When rightsholders spot these, they can send a DMCA takedown notice to Reddit, which then decides whether to remove it or not. The company reports this takedown activity in its biannual transparency report, of which the latest version came out last week.

More Removals, Fewer Takedown Notices

The latest transparency report covers the first half of 2026. During this period, Reddit received 66,221 copyright takedown notices, 4% fewer than in the second half of last year.

While there were (marginally) fewer notices, they targeted more posts, comments, and other content. In the first half of the year, rightsholders identified 465,803 pieces of content, an increase of 9% compared to the previous reporting period.

Reddit removed 258,855 of these items. That’s 55% of all reported content, up from 51% in the second half of 2025.

Looking at the longer trend, we see that the number of notices and flagged posts and comments remains on a lower level than in 2022 and 2023. This, despite the fact that Reddit’s active users continued to grow.

Copyright-Related Bans Plunge

Although Reddit removed more content than it did last year, it banned fewer repeat infringers. In the first half of 2026, Reddit banned 1,266 user accounts for repeat copyright violations, which is a 21% drop compared to the six months before.

This might in part be reversion to the mean as last year the number of user bans had nearly doubled.

The decline is even steeper for communities. Reddit banned 118 subreddits for repeat copyright violations, down 79% from 563 in the second half of 2025. In the first half of 2025, that number was still 709.

Reddit doesn’t explain this recent drop. However, zooming out reveals that these numbers are also far below 2022 levels. In the first half of that year alone, Reddit banned 3,859 user accounts and 1,543 subreddits for repeat infringement.

Counter-Notices and Fair Use

Meanwhile, Redditors are also pushing back against takedown notices more often. In the first half of this year, Reddit received 688 counter-notices, which is 60% more than in the previous period. Of these, 221 were valid, resulting in 599 pieces of content being restored. That’s a big jump compared to the second half of 2025, when just 34 of 430 counter-notices were valid.

Reddit also rejected 20,143 takedown notices outright, 30% of the total, leaving 109,706 pieces of content in place. The company explains that takedown notices can be invalid for various reasons, including when the targeted content makes fair use of a copyrighted work.

The report highlights a few notable requests. A religious organization, for example, tried to remove two posts that reproduced the text of an internal announcement, together with extensive commentary and criticism.

“We declined to remove the posts because they make fair use of the original work,” Reddit writes.

Another notice came from an individual in Australia, who objected to a Reddit user’s photo of their business card. The card had allegedly been handed to the sender’s partner in a public park.

“Because the business card (stating: “Gentleman of Leisure”) did not contain personally identifiable information or any creative elements, we declined to remove the content,” Reddit notes.

The next transparency report will be the first report to cover a full six months after the Supreme Court’s Cox ruling, which cleared the Internet provider of liability for not disconnecting repeat infringers.

Whether this will have an impact on the repeat infringer bans has yet to be seen.

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

The site publishes ‘repacks’ of pirated games. These are compressed versions of cracked games, which are smaller to download and are shared through torrents and direct download links.

However, yesterday the site’s operator announced that it’s time to say goodbye. In a farewell message, DODI explains that he is getting married later this month and will start a new life in a new country.

“My marriage is on November 24, 2026. Retiring from creating game repacks is a must now. No way to own or operate a pirated content site in France,” DODI writes.

The site isn’t going offline though. “I already transferred Domains, Web hosting and all related accounts to the new repack team few days ago,” DODI adds.

Not a Sudden Exit

The retirement wasn’t entirely unexpected. In May, DODI informed his followers that 2026 would be a busy year. He had final exams coming up, followed by a pharmacy law exam in September, after which he would likely start a new job in France. In addition, he was getting married in November.

“Don’t worry, I will not leave you but sure will not be as before,” DODI wrote at the time.

Last month, DODI revealed that the handover had already started, noting that he only created four of the more than 65 repacks that were posted in the previous six weeks. The rest came from a new team, which would also handle all future releases.

“I will only give instructions and watch,” he wrote.

A Notorious Target

DODI’s exit also follows continued pressure from the game industry. In 2024, the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) added the site to its list of recommendations for the U.S. Trade Representative’s annual review of ‘notorious’ piracy markets.

Last month, ESA flagged the site again, reporting 7.14 million visits in August and links to more than 2,000 games. According to ESA, the site removed only 22% of the links it reported over the past year.

The game industry group also looked closely at the money trail, identifying crypto payments to exchanges that check the identity of users.

“Cryptocurrency wallets associated with DODI have sent funds to know-your-customer exchanges, including Binance, which may create an attribution and enforcement path through appropriate legal process,” ESA writes.

Malware Concerns

Previously, DODI’s site faced a security backlash too. In February, cybersecurity company Cyderes listed dodi-repacks.site among the indicators in its analysis of the ‘RenEngine’ malware, with a download link supposedly leading to an infected MediaFire file. The report didn’t say that DODI’s operator was involved.

Malware concerns have also been mentioned in piracy circles. In 2025, the FMHY piracy index dropped the site and only linked to DODI’s 1337x page instead, with a warning. This year, r/Piracy’s moderators followed suit.

“Because Dodi’s repacks themselves are still safe (even though his site is not), we have changed his listing on the megathread to send redditors to his user profile on 1337x,” the moderators wrote.

Under New Management

Who is behind the new repack team is not known. For now, however, it appears that new releases continue to come out under the DODI name.

The latest repack, posted on the same day as the farewell message, credits the “Dodi Repack Team.” It’s based on a Star Wars: Galactic Racer release from ‘voices38’, another familiar piracy name that ESA nominated as a notorious piracy threat.

—

A copy of ESA’s submission for the 2026 Notorious Markets review is available here (pdf).

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

Regular DMCA takedown notices can do similar damage. Meta’s takedown emails remind users that it terminates the accounts of repeat infringers “when appropriate,” which turns false notices into an effective weapon.

According to a lawsuit filed in Florida federal court last week, that weapon can be hired too. This lawsuit’s backstory involves two dog book publishers and a takedown contractor who tried to play both sides.

A Dog Eat Dog Playbook

The complaint was filed by The Everything Editions LLC, which sells photo books of various dog breeds for $120 each under the name The Dog Book.

Rival publisher Remus Collection is one of the defendants in this case. This company also sells dog breed books for $120, and in August it accused The Dog Book of infringing its copyrights. The Dog Book disputed this and, among other things, questioned whether Remus’s own website copy was written by a human or by an AI tool.

Interestingly, The Dog Book’s own Instagram features several posts of books and images that have an ‘AI content’ label, but that’s beside the point.

Remus never answered those questions, according to the complaint. Instead, a Remus principal and others asked their Instagram followers to report The Dog Book “for scam/fraud.” This apparently worked, as Instagram suspended The Dog Book’s account on September 7, citing its account integrity standards.

After a cease and desist letter, Remus’s lawyer agreed in writing that Remus would stop calling The Dog Book a scam or fraud, the complaint notes. However, that didn’t end the matter, and the complaint alleges that the attack continued underground.

Monetized Copyright Strikes

The Dog Book opened new Instagram accounts, but these were reported and disabled too, the complaint says. The first replacement went down on September 9, a day after Remus’s lawyer agreed to stop.

In early October, Meta received six copyright notices targeting The Dog Book’s Instagram posts. These included photos and videos of Yorkshire Terriers, Dachshunds, a Cocker Spaniel and a Jack Russell.

Interestingly, these notices were filed in the name of The Dog Book itself. They all listed “The dog book” as rightsholder, while claiming to own the bookseller’s posts.

Meta took action in response to these notices, adding to The Dog Book’s continued trouble. According to the complaint, the takedown actions were the work of a hired gun, who surprisingly tried to play both sides.

Takedown Vendor Plays Both Sides

In mid-October, a man using the name “Ashmit Ashmit” reached out to The Dog Book’s Facebook page, claiming responsibility for the copyright strikes on its accounts. He also came with a proposal.

“One guy need to ban your fb and ig both. He his paying me 1k doller. I also strike cpr on your accounts i will take all back and i have a good plan if you agree,” he wrote.

The conversation then moved to Telegram, where the contractor uses the handle “Fix My Brand.” His good plan required The Dog Book to take its own social media accounts offline.

In other words, if The Dog Book went dark for 30 hours, the contractor could collect the money from his client and then withdraw the strikes.

Playing Along

According to its own messages, The Dog Book played along at least once and took its pages offline during a weekend. That didn’t go as planned, however, as the contractor complained that the pages came back too soon. As a result, he didn’t get paid by his client.

“You do 18 hour i dont get my payment. Okay if you are not in a mood boss no issue. I will take down your ig now when you get in your mood let me know after your ig burn,” he wrote.

The bookseller, meanwhile, wanted names of those who requested the takedowns. When it listed Remus and its principals, the contractor answered “Yes.” Later, he wrote that if his clients found out, “they will cancle all my deals.”

