lead to blanket accusations of doing almost nothing to assist rightsholders. As highlighted above, Google does process takedown notices; however, depending on the takedown account held up as proof, Google can be shown to be mostly or even totally non-compliant. The Sp Tech account shown below, which was introduced only recently, is one such example.

Describing Google as generally non-compliant, or even “grossly negligent” according to a recent comment, simply isn’t true. Serie A has another account at Google that’s been in use since January 2019. Over more than five years, Serie A filed 56,847 individual takedown notices that together requested the removal of 1,194,826 URLs.

Of that total, 65.5% of the URLs did not exist in Google search , meaning it was impossible to remove them . Google removed 27.9% of the URLs as requested, leaving duplicate URLs already dealt with and 5.4% for which Google took no action.

While that sounds like a minimum compliance rate of 95%, attention will inevitably focus on the remaining 5% and why those weren’t removed as well. There are many reasons behind Google’s refusals to take action, including protecting innocent parties from abusive or simply careless takedown demands.

That Google continues to do that, even while being publicly disparaged for its apparent failings, is commendable. That it prevented Serie A from deindexing its own website on October 27, is ironic, to put it mildly.

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