A recent federal lawsuit filed in a Florida federal court, shows that this can result in a sweeping piracy blocking that does real damage to the targeted platforms.

The case was originally filed by the Mexican broadcaster TelevisaUnivision (TU) in early June. The case was relatively targeted, naming the IPTV services Thunder TV, Sunset TV, Pop TV, Kaelus TV, and Tele Latino, as well as their alleged operators.

The broadcaster argued that these pirate IPTV services threatened its business. TU holds the World Cup rights for sixteen Latin American territories, and its license with FIFA requires it to keep the Mexican broadcast signal from reaching the United States. The pirate services, it argued, put it in breach of that contract, exposing it to “termination and forfeiture of hundreds of millions of dollars in payments.”

To stop this immediate threat, the company requested a temporary restraining order, hoping to shut down the IPTV services effective immediately.

Judge Kathleen Williams granted the temporary restraining order on June 5, one day after the case was filed, without hearing from any of the defendants. The initial order prohibited the defendants from infringing TU’s own copyrighted works, which include telenovelas and other programming, and from using its trademarks, including all content linked to its licensed World Cup broadcast.

Importantly, the order also targeted third parties acting “in active concert,” including ISPs, hosts, CDNs, domain registrars, registries, app stores, ad networks, social platforms, search engines, and payment processors. These were ordered, on TU’s request and with notice, to disable the listed domains and IP addresses and unmask whoever was behind them.

The order specifically names various intermediaries such as Cloudflare, Namecheap, and GoDaddy, and directed financial players to take action. Mexican bank BBVA Bancomer and the payment channel Spin by OXXO were ordered to freeze funds and disclose the identities behind the accounts.

On July 24, Judge Williams converted the TRO into a preliminary injunction. By then the order had grown into something far larger than the case that started it, and that could only be the beginning, as the injunction appears to be self-expanding by nature, in multiple ways.

Injunction Covers Future Targets

While the injunction is noteworthy for many reasons, the most striking feature is that it’s specifically written to include things that don’t yet exist.

That starts with the content it protects. The order isn’t limited to TU’s current catalog or the World Cup rights, it covers the infringement of “any copyrighted works or broadcasts that Plaintiffs may in the future produce, license, or acquire rights to transmit.”

In other words, it covers future copyrights that did not exist when the order was signed.

The same applies to the pirate services themselves. The injunction defines its target as the named IPTV operations “and any comparable system,” whether “currently in existence or developed in the future,” and it applies “regardless of the branding, domain name, or technical configuration used.”

This effectively covers a pirate site or service that hasn’t launched, under a brand that is currently unknown, on a domain name that hasn’t been registered yet. As long as TU says it carries its pirated content, it can be targeted.

The injunction goes beyond pirate streaming targets too and specifically notes that the BitTorrent protocol and other content devivery categories are also included.

Self-Expanding Without a Judge

The injunction does have more novel characteristics. For example, one of the clauses allows TU’s lawyers to add these additional targets by filing a sworn declaration, without needing approval from a judge.

“Plaintiffs may supplement Schedule A by filing a verified declaration identifying additional infringing services, IP addresses, domains, applications, or platforms, which supplementation shall take effect immediately upon filing and service,” the injunction reads.

This effectively makes it a dynamic injunction, instead of a fixed one. Rightsholders have obtained dynamic blocking orders for years in the UK, Spain, and elsewhere in the EU, but for the United States this is new.

The broadcaster has already used the power twice. A first supplementation was filed on June 12. A second, filed on July 10, added an entire tier of piracy brands that were never named as defendants: XuperTV, Tarjeta Roja, Pirlo TV, Roja Directa, RBTV, Strikeout, and StudioMax.

Domain Registrars Suspend Domains

While the injunction covers a wide range of intermediaries, including Internet providers, it has not been used as a typical ISP site blocking order. Instead, it appears to be used mostly to target domain registrars and Cloudflare.