To back up his story, he forwarded messages from the person who, according to the complaint, was directing the takedown spree. One of these messages clearly states what the payment was for.

“THE PAYEMNT IS FOR DEFINTIVE BAN,” it reads.

Still in Business

According to the complaint, “Fix My Brand” is a commercial vendor selling account suspensions, who also runs the Telegram channel “FMB Vault.” This channel is still online at the time of writing, with 199 subscribers and a biography that now describes the operator as a “Specialist in Account Ban + Unban.”

Meanwhile, The Dog Book says the campaign continues. According to the complaint, its Facebook accounts were reported more than four hundred times in recent weeks, with someone claiming that they showed sexually explicit content.

“Plaintiff’s accounts contain no sexually explicit content of any kind, and never have. Plaintiff’s accounts display photographs of dogs and of photographic books about dogs, together with product information and ordinary commercial marketing copy,” the complaint clarifies.

The Dog Book accuses the defendants of DMCA misrepresentation, false advertising and defamation, among other claims, and puts its losses at more than $600,000.

None of these allegations have been tested in court, and the defendants have yet to appear in the case.

False copyright claims and blackmail-esque schemes on social media are nothing new. However, as far as we know, this is the first U.S. lawsuit that targets a vendor who allegedly sells takedowns and suspensions as a service.

—

A copy of The Dog Book’s complaint is available here (pdf). The exhibits with the copyright notices, Telegram messages and Instagram stories can be found here (pdf).

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

These lawsuits were followed by a criminal prosecution in the United States, and Team-Xecuter’s operation effectively shut down. The chips lived on, however, and remained available through compatible alternatives such as HWFLY and Picofly.

Now, Nintendo is also going after the repositories that host the firmware for these modchips.

In a takedown notice dated November 6, which GitHub published on Tuesday, Nintendo of America targets Ansem-SoD/Picofly. According to its description, this repository offered information and firmware for a Switch modchip based on the RP2040-Zero board.

The notice names only the parent repository, but its effect doesn’t stop there. Because the network was larger than a hundred repos and Nintendo said that all or most forks are infringing, GitHub disabled the entire network of 144 repositories.

From Emulators to Modchips

Nintendo’s earlier GitHub notices mostly went after emulators, key dumping tools and so-called sigpatches. This time, the gaming giant targets repositories offering firmware for SX Core, SX Lite, Picofly and HWFLY modchips.

According to Nintendo, the Switch’s technological protection measures (TPMs) include the console’s boot sequence and various cryptographic signatures. The company says the modchip firmware bypasses that boot sequence, violating the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provisions.

“The firmware allows Nintendo Switch modchips to illegally circumvent Nintendo’s TPMs in order to run illegal copies of Nintendo Switch games,” the notice reads.

As far as we know, this is the first time Nintendo has targeted modchip firmware on GitHub. None of the 90 earlier Nintendo notices in GitHub’s public archive mention modchips. The closest are the 2023 and 2024 notices against key dumping tools such as Lockpick_RCM.

A Team-Xecuter Precedent

To support its circumvention claim, the notice points to the criminal case No. 2:20-cr-00127-RSL. That’s the case against the alleged members of Team-Xecuter.

The U.S. indicted three people in 2020. One of them, Gary Bowser, pleaded guilty to conspiring to circumvent technological measures and to traffic in circumvention devices. He was later sentenced to 40 months in prison.

The other two defendants, including alleged leader Max Louarn, have not appeared before the U.S. court as far as we know, and both remain at large.

It’s worth noting that Bowser’s guilty plea is not a court ruling on modchip firmware. However, at the takedown stage, Nintendo doesn’t need one, and GitHub appears to have processed the notice regardless.

Firmware Still Online

When we checked on Wednesday, the Picofly repository was replaced by GitHub’s standard takedown message, which also explains that the owner can file a counter notice.

However, not all modchip firmware is gone. Several other GitHub repositories with Picofly and HWFLY firmware were still online, including what a GBAtemp forum user describes as the original Picofly source. None of these are named in Nintendo’s notice.

Nintendo also sent three emulator notices on the same day. One targets the Citron Neo emulator, where GitHub disabled a network of 71 repositories, and two target single copies of yuzu.

These yuzu repositories are still on GitHub, but their owner has since removed the code and cleared the commit history. Both now only host a README which says that the source code can be found on the Internet Archive.

For now, the Picofly network remains offline. Its owner can still file a counter notice, but GitHub’s archive shows no sign of one yet.

—

Nintendo’s DMCA notice targeting the Picofly repository is available at GitHub here. The Citron Neo notice can be found here, and the two yuzu notices here and here.

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

According to the complaint, the relatively young site was built on code and books that it copied from Anna’s Archive.

WeLib’s anonymous operators didn’t respond to the lawsuit, which prompted the publishers to request a default judgment last month. Their brief borrowed heavily from one they had filed against Anna’s Archive earlier this year, including a claim about BitTorrent that didn’t appear to fit the WeLib case.

After reviewing the paperwork, U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero nonetheless granted the request in full. In an order issued yesterday, he gave the publishers everything they asked for.

Maximum Damages

The judgment awards each of the thirteen publishers, which include Penguin Random House, Elsevier and HarperCollins, $150,000 per book for ten of their works listed in the complaint. That is the maximum in statutory damages for willful infringement, adding up to $1.5 million per publisher.

The total of $19.5 million matches what Judge Jed Rakoff awarded against Anna’s Archive in May. While that is a big win, collecting it is another matter, as WeLib’s operators have not been identified.

The judgment does order the WeLib operators to come forward. In addition to destroying all unauthorized copies of the publishers’ works, they must file a sworn report within ten business days after being served, including valid contact information for WeLib and “each of its managing agents.”

Domain Takedowns

The judgment also includes a permanent injunction that prevents WeLib from making the publishers’ works available anywhere in the world. At the same time, it targets the infrastructure that keeps the site online.

All domain name registries, registrars and hosting providers for the site are ordered to permanently disable welib.org, welib.st and welib-public.org. They also have to disable the site’s nameservers and stop hosting it, while preserving any evidence that could identify the operators.

The order names five past or present providers specifically: Public Interest Registry, Cloudflare, Tucows and two Njalla entities. That said, it also applies to all other registries, registrars and hosting providers for WeLib’s domains, now or in the future.

Signed Word for Word

The judgment is identical to the proposed order the publishers submitted in October and Judge Marrero signed it without changes. That includes the clause preventing WeLib from enabling users or third parties to make the works available, “including via BitTorrent.”

As far as we know, there is no evidence that WeLib uses BitTorrent. The WeLib complaint doesn’t mention it either. The same clause appears in the earlier default judgment against Anna’s Archive, where the complaint described the site’s dedicated “Torrents” page.

Still Online

With the injunction in hand, the publishers will likely ask intermediaries to take action. This includes the Public Interest Registry, which manages the .org domain and is based in the United States. Foreign intermediaries may not all comply with an American court order, however.

At the time of writing, welib.org and welib.st still load the familiar search page, advertising 43 million books and 98 million articles.

Anna’s Archive also lost several domains to an earlier injunction, obtained by music companies. However, it remains online through .gl, .pk and .gd domains, which are tied to registries and registrars outside the United States.

Whether WeLib plans to copy the moves of Anna’s Archive has yet to be seen, but given its history that would not be a surprise.

—

A copy of the default judgment, signed by Judge Victor Marrero on November 9, 2026, is available here (pdf). The publishers’ proposed order can be found here (pdf).

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

These blocks are the result of a December 2024 court order, obtained by LaLiga and Telefónica Audiovisual Digital, which broadcasts these matches on Movistar Plus+. The order targets Spain’s largest ISPs, including Telefónica’s own.

LaLiga is pleased with the blocking measures and said that they work as intended. However, they are not without controversy, as IP address blocks previously hit broader infrastructure including shared Cloudflare servers. On Saturday, this collateral damage landed in Telefónica’s own backyard.

Movistar Blocks Movistar

On Saturday evening, Movistar’s official forum became unreachable through several Spanish ISPs.

This Comunidad Movistar forum is where the ISP’s customers go for help with their routers, Movistar Plus+ programming, or to report outages. Shortly after 22:00, this support community became unreachable.

According to RedesZone, X user Alvaro Canteiro was the first to notice. At 22:17, he posted that LaLiga appeared to have blocked Movistar’s official forum, presumably as a side effect of its anti-piracy blocking.

Those who tried to visit the forum through rival ISP DIGI saw a blocking notice. It explained that the IP address was blocked under the December 18, 2024 ruling of the Commercial Court No. 6 in Barcelona, requested by LaLiga and Telefónica Audiovisual Digital.

DIGI wasn’t alone. Bandaancha reports that Telefónica routed the forum’s IP address into a black hole, leaving visitors in the dark, without any response at all.

Based on data from blocking tracker HayAhoraFútbol, RedesZone reports that all operators blocked the two Cloudflare IP addresses the forum used at the time. That included Movistar, which effectively blocked access to its own community.

Blocked Cloudflare IP addresses are nothing new in Spain. LaLiga started targeting them in February 2025, and site owners have complained about collateral damage on match days ever since.

‘Focused, Precise’

Under the court order, LaLiga identifies IP addresses that it associates with pirate streams, which ISPs are then required to block. This order is dynamic, allowing LaLiga and Telefónica to add new successor IP addresses based on their own assessment.

These blocks typically start shortly before a match starts and are removed again after the broadcast ends.

Why the forum’s IP addresses ended up on the blocklist is unknown. Neither LaLiga nor Movistar has confirmed the cause of the outage.

LaLiga has consistently defended this blocking approach. The league previously told TorrentFreak that its blocks are backed by judicial resolutions and are not indiscriminate. Third parties who believe they are affected can report this through a dedicated complaints mailbox, LaLiga clarified.

Forum Moves to CloudFront

By Sunday, the forum had moved to a different CDN. Both Bandaancha and RedesZone noticed that the domain no longer pointed to Cloudflare, but was linked to Amazon’s CloudFront instead.

A DNS lookup by TorrentFreak today shows that comunidad.movistar.es now points to movistar.lithium.com, which is indeed served through CloudFront. Who made the switch, and whether it was a direct response to the blocking, is not known.

Whether affected Movistar users will complain about the apparent overblocking has yet to be seen.

Last year, LaLiga told TorrentFreak that it hadn’t received any formal complaints, while stressing that the blocking system was “focused, precise, and without collateral impact on legitimate services.”

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

Downloading content without permission is copyright infringement. These torrent download statistics are only meant to provide further insight into piracy trends. All data are gathered from public resources.

This week we have five newcomers on the list.

“Resident Evil” is the most shared title.

The most torrented movies for the week ending on November 9 are:

Note: We also publish an updating archive of all the list of weekly most torrented movies lists.

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

The underlying order, which beIN Sports obtained in May, initially listed six domains. That number has since grown considerably, with the latest additions coming in late October.

To take a closer look at the evolution of this blocklist, we compiled it from the notices that Google files with the Lumen database when it receives a blocking order. Today, 118 domains are listed under this order.

From 6 to 118 Domains

The pirate site blocklist, which is one of many in France, expanded in batches. The first update, reported by Google on June 15, added 22 domains. Three more updates followed on September 21, October 16 and October 26, each adding exactly 30.

Nothing appears to have been taken off the list. The notices only add domains, and the ones that no longer work were still blocked when we checked. The blocking measures remain in effect until November 14, when the WTA tennis season ends.

Transparency is limited and it’s hard for the public to see what is blocked and on what grounds. Arcom doesn’t publish blocking updates. Google’s Lumen notices are the only public record we found, and they take some digging. The later notices don’t mention the case number, so a search for the order only turns up the first few, and the full domain lists are only shown to people who request access from Lumen.

This example shows the value of the Lumen Database when governments or courts don’t provide transparency.

Quad9 didn’t block any of the domains before the court ruled on the penalty on October 21, according to the ruling, which records the foundation’s statement to that effect and beIN’s objections to it.

Expired Domains, Seized Site

ISPs, online intermediaries, lawmakers and rightsholders all have different views on the effectiveness and proportionality of site blocking. However, logically speaking, all should agree that there is no need to block a domain that no longer links to anything infringing. That’s not necessarily what happens.

We checked all 118 domains on October 28, from the Netherlands and through a French server. Most still resolve to an IP address. However, the exceptions are more interesting.

Four domain names no longer resolve at all. Two of these, predb.click and line.golden-iptv.in, aren’t registered anymore; the latter was one of the six domains in the original court order. Meanwhile, 4kib.xyz has been suspended by its registrar, and fermin37.com stopped working after we first checked it on October 23.

Another domain, fr4.sportplus.live, now loads a page titled “THIS DOMAIN HAS BEEN SEIZED”. Its main domain was among the pirate sports domains that U.S. authorities seized in July.

The mgntv-nexon.xyz domain, meanwhile, points to an IP address that belongs to domain marketplace Sedo.

In France, none of this makes a difference. Google’s DNS resolver blocks 91 of the 118 domains and NordVPN’s DNS blocks 89, dead names and all. The domains that aren’t blocked yet mostly come from the latest batch; only three of those 30 were blocked on October 28, two days after Google reported them. The exception is Cloudflare, whose 1.1.1.1 resolver blocks nothing. Cloudflare applies French blocking orders through its CDN instead, which a Paris court accepted as a reasonable effort in September.

We know all this because we looked at the DNS responses directly. Users that try to access these sites through a browser have no idea what is going on. They simply see an error message noting that the site can’t be reached. That also applies to rktv.top, which TorrentFreak owns today.

Under New Ownership

On October 23, two names on the list were free to register for anyone, as they had expired. These are rktv.top, which was added to the blocklist in June, and ap-live.top, one of the six domains in the court order itself.

We registered both domains and put up a short page on each, stating that TorrentFreak owns the domain for research and that it doesn’t offer, link to, or promote any streaming service. That’s all.

From the Netherlands, this page loads as expected. In France, however, Google refuses to resolve rktv.top. “The requested domain is subject to a judicial injunction or other governmental blocking order for FR,” its DNS response reads. The response carries extended error code 16, which the DNS standard labels “Censored”.

Some French ISP resolvers go a step further and redirect the DNS response. When we queried rktv.top through Bouygues Telecom and Free, the answer wasn’t a refusal but a different IP address, 54.246.190.12, which serves offrelegalesports.fr, a page that links visitors to licensed sports broadcasts. Completel, a business provider that belongs to SFR, gave the same answer. Orange’s resolvers, meanwhile, answered with 127.0.0.1, the address of the user’s own computer, or reported that the domain doesn’t exist.

In other words, a visitor who types in a domain that TorrentFreak owns, and that hosts a plain research notice, lands on an anti-piracy page instead.

The two research domains have been in place for two weeks and it seems that nobody noticed. We are not aware of an official appeal process for domain owners, as there apparently is no direct route to complain.

A Hong Kong Server

Finally, it is worth pointing out that most of the domains on the list point to Hong Kong. Of the 118 entries, 74 resolve to two IP addresses in a single Hong Kong range, and all of these domains return an “unauthorized” error when we try to load them.

Another 19 domains point to a second Hong Kong IP range. These all show the same page, titled “Service Premium — Online.” Together, that’s 93 of the 118 entries.

What is hosted on these servers is unknown, as we didn’t try to access them. However, they are likely linked to a pirate streaming service, given beIN’s complaint. If anything, it shows that this blocking effort largely targets one or two streaming operations.

Thus far, the blocking efforts haven’t stopped them, in part because the operators can easily register new domains, as if it were Groundhog Day.

Meanwhile, France is preparing to step up its blocking efforts. In July, the French Parliament adopted a law that allows new domains to be added automatically during live broadcasts, with Arcom reviewing them afterwards. As far as we know, that doesn’t come with a transparency layer.

The current blocking order expires on November 14. Whether the domains on the list, including our two research domains, will be unblocked after that has yet to be seen.

A copy of the Paris Judicial Court’s October 21 ruling (RG 26/11882) is available here (pdf).

Method: DNS checks were carried out on October 28, from a Dutch connection and through a French NordVPN server. Google DNS and Cloudflare DNS were queried over DNS-over-HTTPS, NordVPN’s resolver through the VPN connection. ISP resolvers were tested on November 6 through Globalping probes in French consumer networks and through whatsmydns.net. The figures are a snapshot and will change as blocking continues and resolvers update. Landing pages and open ports were checked from the Netherlands on October 23 and 28. Registration data is from WHOIS lookups on October 23 and 24.