To get an idea of the effect this had, TorrentFreak ran a WHOIS check on many of the targeted domains this week.

Of 474 domains queried, 203 have a clientHold status, indicating that the registrars suspended these. One domain was suspended by the registry and the rest of the domains were not suspended.

Which registrars complied is largely explained by the location of the registrars. U.S.-facing registrars acted on nearly everything, with NameCheap and GoDaddy taking action on most domains.

Meanwhile, the domains that were left untouched are linked to foreign registrars, including Russia’s REGTIME-SU and the Dutch company Registrar.eu, which both hadn’t suspended a single listed domain according to our information.

This is the expected shape of the result rather than a failure of it. An order that binds “all persons in active concert” still depends, in practice, on whether the party served answers to a U.S. court. Where the registrar does, the domain goes dark. Where it doesn’t, it stays up.

The timing of the suspensions makes sense too. More than 90% of the suspended domains were updated during either the days around the June 5 restraining order, or the days after the July 24 injunction.

It is worth stressing that in addition to domain suspensions, the services may have also gone offline because other parts of their infrastructure were hit. That includes the hosting services that are listed in the injunction, as well as Cloudflare.

A Dedicated Cloudflare Section

Cloudflare stands out as the only intermediary to receive its own tailored rules, detailed in several pages of the order.

The company is directed to disable its CDN, reverse-proxy, and DNS service for a long list of domains within 24 hours. It must also hand over origin-server IP addresses, DNS records, account holder names, payment details, and 14 days of request logs for the targeted domains.

In addition, Cloudflare must check whether any other account in its system shares an email address or billing name with a flagged account, and to unmask those accounts too.

Cloudflare did secure some limits. It only has to produce data it already holds, it has no duty to monitor content, and its compliance is not an admission of liability. This is similar to the “no fault” injunctions we see in Europe.

Dropped Hosting Companies and More Intermediaries

When the complaint was filed early June, it also named the hosting companies Enzu, Dash Networks, DigitalOcean, and HostGator as defendants. All four were targeted by the restraining order, but they were voluntarily dismissed after less than two weeks.

Beyond these, the injunction named dozens of other intermediaries, from registrars and hosts in Russia, Bulgaria, Romania, Iceland, and Iran, to mainstream services such as GitHub, Akamai, and Linode. They are all named because they allegedly provided services to the pirate operations.

As far as we can see, none of the defendants, operators or intermediaries, ever appeared in court to object.

The broad injunction remains valid until the case is decided, and TU can keep adding names, brands, and domains to it for at least two years. Whether there will be any transparency regarding these seemingly unlimited expansions is not immediately clear from the legal paperwork.

—

A copy of the preliminary injunction, issued by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, is available here (pdf). Magistrate Judge Enjoliqué Lett’s Report and Recommendation can be found here (pdf), and the original June 5 temporary restraining order here (pdf).

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

Run by ESA’s Science Program, it hosts mission-support pages and public data archives for Gaia, Euclid, XMM-Newton, and dozens of other missions, backed by a science archive that now runs to more than a petabyte of data.

European Space IPTV Recommendations

This valuable archive provides key information for researchers and, more recently, it also started to appeal to people who are looking for a cheap pirate IPTV subscription. This clearly isn’t official ESA material, but an exploit by scammers who uploaded hundreds of scammy PDF files to the site’s repository.

A simple site:cosmos.esa.int search shows the scope of the problem. In addition to genuine results, such as a notice that the Gaia satellite was switched off in March 2025, Google returns a series of documents with titles including “Top 10 IPTV Providers Right Now: The Definitive 2026 Rankings” and “Best IPTV Service Provider in the USA 2026…”

Because ESA’s .int domain has a good reputation and high authority, these scammy PDF files also rank well in regular search results. Those who search for the best premium IPTV subscriptions for Android will get the ESA domain as the first result through a featured Google snippet.

Google’s AI Overview is also picking up ESA’s recommendations for the top IPTV services, with information that comes straight from the scammers’ PDFs.