The full list of 118 domains, by the date Google reported them to Lumen:

May 13 (court order), 6 domains: ap-live.top, line.golden-iptv.in, mrctop.net, tennis-open.ru, tennistream.com, thetvapp.to

June 15, 22 domains (19 + 3): 32740-defend.tx-4kott.com, 4kib.xyz, activefrance.net, akkaouiz.xyz, asokax6.com, balentv.xyz, bestp55.xyz, buffnetwork.sbs, djamel.site, dru4.xyz, erw55.xyz, faraka.xyz, fr4.sportplus.live, mgntv-nexon.xyz, neomixtv.xyz, partner.nonamejose.sx, predb.click, premium999.xyz, rktv.top, suphotte.xyz, supralf.xyz, zikotv.cc

September 21, 30 domains: allinone.cx, almaksor.pro, babadedachannel.online, celltvsoftware.com, cherry-tv.net, chrixkl4s2cls234lumopxlwyc234y.com, cleptomania.xyz, cmax.space, eztvclub.live, forstreem.com, ftv-live.win, hosttach.xyz, jtowntv.com, mag1311.net, maguland.xyz, neomspeaks.com, nexus-cdn.xyz, nionni.net, portaltivi.shop, redvisionstreamz.com, s416k.online, seee.info, sehpie.xyz, smartliststg.online, smartott.store, strongbow.online, strongtv.org, tatan.xyz, tvplanetstore.com, waseemiptv.com

October 16, 30 domains: 86862944.cdnmax.pro, 8k-super.xyz, albastrong.top, alveropro.online, bfeplex2.sbs, bilelhosting.info, blackboxiptv.vip, bus8kservice.store, ciptvservices2021.xyz, daso2026.xyz, datedriver.com, discovery8k.org, dramily3.xyz, ewmedia69.org, fermin37.com, higher8k.xyz, invictus667.com, iva-ehe.com, latvroom888.xyz, niko05451.com, ossytv.net, pandoratv4k.site, powerwatchy.com, rachatducredit.com, rachid4k.top, tdigi.store, tudiptv.xyz, unstabletv.xyz, vfmbx.com, yhiuhv.com

October 26, 30 domains: 0213422.eu, 131233.xyz, 159premium.com, angli8k.xyz, beachwavestv.com, cable.directory, chahinplay.com, cw-32.com, dannly.xyz, eliteprovip.com, elitestream.cc, eumatrix.xyz, goldenpro.xyz, goldenyass.com, greentv.xyz, gstatic.top, headbussa423.com, host-strong.sbs, iptv-anas.sbs, kekol235.xyz, new2026.online, opencableco.net, samyx-ott.me, tvgreece.site, tvkudoplayer.de, ukchannels.xyz, v1nland.xyz, vpn.xtreme-gold.ink, xhd1337.xyz, zieiptv.me

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

This strategy took a major hit in March, when the Supreme Court wiped out the $1 billion verdict against Cox.

According to the Court, knowing about piracy and failing to act on it is not enough to make an ISP liable for contributing to it. However, south of the border, lawmakers have now taken a different approach.

On Tuesday, Mexico’s Senate approved a reform of the Federal Copyright Law that ties ISP liability to having a policy to terminate repeat infringers.

Senate Backs ISP Liability Rules

The Senate approved the amendments with roughly two-thirds of the vote, as the opposition voted against.

The Chamber of Deputies already approved the same text in October, so the decree now goes to President Claudia Sheinbaum. Her government proposed the changes in May to bring the law in line with the USMCA trade agreement between Mexico, the United States and Canada.

U.S. rightsholders pushed Mexico for ISP liability rules as well. In January, copyright industry coalition IIPA complained that Mexico’s 2020 reform “did not provide a clear principle of secondary liability for those inducing or promoting copyright infringement.”

In April, the USTR moved Mexico to a lower tier of its piracy watch list, citing the draft amendments.

Disconnect Repeat Infringers

The trade agreement also prompted an earlier change in 2020, when Mexico added DMCA-style safe harbors to its copyright law. As a result, hosting platforms and search engines are only protected if they have a policy to terminate the accounts of repeat infringers, but this didn’t apply to regular consumer ISPs.

The new amendments change that, requiring Internet providers to have a policy for terminating the service of repeat infringers. This policy has to be published permanently on their website and in their terms of service, and it must include a basic way to notify users.

In other words, what can be terminated is the Internet connection itself, not just an account. According to Mexican business outlet EL CEO, this means that access providers such as Telmex and Izzi will need such a policy.

Providers that don’t comply risk facing liability.

Under the new rules, any ISP that fails to meet its safe harbor conditions becomes liable for its users’ infringements if it knowingly contributes to, induces, or causes the infringement.

The same goes for an ISP that can control the infringing user and profits directly from the infringement. In both cases, the Mexican Institute of Industrial Property (IMPI) can fine the provider up to roughly 4.7 million pesos (~$250,000), depending on the infringement.

Who Is a Repeat Infringer?

The law doesn’t explicitly define the term repeat infringer, nor does it say how many piracy accusations it takes before a subscriber can be cut off.

According to Aurora López-Portillo, director of legal services at IP firm ClarkeModet, each provider has to decide its own threshold. She told EL CEO that ISPs should also check whether the accusations actually hold up, while giving users a chance to respond, even though the law doesn’t require that.

During Tuesday’s Senate debate, some lawmakers in the opposition raised similar concerns. Senator Gabriel Elizondo warned that families can share a single connection, so the pirating activities of one person could leave an entire household offline.

Previously, opposition lawmakers proposed requiring a court order before Internet service could be suspended, but that proposal was not adopted.

Not Like Cox

In the U.S., the DMCA has a similar requirement too. ISPs that want safe harbor protection must implement a policy to terminate repeat infringers in appropriate circumstances. However, as the Supreme Court pointed out in the Cox case earlier this year, failing to meet that requirement doesn’t count against an ISP that argues it didn’t infringe.

“Under our precedents, a company is not liable as a copyright infringer for merely providing a service to the general public with knowledge that it will be used by some to infringe copyrights,” Justice Thomas wrote in the Court’s opinion.

Mexico’s law uses a different route.

There, failing to meet the safe harbor conditions, including the repeat infringer policy, is the first requirement for liability. If an ISP also contributes to infringement with knowledge of it, or can control the infringer and directly profits from it, it can be held responsible.

The new repeat infringer rules will take effect 180 days after their publication in Mexico’s official gazette, which hasn’t happened yet as far as we can see. How Mexican ISPs will define a repeat infringer, and how many accusations it takes, has yet to be seen.

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A copy of the amendments approved by Mexico’s Congress is available here (pdf, Spanish). The U.S. Supreme Court’s opinion in Cox v. Sony can be found here (pdf).

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

Meta denies the allegations. Early on, the company already suggested that employees or visitors may have downloaded the videos for personal use.

That position is now being put to the test in discovery. A joint status report, filed by both parties, shows that Meta’s own search turned up employees who appear to have “interacted” with the producers’ videos.

Employees ‘Interacted’ With Strike 3 Films

The status report was originally filed on October 21 with large parts blacked out. A week later, Meta narrowed the redactions, refiling a version that clearly shows what was previously hidden.

According to Strike 3, Meta first shared the names of five employees who “interacted” with torrented versions of its films back in July. Meta says that this was a draft, sent by mistake, and clawed it back.

Meta later shared the names again, but only for Strike 3’s lawyers to see. Strike 3 is not happy with this restriction, and in the status report it writes that the “Attorney’s Eyes Only” label limits its ability to investigate these individuals.

There may be more, too. Meta has told Strike 3 about additional employees who ‘interacted’ with the films and related torrent files, but it hasn’t named them yet. Why they are not named is not mentioned.

Meta, meanwhile, stresses that it has no evidence that the videos were torrented by these individuals or anyone else. According to the company, they “appear to have interacted with (e.g., viewed or opened)” Strike 3’s videos.

“To date, Meta has not found any evidence supporting Plaintiffs’ claims that the alleged torrent downloads were performed with Meta’s knowledge and authorization or for its benefit,” the tech company writes, adding that none of the activity listed in its interrogatory response was authorized or related to its AI training.

Third-Party IP Addresses

Meta also has an explanation for the IP addresses Strike 3 flagged. Most of the alleged downloads came from third-party IP addresses it has no control over, the company argues.

Meta’s own corporate IP addresses, meanwhile, mostly belong to an internet service it acquired years ago. This unnamed service was offered to the public and phased out in 2019.

While not mentioned in the legal paperwork, the Onavo VPN would perfectly fit this picture. This controversial service was owned by Meta until it was shut down in early 2019.

Meta: Alleged Pirate Had Already Left

The filing also brings some news on a separate case. In late August, Strike 3 identified an anonymous AT&T subscriber as a Reality Labs executive and asked the court to relate his “John Doe” case to the Meta lawsuit. Judge Eumi K. Lee denied that request without prejudice, as Strike 3 first needed permission to disclose his identity.

On October 15, Magistrate Judge Virginia K. DeMarchi granted that permission. After learning the name, Meta then informed Strike 3 that it will oppose a renewed motion, as this person had already left Meta at the time of the alleged torrenting activity.

Strike 3 disagrees, stating that it has “traced” John Doe’s copyright infringement to several years before he left the company. The adult producer still wants to relate these cases, but as far as we can see, it has yet to file a new motion.

For now, the employees’ names remain under the “Attorney’s Eyes Only” designation and kept away from the public. Whether their activity was as unrelated to Meta’s work as the company says has yet to be seen.

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A copy of the joint case management statement, with Meta’s narrowed redactions, is available here (pdf).

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

USTR pointed to recent cases in which defendants received suspended sentences and relatively low fines. A few weeks earlier, Vietnam’s Prime Minister had ordered a nationwide crackdown on copyright infringement. Several criminal cases have since moved forward, including those against the alleged operators of HiAnime and the Xoi Lac TV sports streaming network.

Another site in the crosshairs was Bún Chả TV, which offered Premier League and Champions League streams with Vietnamese commentary. According to police, the site drew hundreds of thousands of visits a day.