IPTV, Instagram Followers, and Free Robux

There are hundreds of these results, with many new ones being added while we write this article. The PDFs we checked don’t appear to be malicious. They function as advertisements for pirate IPTV services. Whether these indeed offer what they promise is unknown, but visiting these hyperlinked URLs is not advised.

The IPTV ads are only part of the problem. The same corner of ESA’s portal also hosts unrelated scam content, including a “Free Coin Master Spins Guide” aimed at mobile-game players, “Free Instagram Followers,” and “Free Robux codes.” These free offerings undoubtedly come at a cost and should be avoided too.

The broad mix of scammy offers shows that ESA’s website is being exploited more broadly. How these people gained access to the server is unknown. According to ESA’s documentation, uploading requires site-editor access to the Cosmos portal, but there might be a weakness in the system.

Known SEO Exploit

The goal of these PDFs is to rank high in Google search results for popular terms. This is a known SEO hack that we have seen numerous times before.

Last year, for example, the European Commission’s Eurostat portal was exploited in the same way, with scam PDFs climbing to the top spot for terms like “best IPTV providers of 2025.”

To find out more, TorrentFreak reached out to ESA yesterday, asking whether it was aware of the documents, how they were uploaded, and how long they had been online. We will update this article if we hear back.

At the time of writing, the IPTV documents remain live on the Cosmos portal. If history is any guide, cleaning them up won’t be the end of it. They will either come back, or they will resurface on another website, repeating the same trick.

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

A Texas federal jury found the Internet provider liable for willful contributory copyright infringement and ordered it to pay $46.8 million in damages, after Grande failed to disconnect pirating subscribers.

The verdict was a milestone in the recording industry’s campaign to hold ISPs responsible for their subscribers’ piracy. The ruling was later affirmed on appeal by the Fifth Circuit, which also vacated the damages award, sending that question back for a new trial.

That new trial might not come after Cox v. Sony changed the playing field. In March, the Supreme Court reversed a billion-dollar verdict against Cox Communications, holding that an Internet provider is not liable for contributory infringement simply because it keeps serving subscribers it knows have been flagged for piracy.

A few weeks later, the Supreme Court also wiped out the Grande verdict, ordering the Fifth Circuit to reconsider the case in light of the new standard.

Labels Offer to Walk Away

That reconsideration process was set in motion but, according to new filings submitted by both parties last week, it appears that the record labels are ready to throw in the towel.

In their supplemental letter brief, filed on Wednesday, the record labels effectively inform the court they are done.

“The Cox decision represents a material intervening change in law governing contributory copyright infringement by internet service providers. Plaintiffs do not
intend to litigate the merits of this case further in light of the new standard,” the labels write.

This offer to retreat is in line with earlier decisions in ISP liability cases. Since the Cox ruling, the labels have already dropped similar lawsuits against Altice and Verizon, for example.

The music companies say they informed Grande of their “willingness to dismiss the case voluntarily”. That would be with prejudice and with both parties paying their own bills. However, Grande does not agree.

Grande Wants More

Instead of simply dismissing the matter, Grande prefers to end the case with a clear win. In their own letter, the ISP asks the Fifth Circuit to “render judgment in favor of Grande” and declare that the labels cannot win under the new standard.

“The Court should render judgment for Grande. Because the Labels cannot prove contributory infringement under Cox, there is ‘no clear benefit to remanding
this case to the district court’,” the ISP argues.

This isn’t just a matter of principle, there’s a significant amount of money at stake too. To postpone that payment of the $46.8 million judgment during the appeal, the company had to post a bond, and it says the premiums added up.

According to the labels, Grande previously communicated that it incurred roughly $4 million in bond premium costs.

The record labels are pushing back hard against this potential multi-million dollar bill. They accuse the ISP of needlessly inflating its own costs by waiting over nine months to discharge the bond after the initial damages award was vacated.