Investigators described the site as an underground company, with separate teams for programming, commentary, SEO and accounting. The main revenue came from ads and from redirecting viewers to illegal gambling sites.

On May 15, police from several provinces moved in. They summoned suspects, searched homes and workplaces, and seized 38 computers and 42 phones. Less than two weeks later, Vietnam’s Ministry of Public Security announced that Bac Ninh police had charged ten people.

Up to a Year in Prison

That case has now reached a verdict. In a first-instance ruling reported last week, a court in Bac Ninh convicted 14 defendants of infringing copyright and related rights under Article 225 of Vietnam’s Penal Code, VTC News reports.

Four defendants, including the heads of the content, programming and operations teams, were sentenced to 12 months in prison. Five others received ten months, and two were sentenced to eight months.

Notably, three of the site’s commentators were not sent to prison. Their ten-month sentences were suspended.

All 14 defendants reportedly admitted the charges and cooperated with the authorities. According to investigators, Bún Chả TV streamed more than 150,000 sports matches and it allegedly made more than 20 billion dong, roughly $760,000, in illegal profits from betting and gambling ads.

The verdict reports don’t mention a total. Instead, they list illegal gains per person or team. The leader of the content team allegedly gained more than 430 million dong, while commentators made from more than 31 million to more than 480 million dong each.

‘Strong’ Penalties

The verdict was picked up by Rouse, the law firm that represents the Motion Picture Association in Vietnam. In an article headlined “Strong Vietnam criminal penalties,” published on Lexology on November 3, the firm calls the ruling another victory for Vietnam’s IP landscape.

“The defendants were all sentenced to terms of 8-12 months in prison,” Rouse writes.

While Rouse is correct on the length of the terms, it doesn’t mention that three of the sentences were suspended. Instead, Rouse stresses that the ruling is part of a tougher enforcement trend.

“This ruling reflects a shift in enforcement strategy by Vietnamese authorities, who are increasingly moving past preliminary domain blocking to deliver criminal convictions against the operators of commercial-scale piracy rings,” the firm notes.

“This perhaps reflects the strength of the national crackdown following the USTR pressure in May,” the firm adds.

Organizer Not on Trial?

The 14 defendants worked on the site, but according to the indictment reported by VTC News, the operation was directed by Bùi Bá Hiến, who manages and runs a company called S24. Hiến allegedly instructed employees and hired collaborators to build and run Bún Chả TV.

Hiến is not among the 14 defendants named in the reports, as far as we can see. The reports don’t name any of the impacted rightsholders either.

Interestingly, in September, Bac Ninh police issued a wanted notice for a man of the same name, Bùi Bá Hiến, CEO of esports company Box Vietnam. This person is also charged under the same copyright statute.

Police said this man fled on May 13, two days before the Bún Chả TV raids, but none of the reports we’ve seen confirm that this esports executive is the same person that’s named in the Bún Chả TV indictment.

The USTR has until November 29 to make its Section 301 determination, although it can extend the investigation by three months if needed. On paper, Vietnamese law allows for sentences up to three years for copyright infringement. Whether the 8-12 month sentences are what Washington had in mind when it called for more deterrent punishments has yet to be seen.

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

The closure also cut off access to the Funimation digital copies that came with DVDs and Blu-ray discs. This wasn’t well received by anime fans.

Today, Crunchyroll’s help page still states that it does not currently support these copies. Instead, the page encourages affected users to explore the anime streaming library that Crunchyroll does offer.

The movies and shows are still on the discs and in theory American buyers could make their own digital replacement copies. However, doing so would break the law as the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provision prohibits bypassing the encryption on DVDs and Blu-rays, unless an exemption applies.

Petitions Seek New Disc Ripping Exemption

The U.S. Copyright Office reviews these exemptions every three years, and last week it opened ten proposed classes for public comment. Two of the underlying petitions deal with works for which digital access was discontinued, and one specifically mentions the Funimation case.

One of these petitions comes from Jayden Milne. He asks the Office to allow owners of DVDs, Blu-ray and Ultra HD Blu-ray discs to make a single secured, local copy for personal use, when the digital copy promised on the packaging is no longer available.

That covers two situations. The first are people who redeemed a digital copy before the service behind it shut down, as happened with Funimation.

The second are buyers of new discs whose code had already expired. According to the petition, Warner Bros. states that its digital codes expire based on a title’s release date rather than the purchase date, and that expired codes are not replaced. This means that a disc bought years after its release may come with a code that no longer works.

Milne wants owners of these physical discs to be able to rip a replacement from them, under strict conditions.

The replacement can’t be better than what was promised. If the box offered an HD digital copy, for example, owners can’t rip the 4K version. Also, the copy is for personal use and it must be destroyed if the disc is sold, given away or lost.

Disappearing Anime Streams

A second and related petition, submitted by Zakaria Zerhouane, focuses on anime more broadly. It covers series and films that were removed from authorized U.S. streaming platforms after their licenses expired, as well as anime released on disc by U.S. distributors that no longer exist.

The petition does not mention Funimation but lists several distributors, including ADV Films, Bandai Entertainment, Central Park Media and Geneon.

In addition to bypassing encryption on discs, Zerhouane also wants to legally circumvent the DRM, geo-locking, and session-based access controls that streaming platforms use. This is needed, the petition argues, as the anime licensing market is unstable.

“Streaming platforms provide no advance removal notice, preventing users from finishing or preserving works before they disappear,” Zerhouane writes.

He adds that the consolidation of the U.S. anime market under “a single dominant entity” has made catalogs more volatile. The petition doesn’t name the company, but the description appears to fit Sony-owned Crunchyroll.

Neither petition covers all video content. Zerhouane’s request is limited to anime, while Milne’s only covers discs that came with a digital copy. Both petitions are restricted to personal and noncommercial uses.

Rightsholders Respond in February

The Copyright Office grouped these requests with four other ‘replacement’ petitions. These ask for personal backups of discs, including before they deteriorate, and permission to format-shift discs as playback hardware disappears. These become more relevant every year, as old formats decay.

The Office notes that the Register of Copyrights has repeatedly declined to recommend such format-shifting exemptions in the past. This means that, while they are on the agenda, approval is uncertain.

Before making any decision, the Office wants more details from stakeholders. It asks which copy protections are involved, whether the titles can be watched legally some other way, and why making these copies wouldn’t infringe copyright. It also wants to know whether allowing this would hurt sales.

Supporters have until December 7 to send in their comments. Opponents can respond until February 22, and public hearings will follow in the spring.

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A copy of the Copyright Office’s notice of proposed rulemaking is available here (pdf). Jayden Milne’s petition can be found here (pdf), and Zakaria Zerhouane’s petition is available here (pdf).

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

The order was a win for anti-piracy group BREIN, but one prominent shadow library was missing. Z-Library wasn’t covered, even though BREIN warned in 2022 that it could seek blocking measures if the site recovered from the U.S. crackdown.

When we asked about the omission, BREIN explained that it focused on Anna’s Archive and LibGen because these were seen as more popular. The anti-piracy group added that it planned to request a Z-Library blockade in the future, if the site stayed online. More than two years later, BREIN has kept its word.

KPN Must Block Z-Library and OceanofPDF

Last Friday, the Rotterdam court ruled in BREIN’s favor in its case against Internet provider KPN. The court ordered the ISP to block Z-Library and OceanofPDF, which BREIN describes as the two largest and most popular book piracy sites that weren’t blocked yet.

The order lists one domain for OceanofPDF, oceanofpdf.com, and five Z-Library domains: z-library.sk, z-library.la, 1lib.sk, z-lib.gd and articles.sk.

According to BREIN, the shadow library sites offer tens of thousands of titles from Dutch rightsholders. These include books, magazines, (academic) journals, sheet music and newspapers.

BREIN adds that, when it served the summons, OceanofPDF had more than 200,000 monthly visits from the Netherlands, while Z-Library had over 300,000 Dutch visits per month.

BREIN sued KPN under the terms of the site blocking covenant, which it signed with several Dutch Internet providers in October 2021. This agreement requires BREIN to sue the providers in alphabetical order, and this time it was KPN’s turn.

While KPN was the only targeted ISP, other major Dutch Internet providers have agreed to follow suit under the covenant. These blocking actions are meant to make the shadow libraries much harder to reach in the Netherlands, at least without workarounds.

The covenant also required BREIN to try to take the sites offline at the source, before going to court. In July, BREIN asked the site owners, registrars, registries and hosting providers to take action, without result. According to the court, BREIN couldn’t be expected to do more.

Dynamic Order Covers Future Mirrors

The order has a dynamic provision, which allows for blocking actions against future domains, subdomains, proxies and mirrors. This means that if Z-Library or OceanofPDF switch to new domains to evade the blocking measures, BREIN can add these domains without going back to court.

KPN previously pushed back against a dynamic order. In 2023, the provider argued that a similar order targeting Lookmovie and Flixtor was too broad, but the court disagreed. This time, KPN didn’t put up a defense and left the decision to the judge.