In addition, the labels argue that any potential payout should be offset by $191,618 in unpaid sanctions that Grande still owes them for filing a “meritless” motion earlier in the litigation.

It’s worth stressing that Grande has not mentioned an exact cost figure in its letter. The exact amount will likely be detailed later, if it gets that far.

It is now up to the Fifth Circuit to decide whether this case should end quietly, by simply vacating the earlier judgment and splitting the costs. Alternatively, it can grant Grande a formal win on the merits, with potential compensation for the costs it made.

—

The record labels’ supplemental letter brief, filed last week, at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, is available here (pdf). Grande’s supplemental letter brief can be found here (pdf).

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 two newcomers on the list.

“Disclosure Day” is the most shared title.

The most torrented movies for the week ending on August 03 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.

From the start of the FIFA World Cup through the final, U.S. authorities and their partners seized more than 1,000 domains, while close to 2,000 more were blocked across Latin America.

The Motion Picture Association, which coordinated the effort through its Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE), previously praised the operation as a massive success. However, in an op-ed published by RealClearMarkets yesterday, MPA’s leadership admits that domain seizures have their limitations.

“It Does Not Dismantle the Business”

The op-ed, titled “Blowing the Whistle on World Cup Piracy,” is written by MPA Chairman and CEO Charles Rivkin and IPR Center Director Ivan Arvelo. It celebrates the operation as a clear success, noting that the seized sites racked up more than 156 million visits in July alone before they were taken offline.

Indeed, disrupting millions of potential visits has an impact. However, the crackdown also had its limitations, as it does not take out the operations running these sites. These limitations are also recognized in the op-ed.

“A takedown is essential, and it can interrupt access for a moment. But it does not dismantle the business behind it,” Rivkin and Arvelo write.

This is not the type of admission you expect from the MPA or the IPR Center, who just completed the largest piracy domain seizure round in U.S. history. However, the framing does nicely set up the policy argument that follows. At the same time, it corroborates our earlier coverage.

The Russian and Iranian Domains That Survived

Two weeks before the op-ed appeared, we reported that several major pirate streaming brands had switched to fallback domains on Iran’s .ir country-code TLD, in an apparent effort to move to infrastructure that is harder for U.S. law enforcement to reach.

Iranian domains have significant drawbacks of their own, especially for those operations who want to run ads, so there is no mass exodus. However, many that migrated to the .ir TLD remain online today.

A check this week shows that Buffstreams, Footybite, Totalsportek, and Nflbite brands all remain reachable on their .ir fallbacks. None have been suspended or seized, which is no surprise since Iranian authorities are not eager to cooperate with the U.S.

Meanwhile, the largest sites were never dependent on U.S.-controlled infrastructure to begin with. A popular Futbol-libres domain, for example, operating on the Russian-run .su registry, was not among the seized domains and reportedly drew more than 200 million visits in July, according to Similarweb data. That is more than the 156 million visits the MPA counted across all seized domains.

MPA Sees More Attack Vectors

While domains are just part of a site’s infrastructure, it is clear that domain seizures have their limitations. This is not news to the MPA and ACE, who are constantly tracking these domain name migrations.

Speaking with TorrentFreak, MPA’s Executive Vice President and Chief Content Protection Officer Larissa Knapp notes that these familiar tactics are not without weaknesses.

“Piracy operators regularly move domains and infrastructure in an effort to evade enforcement. The migration to .ir domains is another example of that tactic, but changing a domain does not put an illegal operation beyond reach,” Knapp says.

“These services still depend on identifiable operators, hosting, distribution, payment systems, and other technical and commercial infrastructure. That is why ACE works closely with law enforcement and industry partners around the world to identify and disrupt the people and infrastructure that keep these criminal networks operating.”

Knapp suggests that pirate sites rely on a broader infrastructure than domain names alone, so MPA and ACE try to find other weak spots to bring them down. And that’s not all.