Interestingly, Z-Library itself encourages people to run mirrors. Since 2025, users can operate mirror sites on their own domains and, since June, these mirrors can carry custom branding and be password protected.

Password-protected mirrors without any Z-Library branding are not easily detected by rightsholders, which makes them harder to block, also dynamically.

BREIN Points to Libraries

BREIN stresses that readers do not need these shadow libraries as there are plenty of legal options to get books.

“There are fantastic legal, user-friendly apps on the market that let consumers read and listen to countless ebooks and audiobooks. You can also borrow ebooks and audiobooks through the library at little cost,” BREIN writes.

“So there’s no reason at all to get books from illegal sources. Illegal services put all the revenue in their own pockets. Nothing reaches the authors and publishers.”

Whether the dynamic order can keep up with Z-Library’s network of user-run mirrors has yet to be seen, but it should make the sites harder to reach for casual visitors.

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TorrentFreak has seen a copy of the latest blocking ruling issued by the Rotterdam court, but it has not been published publicly yet. BREIN’s announcement can be found here.

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

The lawsuits are separate, but Judge Vince Chhabria handles them together. The plaintiffs include authors such as Sarah Silverman and Ta-Nehisi Coates, and publishers such as Entrepreneur Media and Chicken Soup for the Soul.

In August, Meta told Entrepreneur that it did not believe it had obtained the pirated Books3 dataset through BitTorrent. Books3 is a collection of nearly 200,000 books, taken from the library of the private torrent tracker Bibliotik.

However, recent deposition testimony from a former Meta researcher tells a different story, according to the rightsholders.

Books3 Torrenting Testimony

In a joint status report filed with Meta on Tuesday, the rightsholders say that Stephen Roller admitted during a deposition last week that he torrented Books3 and knowingly distributed it. Roller worked at Meta between 2017 and 2023, and the download took place during that period, they say.

Roller didn’t recall exactly when he acquired the dataset, the plaintiffs note. He did acknowledge that Books3 was created in 2020, and that he didn’t work for any other company while at Meta.

This is relevant, as the court ruled last year that training Llama on books was fair use, leaving Meta’s BitTorrent downloads as the main open issue in the authors’ case. Earlier this month, a judge ordered Meta to name the employees who approved torrenting from shadow libraries.

Meta has acknowledged using Books3 before. In early 2024, it admitted that it used portions of the dataset to train its Llama 1 and Llama 2 models. That admission didn’t say how Meta obtained the dataset.

Roller also testified that Meta had copies of Books3 by the time he left its AI research group FAIR, the plaintiffs write. He also named two research scientists who, they say, likely acquired their own copies.

Roller no longer has his own copy. According to the plaintiffs, he deleted it about a year ago, possibly after he was subpoenaed for the second time. He did so “[d]ue to all this litigation,” as “it seem[ed] contentious to have copies of The Pile [which includes Books3].”

The claim that Meta had multiple copies, at least one of them torrented, was news to the plaintiffs, they write. They plan to ask Meta how many copies of Books3 it acquired and how, and will ask the court to step in if that fails.

Meta: Could Have Been for Himself

Meta sees things differently. The company notes that the status report is the first time the rightsholders raised these concerns, and the tech giant argues that Roller’s deposition doesn’t support them.

“Mr. Roller testified that he did not know when he downloaded a copy of the ‘The Pile’ via torrent, and did not testify that his download of the ‘The Pile’ was for Meta or at Meta, noting it could have been for himself or for another employer,” Meta writes.

According to Meta, Roller also said that he didn’t know whether more than one copy was downloaded, or whether the two researchers he mentioned acquired Books3. He left Meta in January 2023 and has since worked for three other companies working on AI.

The deleted copy was stored on Roller’s personal computer, Meta adds. He removed it more than two years after leaving the company because he “didn’t need it, so [he’d] rather not have it.”

A (Pirated) Book Club

Books3 is not the only pirated material that comes up in the status report. The plaintiffs also suggest that pirated books may have been used at Meta for things other than AI training.

They want Meta to produce the contents of an internal Google Drive folder titled “ML Books”. In addition, they want records of a Meta book club that may have used books from shadow libraries.

In one of the documents Meta produced, an employee shared a “pirated book” with a colleague. “i know for vellum sake this is prob very ironic,” the employee wrote. When asked whether the book was pirated, the employee replied with a link to the “ML Books” folder.

The recipient told another colleague, “bro she tryna get me fired.” He added that he “may need her to delete those messages.”

The plaintiffs see this as relevant. If Meta employees used shadow library books for a book club, that would impact Meta’s fair use defense.

However, Meta argues that this request comes too late. The plaintiffs first asked for the linked files on October 9, which was more than a month after the discovery period had closed.

As for the folder itself, Meta says it is investigating and will discuss it with the plaintiffs when it knows more.

Missing Server Logs

Roller’s copy of Books3 is not the only material the plaintiffs say is missing. Meta still hasn’t handed over all command history files from its torrenting, they note, despite court orders to do so. According to the plaintiffs, these logs show how Meta configured its torrent software and which torrent files it targeted, and thus which works.

Specifically, Meta has yet to hand over command history files from any of the servers it used during its torrenting periods, the plaintiffs say. They now ask the court to order Meta to say whether any of these files were deleted, and when.

Meta, in turn, counters that it has produced substantial quantities of logs from those servers and is still searching backups, handing over new files on a rolling basis. According to Meta, there is no reason to believe any command history files were deleted.

Entrepreneur’s case is scheduled to go to trial in the spring of 2027, with the other publishers lined up behind it, should it settle before then. Meanwhile, the list of related cases keeps growing. This month, publishers including Elsevier, Hachette and Macmillan, as well as more authors, joined the queue.

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A copy of the joint case management statement, 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.

The anime streaming giant, previously known as Zoro.to and Aniwatch, shut down in March without offering an explanation.

Four months later, Vietnamese police arrested four of its alleged operators, and charged seven people in total.

The authorities didn’t name the site at the time, but we identified it through footage aired by state broadcaster VTV. Vietnam’s Supreme People’s Procuracy now names HiAnime directly, in an indictment that also reveals where the money came from.

Seven Defendants Head to Trial

Today, the procuracy indicted Nguyễn Đình Minh Khoa and six co-defendants, who will be tried by the Hanoi People’s Court. Khoa, Nguyễn Trung Anh, Nguyễn Hoàng Thanh and Nguyễn Đình Xuân are charged with copyright infringement and money laundering. The other three only face copyright infringement charges.

According to state news agency TTXVN, the case originated with a complaint filed with the Ministry of Public Security by Rouse, the law firm that represents the Motion Picture Association (MPA) in Vietnam.

This complaint was filed on May 7, which was also the first day of a nationwide crackdown on pirate sites, triggered by an urgent order from Vietnam’s Prime Minister.

The HiAnime investigation eventually traced the operation back to early 2019, when Khoa allegedly came up with the idea to build pirate streaming sites that were easier to use than existing ones.

Khoa reportedly bought more than 100 domain names and worked on search engine optimization. Trung Anh managed the servers, Xuân programmed the sites, and Thanh designed them and handled the payouts. To expand the operation, co-defendant Nguyễn Phước Toàn was allegedly put in charge of the Zoro, Aniwatch and HiAnime pages on Reddit.

HiAnime wasn’t the only brand. The indictment also mentions Sflix/Myflixerz and 9animetv. Between mid-2019 and March 2026, the group allegedly offered 26,000 TV series and 7,500 anime titles through its network of sites.

12.85 Million USDT Through PropellerAds

The prosecution says that Khoa was in charge of the advertising. He allegedly dealt with advertising platform PropellerAds via Skype and Telegram, and placed its ads on the various pirate sites.

“Through the Propeller Ads platform, the defendants received a total of 12.85 million USDT, equivalent to 12.85 million USD,” Báo Bảo vệ pháp luật’s report reads (translated).

According to TTXVN, PropellerAds paid out 12.85 million USDT which was sent to the group’s crypto wallets.

The indictment notes that Khoa personally received 2.5 million USDT from 2020 onward, while Thanh collected 10.35 million USDT through wallets on the Binance exchange starting in September 2023. After costs, the four main defendants split the profits equally, which earned each of them at least 50 billion Vietnamese dong, roughly $2 million.

PropellerAds has been criticized by Hollywood before. The MPA recommended the advertising company for the USTR’s annual notorious markets list, arguing that many pirate sites use it to generate revenue. PropellerAds rejected these claims and, in 2023, accused the MPA of harassment and defamation.

Whether PropellerAds was aware of HiAnime’s activities is unknown.

Update: After publication, PropellerAds’ attorney Val Gurvits sent us a statement on behalf of the company. PropellerAds says it is an intermediary between advertisers and publishers that “does not host, produce, control or endorse the content of publishers’ websites.”

The attorney adds that PropellerAds is not a party in the Vietnamese proceedings and “had no involvement in the ownership, operation or management of HiAnime.”