Pirate Site Blocking as Solution

This brings us back to the op-ed, which ends with a clear policy ask. Rivkin and Arvelo argue that domain seizures alone cannot solve live sports piracy, and that the U.S. needs “every tool” available to fortify its anti-piracy work.

“Chief among them would be judicial site blocking in the U.S.,” they write, describing it as an anti-piracy tool that’s already used in nearly 60 countries.

The MPA and IPR Center heads see domain seizures as part of a broader enforcement toolbox, which should be complemented with site blocking. While Iranian and ‘Soviet Union’ domains are not mentioned, these could be key site blocking targets.

The site blocking call comes at a time when U.S. site blocking legislation is high on the political agenda again. On June 30, the House IP subcommittee held a hearing on online copyright enforcement, where Chairman Rep. Darrell Issa signaled that bipartisan, bicameral agreement was near.

Thus far, such a unified U.S. site blocking bill has yet to be introduced, but it seems to be only a matter of time. That also applies to the overblocking concerns, which will undoubtedly come, as will the eventual evasive tactics of pirates.

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

These orders gradually expanded from basic site blocking orders that targeted just ISPs, to dynamic and updating blocklists, which also require global domain registrars to take action.

A new order, obtained this week by HBO and associated studios, follows the familiar template. It targets 30 “rogue website” operations as defendants, covering more than 120 pirate site domains. In addition to Indian ISPs, it also demands action from domain registrars including Namecheap, Porkbun, Tucows, and others.

This strategy is in line with previous court orders which have successfully taken down some of the largest pirate site domains. This latest order is no exception.

Pirate Streaming Giants

The order lists a wide range of pirate brands, including some heavy hitters. For example, it targets the popular streaming portal Streamzy.to, as well as other well-known pirate brands such as LordFlix, Watchseries, FMovies, YTS, KissKH, VegaMovies, MoviesMod, BollyFlix, MovieRulz, and FilmyZilla.

Justice Anup Jairam Bhambhani concluded that the 30 pirate operations appear to be “flagrantly infringing online locations.” Their registrant details are masked, no traceable contact information is available, and the content is overwhelmingly unlicensed.

“This is, therefore, not a case of incidental infringement, but one where the primary purpose of the websites appears to be to facilitate infringement of the plaintiffs’ copyright,” the order reads.

Based on these arguments, the court granted an ad-interim injunction restraining all 30 sites from streaming or making available the studios’ copyrighted works, and directed ISPs and registrars to block and suspend the listed domain names.

Suspended Within a Day

The order was handed down on Monday, and a day later it already had a global effect. For example, lead defendant, streamzy.to, was placed on both clientHold and serverHold, suggesting that action was taken at the registrar and registry level.

Streamzy’s registrar on record is the Government of the Kingdom of Tonga, which recently began suspending pirate site domains following an earlier Delhi High Court order, after years of .to being considered a safe haven for pirates.

This change coincided with a restructuring where the Canadian domain name company Tucows took over the technical registry backend for .to domains. This takeover made it possible to suspend domain names through EPP status codes such as clientHold and serverHold.

These suspensions also apply to the other .to domain names that were targeted, including f-moviesz.to, cinespot.to, cineplay.to, and bollyflix.to. Notably, several of these are only put on clientHold (not serverHold), suggesting the registrar acted alone, without registry-level action.

In addition to the .to domain names, all Namecheap-linked domains have also been suspended. These were put on clientHold on July 28th, a day after the Delhi High Court order was issued.

Registrars Pushed Back on ‘Carte Blanche’

The order also brings something new to the table. Domain registrars Namecheap and Porkbun said they had no problem blocking the listed sites, but pushed back against a blanket order requiring them to block any future domain name that rightsholders send in.

These follow-up suspensions are part of the dynamic blocking structure, but the registrars are not comfortable with additional blocks without the court’s supervision.

Justice Bhambhani agreed with this reservation. He ruled that rightsholders who discover a new mirror domain must submit an affidavit to the registrar with supporting evidence. The registrar then technically verifies whether it is in fact a variant of an already-blocked site, and if so, suspends it as a temporary measure. At the same time, the rightsholders must file with the court to formally add the domain to the case.

“Any mechanism that requires an ISP or DNR to satisfy itself, upon its own assessment, that a subsequently identified website is a ‘rogue website’ engaged in infringement of the plaintiffs’ rights, would effectively cast upon such intermediary an adjudicatory responsibility that it is neither equipped nor authorised in law to discharge,” the order reads.

This effectively adds a new oversight layer to the blocking and suspension process.

Mixed Results

At the time of writing, most of the targeted domain names remain accessible outside of India. This includes domains using the popular YTS and KissKH brands. Interestingly, the main domains for these brands, which have over 100 million monthly visits, are not listed in the order.

Since the order was only issued a few days ago, it is possible that other domain registrars still have to take action. However, previous orders have shown that some registrars do not comply with Indian court orders at all.

Taking out domains with millions of monthly visits is still a notable result, with Streamzy.to as the main trophy.

However, the operators are not sitting still. Soon after the order was issued, they started to point their visitors to streamzy.org, as seen below.

At the same time, other .to domains from the same operation were all pointed to .org alternatives as well. And so, the game of whac-a-mole continues.

—

A copy of the order in Home Box Office Inc & Ors. v. Streamzy.to & Ors. (2026:DHC:5967) is available here (pdf). Via Livelawbiz. An overview of the defendants, domains, and registrars can be found below. There are 132 domain entries, including 10 subdomkains, excluding #116–121 which are skipped in the order.

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

That designation, applied for the first time in over a decade, triggered a Section 301 investigation, opening the door to potential trade sanctions.

As part of this process, stakeholders were requested to provide input on Vietnam’s alleged shortcomings. This includes the piracy challenges and concerns, which were highlighted as the primary concern.

One of the key submissions came from the Motion Picture Association (MPA). As we reported earlier, Hollywood’s trade group called for tougher prison sentences and action against copycat pirate sites that swiftly take the place of ones that are shut down.

In total, there were more than 170 submissions from stakeholders. These include a massive 3,500+ page response filed on behalf of the Government of Vietnam, which we initially missed. It is worth highlighting separately, however, as the timing ties into the broader enforcement picture.

Vietnam Responds

Vietnam filed its response on July 2, before the USTR deadline. As expected, the country argues that it doesn’t belong on the priority watchlist, because its practices are not “unreasonable or discriminatory,” and they do not “burden or restrict U.S. commerce,” the two tests that matter under Section 301.

Instead, the country argues that any remaining problems are mostly capacity limitations, not policy shortcomings.

The submission closes by asking USTR to reconsider its stance, and remove Vietnam from the Priority Foreign Country List, without issuing any sanctions or imposing trade tariffs.

Piracy Crackdowns and Site Blocking as Defense

To back up its request, Vietnam cites a variety of anti-piracy efforts. The submission notes that more than 1,200 pirated websites were blocked in 2025, which is notable as the U.S. itself is still mulling its own site blocking legislation.

The report also cites other prominent enforcement actions. This includes the shutdown and prosecution of the Fmovies piracy ring, which was once the largest online piracy operation. This operation was dismantled in 2024 with intelligence from ACE, the MPA’s anti-piracy arm.

Meanwhile, Vietnam also mentions the shutdowns of Xoilac TV, Rophim, and Y2Mate. The latter operation was taken down in collaboration with music group IFPI, which should signal to Washington that it is cooperating on intellectual property matters.

The HiAnime Card

What stands out most in the submission is the timely mention of the HiAnime prosecution. This was publicly announced by the Vietnamese authorities on July 2, the same day that it submitted its USTR rebuttal.

The submission tells USTR that “on 1 July 2026, the Ministry of Public Security initiated criminal proceedings […] against 07 suspects” under Article 225 of the Criminal Code. It references more than 100 websites offering over 26,000 unauthorized films and roughly USD 12.85 million in advertising revenue.