Cloudflare Storage, DMCA Subpoenas

The indictment also mentions other intermediaries. Trung Anh allegedly rented servers from hosting company Evoluso between 2019 and 2022. From 2023 until March 2026, the group’s storage system relied on services from Cloudflare.

The MPA previously tried to identify the people behind HiAnime through Cloudflare. In October 2024, it requested a DMCA subpoena requiring the company to share information on hianime.to and several related domains. A year later, it requested another one, listing a new batch of HiAnime branded domains.

Whether these subpoenas produced any information that helped the Vietnamese investigation is unknown.

From Porsche to G63

Over the years, the sites repeatedly received DMCA copyright warnings from Google, prosecutors say. However, the defendants kept changing the site addresses, so they could continue streaming and collecting ad revenue. This matches with the rebranding efforts.

Early this year, the defendants allegedly began to cover their tracks. In February, fearing detection, Trung Anh had his sister register his Porsche in her name. Xuân did the same with a Mercedes, which he registered to his father and later his sister, while also changing its license plate.

By March 2026, as the authorities stepped up their action against copyright infringement, the defendants decided to stop operating and deleted the websites they had used,” Báo Bảo vệ pháp luật reports (translated).

The money laundering charges are linked to how the advertising revenue was spent. The four main defendants allegedly moved the USDT through several crypto wallets, sold it for Vietnamese dong, and transferred it to personal bank accounts. The money was then used to buy property and cars.

According to the indictment, Khoa spent more than 24 billion dong, starting with a Porsche Panamera that he registered in his wife’s name in January 2022. He later sold it, and used the proceeds and more crypto money to buy a Mercedes G63 in April 2024. That car was sold for 8.5 billion dong, which went toward a Land Rover Autobiography earlier this year.

The other main defendants allegedly spent their share on cars and property too, as can be seen in the summary below.

This high-profile case is also being watched in Washington. In May, the USTR opened a Section 301 investigation into Vietnam’s copyright enforcement, which could lead to tariffs. In its response, Vietnam cited the HiAnime prosecution to show that it is taking piracy seriously.

The defendants are not the first pirate site operators to face trial in Vietnam. Two operators of the Fmovies piracy ring dodged prison last year, as they received suspended sentences.

That was a thorn in the side of rightsholders. The USTR also flagged the issue, urging Vietnam to seek “deterrent-level prison sentences.”

None of the reports we have seen mentions a trial date. Whether the Hanoi court will hand out the deterrent sentences Hollywood and the USTR have called for has yet to be seen.

The details of the indictment were reported by Vietnamese newspaper Báo Bảo vệ pháp luật and state news agency TTXVN, through VietnamPlus. Quotes from the newspaper’s report on the indictment were translated from Vietnamese by TorrentFreak.

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

The 19th Civil Court of Santiago ordered all variants of these services to be blocked and instructed telecoms regulator Subtel to notify the country’s Internet providers. Subtel sent these blocking orders in January, and Warner later followed up with a criminal complaint against a local IPTV operator.

This week, new info released by Subtel shows that these initial blocking measures were just the beginning, as the blocking campaign continues to expand.

According to the regulator, the ISPs GTD, DirecTV, Entel, WOM, Mundo, ClaroVTR, Netline, and Movistar have now blocked a total of 1,954 URLs linked to illegal IPTV services. These blocklist updates come in batches, which come in regularly.

The blocked domains are not limited to MagisTV, FlujoTV, and XuperTV. Subtel also lists Cuevana, Oleada TV, Stella TV, TeleLatino, PelisPlus, Cinecalidad, and Fútbol Libre, as well as their variants and mirror sites.

Subtel’s announcement came shortly after Chilean police arrested 16 people linked to the pirate IPTV services UltraIPTV and MegaIPTV, in a separate criminal investigation.

A Matter of Data Protection

Subtel’s announcement doesn’t lead with copyright. Its headline puts digital security and data protection first, and the regulator says the procedure aims to protect citizens’ privacy and personal data.

Subtel warns that these unauthorized streaming platforms can collect sensitive data from users, leaving them exposed to cybercrime, data theft, and financial fraud.

“By installing these informal apps, users expose their bank passwords, personal data, and devices to hacks and scams, without any kind of support or protection,” says Undersecretary of Telecommunications Romina Garrido (translated).

“When using a pirate app or site, users hand over the key to their personal data to unknown organizations,” Garrido adds.

The data protection argument isn’t new. Warner’s own legal action argued that the pirate platforms put users’ personal data at risk, local media reported in February.

Garrido also points users to legal alternatives. “With these blocks, we break the chain of cybercrime and promote a legal offering that actually guarantees data protection and support, such as the one offered by Chile’s formal telecommunications industry,” she says.

MagisTV and Beyond

While the court order serves as the legal basis for the blocks, the original ruling only named MagisTV, FlujoTV, and XuperTV, according to reports at the time. Since then, the piracy blocklist has expanded considerably.

According to La Tercera, other pirate TV sites were added based on an interpretation of the ruling. Subtel, the Public Prosecutor’s Office, Warner, and the Alliance Against Digital Piracy then agreed on a protocol to decide which sites should be blocked.

Subtel’s monthly figures start in June, months after the regulator notified ISPs in January. The regulator didn’t explain the gap, but it’s possible that the protocol took some time to put in place.

In practice, the anti-piracy Alliance puts together the lists of URLs, IP addresses, and domains. Subtel then forwards these to the ISPs, which implement the blocks nationwide.

The order itself is quite broad. According to Emol, it covers all variants of the three brands, including any domain, subdomain, IP address, link, redirect, or mirror site that reproduces audiovisual content, wholly or partially, without authorization.

Whac-El-Topo

Despite the growing list, the blocking efforts haven’t stopped piracy. BioBioChile found that several of the targeted sites are still online.

Our own search shows that alternatives and copycats remain easy to find as well, including sites that use the popular Cuevana, Fútbol Libre, and MagisTV brands.

As shown earlier, October is the busiest month so far, with 765 blocked URLs and several days still to go. That number will likely rise further as the game of whac-a-mole continues.

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

These trackers, including PassThePopcorn, BroadcasTheNet, Karagarga, HDBits, and Beyond-HD, allegedly shared several of his works without permission.

A few months later, the same operators were sued in an Illinois federal court. That case took a turn when defense attorneys presented evidence that the plaintiff may be an impostor, and last month the person litigating as Matthew Schneider dropped the lawsuit.

That isn’t the end of it though, as Judge Andrea R. Wood kept jurisdiction over the pending sanctions request. Before any sanctions can follow, the defense wants the court to verify the identity of the plaintiff.

At a September hearing, the man said that Matthew Schneider is his legal name and that he lives in London. In response, the court requested official paperwork to back that up.

Passport, License, Copyright Application

Judge Wood had ordered the October 2 status hearing to take place by videoconference, but the plaintiff joined by phone, noting that he had technical difficulties.

At the hearing, the judge directed him to email the courtroom deputy copies of his driver’s license, his passport, and documentation of his application to the U.S. Copyright Office by October 9.

The documents would be filed under seal and shared with the parties under a protective order. However, the deadline seemingly passed without a response.

On October 14, the plaintiff asked the court if he could share a single “independently certified and apostilled” UK government photo ID instead, to be examined by the judge alone with no access for the defense.

These privacy restrictions are warranted, he argues, citing UK data protection law. Once his government ID is exposed, he adds, that can’t be undone.

“Once opposing counsel receives Plaintiff’s sensitive government-issued identification and residential information, the resulting loss of confidentiality cannot meaningfully be reversed,” the motion reads.

If the court refuses to restrict the disclosure, he asks for a temporary stay so he can seek appellate review. The motion does not mention the Copyright Office records, however, which as far as the defense knows haven’t been shared either.

‘This Is Plaintiff’s Design’

Two days later, Erin Russell, who represents Doe 1, asked Judge Wood to order the plaintiff to explain why he shouldn’t be held in civil contempt. According to the motion, he had agreed on the record to hand over the documents.

Russell isn’t asking for punishment, at least not yet. She wants a sworn statement on what was sent and when, followed by an in-person hearing.

The identity question is more than a formality. As Russell told the court in September, any sanctions award would be uncollectible unless the court first establishes who the plaintiff actually is.

In a filing last week, Doe 1 went a step further. “Plaintiff’s refusal to produce his passport and driving license hinders the discovery plan agreed to by the parties on October 2, 2026. Defendants do not know Plaintiff’s true identity,” it reads.

The plaintiff already made it clear that he will appeal if his motion is denied, which would drag this case further along. According to Doe 1’s filing, this is no accident.

“This interference with the discovery schedule is not incidental. This is Plaintiff’s design.”

Blanks to Fill

In last week’s filing, Doe 1 shared its proposed discovery requests and subpoenas. Doe #10, identified in its own filing as Usenet indexer omgwtfnzbs.org, submitted a similar filing. Both are incomplete, as the defense doesn’t have the identity documents.

Doe #10 had planned to tailor its requests to the passport, license, and copyright paperwork. Without them, it switched to placeholders such as “Admit that Your legal name is [insert legal name on passport].”

The proposed subpoenas target Google for the plaintiff’s Gmail account, the carrier of his phone number, and the mailbox provider or landlord for his Sanborn, New York address. From the latter, Doe 1 seeks billing records, payment methods, and the addresses to which his mail is “allegedly forwarded.”

Doe 1 also wants the PACER Service Center to hand over the IP addresses the plaintiff used to access the court’s website.

The defendants are also measuring their own exposure. Both Does ask for “all documents, data, and other materials” he received from the companies he subpoenaed since August 2025.

According to the filings, that includes materials Cloudflare produced in response to the California DMCA subpoena. The exhibit they cite, which the plaintiff filed in February, is currently sealed.

Previously, Doe 1’s attorney suggested that the person behind the lawsuit had been banned from the trackers and “bears ill will” over it, hinting at a retaliatory motive.

Was ‘Do Us Part’ Made With AI?

The last set of questions deals with “Do Us Part,” one of three films the plaintiff says he made in the UK. After being ordered by the court, he submitted his version of the film in September. According to his motion, the evidence “directly refuted” the claim that his film is the Canadian production.

His film was allegedly created more than 14 years ago, but the defense appears to doubt this. They ask the plaintiff to admit that the submission “was generated, in whole or in part, using GenAI.”

They also want the original file, all raw footage, and “all prompts, outputs, project files, account records, and activity logs” for any use of AI.

All parties can still file objections to the discovery requests and they are scheduled to meet again at a video hearing on November 17. This time, the court has directed the plaintiff to test his video capabilities before it starts.

—

The plaintiff’s motion to modify the ID order is available here (pdf). Doe 1’s contempt motion is here (pdf). The proposed discovery requests from Doe 1 and Doe #10 can be found here (pdf) and here (pdf).

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

These “Piracy-as-a-Service” providers offer ready-made video players that other sites can embed. This allows new pirate sites to launch live sports coverage without hosting any streams themselves.

Streamed was one of these providers. The platform focused on live sports and was used as the backbone by many other sites. However, its homepage now suggests that this has come to an abrupt end.

“We are no longer operating Streamed. Thank you for the support over the years,” the message reads.

The operators don’t explain why they decided to pull the plug.

Pointing to Rivals

The notice isn’t limited to streamed.pk. The strmd.link domain redirects to the closure page and streamed.st shows the same message.

Instead of simply going dark, the operators offer some advice to former users. They list five alternative sports streaming sites, each with a short description of its niche. This includes ppv.st, pitsport.st and thedaddy.pk. The latter has “lots of ads” according to the recommendation.

The shutdown of Streamed is significant as it affects dozens of sites at once. It was also seen as a notorious piracy threat by the Motion Picture Association.

The MPA previously mentioned Mapple as one of the sites that relied on Streamed. At the time of writing, some of its sports streams return a 404 error.

A Growing Threat

Earlier this month, the MPA listed Streamed in its annual overview of notorious piracy markets, which it sent to the U.S. Trade Representative. The movie industry group described it as a “Piracy-as-a-Service” provider that keeps growing.

Citing Similarweb data, the MPA said that around 30 pirate sites used Streamed in July, with a combined 463 million visits. A year earlier, it counted 29 sites with 134 million visits.

According to the MPA, a significant number of the sites relying on Streamed are so-called “hydra sites,” one-stop piracy portals such as HydraHD, Rivestream, StreamEX and Mapple. Cineby is listed as an example too, although it has since shut down.

“None of the sites Streamed services host live content themselves; all traffic flows through Streamed as the PaaS, which relies entirely on its own infrastructure,” the MPA writes.

The MPA’s data covers the sites that used the Streamed embed. The streamed.pk domain itself also received 19.76 million visits in September according to Similarweb, 56% more than the month before. Nearly half of these visits came from the United States, followed by Canada and the UK.

But Why?

Streamed’s farewell message doesn’t mention any enforcement action. There is also no seizure banner and neither the MPA nor the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) thave said anything so far.

That doesn’t rule out any external involvement, however. In its submission, the MPA took credit for the shutdowns of Cineby and AnimeFLV. These sites didn’t mention an anti-piracy action when they went down, and no group claimed it at the time.

That said, since the closure message openly promotes other pirate streaming sites, it seems unlikely that the shutdown was part of a settlement or another agreement with Hollywood.

—

We reached out to the MPA and ACE for a comment on the shutdown, but they did not respond before publication.

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

The lawsuit had an immediate effect, as the tracker went offline shortly after. In an amended complaint, FlavaWorks later narrowed its list of targeted users from 325 to 39.

Several of the site’s administrators and most of the targeted members are still listed as anonymous John Does. To change that, FlavaWorks asked the court for permission to subpoena their email providers. In an October 14 order, U.S. District Judge John Robert Blakey granted this request in part.

Subpoenas Target Google, Yahoo, Microsoft

The order allows FlavaWorks to subpoena Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, AT&T, Cloudflare and Newfold Digital. Each subpoena is limited to the email addresses or domains of defendants linked to that provider.

The targeted services are asked to hand over the subscriber’s name, mailing address and phone number, as well as any secondary, recovery or two-factor authentication email addresses. FlavaWorks can also request the most recent IP address that was used to access each account, covering the period from January 2025 onward.

The judge didn’t give FlavaWorks carte blanche. The company also asked for the billing names and addresses on file with the email providers, and for a subpoena to payment processor Stripe to identify the people behind a Bulgarian company linked to the site. The order includes neither.

An IP Address Is Not a Person

Subpoenas targeting email providers are not common in torrent-related lawsuits. Rightsholders typically collect IP addresses from torrent swarms and ask Internet providers to identify the account holders. FlavaWorks says it has IP address data for the defendants too, but it chose to go after their email accounts instead, bypassing the more common ISP route.

As justification, FlavaWorks mentions an argument that’s usually reserved for defendants, stating that an IP address is not a person.

“But an IP address identifies an Internet subscription, not a person: it resolves to whoever pays the bill for a household, an office, a university network, or a shared carrier-grade address pool, and it can be masked by a VPN,” FlavaWorks writes.

An email address, the company argues, is personal to the account holder, which should help to identify the defendants.

According to the exhibit filed with the motion, 22 defendants are linked to Gmail addresses, nine to Yahoo, three to Hotmail and one to an AT&T address. Two others use private domains, registered through Cloudflare and Bluehost, a Newfold Digital company.

This list of targets isn’t limited to regular members. Several of the site’s administrators are on it as well, identified by Gmail, Yahoo and Hotmail addresses. One other administrator, who used a ProtonMail address, was left out, as the Swiss company is beyond the reach of a U.S. subpoena.

Tracker Users Can Still Object

The new order doesn’t mean that the data will be handed over right away. It explicitly allows the defendants and the providers to move to quash the subpoenas.

Google, for example, has pushed back before. In February, we reported that the company raised First Amendment concerns over a similar FlavaWorks subpoena targeting users of another private tracker.

However, in a July filing, FlavaWorks said that Google produced subscriber data in that case in April. Whether that covered all the targeted Gmail accounts is not mentioned. FlavaWorks adds that the tech giant handed over the same type of information in an earlier case, without objection.

Insider Knowledge?

For FlavaWorks, the subpoenas are meant to confirm its existing suspicions. The member defendants in this case were selected because the email address on their tracker account matched an account on one of FlavaWorks’ own sites.

In a September status report, the company said that its own records already point to a probable identity for many of them. It doesn’t want to name anyone publicly, however, before the email providers confirm who is behind each account.

How FlavaWorks obtained the email addresses in the first place is still a mystery. On an invite-only tracker, this information is typically only visible to staff. The court filings don’t offer a direct answer but cite the company’s own records and “investigation” without going into detail.

The September status report, which we haven’t seen reported anywhere, shows that FlavaWorks has help, presumably from an insider.

“Plaintiff has also obtained the cooperation of an individual with direct knowledge of the Site’s operation,” it reads.

The report doesn’t say when this cooperation started, or whether this person is the source of the email addresses. That said, FlavaWorks expects that this cooperation can help identify the operators, as well as other users who shared its works or funded the site.

Some defendants are already settling. FlavaWorks notes that several members resolved the claims before they were named. Additionally, in its separate RICO lawsuit against 75 members, one John Doe agreed to pay an undisclosed settlement amount in installments.

For now, the account holders and the subpoenaed companies can still ask the court to quash the subpoenas, but the docket shows no movement on that front yet.

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A copy of Judge Blakey’s order is available here (pdf). FlavaWorks’ renewed motion for expedited discovery, with the defendant-to-provider table, can be found here (pdf), and the September status report is available here (pdf). FlavaWorks’ July discovery motion, which mentions Google’s earlier productions, can be found here (pdf).

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