While HiAnime isn’t mentioned in this description, we were able to pinpoint it as the key target in this prosecution, which was also confirmed by ACE.

Vietnam’s USTR submission does mention HiAnime.to by name elsewhere, among the sites and services that were “shut down or forced to terminate their operations.”

Crucially, the HiAnime operation already closed its doors in March, months before the prosecution was announced on July 2. This coincides with the USTR submission deadline, where that same prosecution is used in Vietnam’s defense.

Whether the timing is coincidence or tied to the deadline is unknown.

All Eyes on the Sentences

The enforcement actions highlighted by Vietnam are not news. The MPA and USTR have acknowledged the same takedowns, but complained that the resulting sentences carry no deterrent. For example, the Fmovies operators previously dodged prison, which allegedly does little to tackle the country’s piracy image.

Vietnam does not dispute this. Its submission restates the U.S. view that enforcement has been “light, mainly suspended sentences and low fines,” and answers by asking Washington to “recognize the efforts undertaken” rather than defending the outcomes.

What it offers instead is to update the current legislation. The MPA previously noted that Vietnam’s Ministry of Public Security is drafting amendments to the Penal Code to better address high-tech crimes and cyber offenses.

Whether that will indeed result in harsher sentences and a deterrent effect that will make it less appealing for locals to run pirate sites has yet to be seen.

The HiAnime defendants are the next test. Four remain in custody awaiting trial, while the other three were placed under travel restrictions. At the time of writing, USTR has not issued a determination in the Section 301 investigation.

—

A copy of Vietnam’s submission, filed through the Ministry of Science and Technology, is available here (pdf).

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

More recently, it has been one of the pirate site blocking pioneers. In addition to demanding action from ISPs, their orders also targeted DNS resolvers and VPN providers.

While the expansion of the blocking measures is still contested, French lawmakers have already prepared the next one.

The French Parliament has handed ARCOM, the country’s audiovisual and digital regulator, the power to block pirate sports streams in real time without checking each targeted piracy source manually. The change is part of a broader professional sports law that both chambers formally adopted on July 21.

Article 10 of the new law rewrites the section of the previous sports law, Article L. 333-10, which rights holders have used to block pirate streaming sites in recent years.

From Manual Checks…

Under the old system, a rightsholder would obtain a blocking order in court, targeting specific domain names. These orders would require ISPs, DNS resolvers, or VPN services to block access on their systems.

If new domains were spotted later, rightsholders would send these to ARCOM, whose sworn agents would confirm that each one is streaming matches illegally before ISPs are ordered to block these.

One of these older orders was issued on July 8 by the Court of Paris. In that case, the French football league (LFP) won a block against nine Internet providers, covering the full 2026/2027 season, with ARCOM having to approve each new site that’s added along the way.

The order lists 30 domains and their associated subdomains, including kzontop.com, ligue1live.xyz, iptvfrancai.com, euroiptv.fr and sportsurge100.is.

…To Automated Blocks

Under the old system, it can take days before a new target is added. That’s a problem when dealing with live-streaming piracy, one that the new law aims to fix.

The new law strips out the pre-check of domain names (or IP addresses) that are added after the initial order is issued. It lets ARCOM run an automated system that pushes freshly identified targets straight to providers during a live broadcast. The providers then have to take action “without delay”.

ARCOM’s agents no longer approve each block in advance, but they keep an oversight role. They will now audit the new additions afterward, and a blocked party can appeal to ARCOM’s president, even while the targeted sports event is ongoing.

The new law is expected to significantly increase the volume of blocked sites and services, with the goal to further deter live-streaming piracy.

The judicial process leading up to the blocks barely changes, with one significant exception. Foreign entities that organize or hold rights to competitions abroad can now bring these actions in French courts themselves, opening the door for Spain’s LaLiga and England’s Premier League.

The groundwork for the blocking scheme was already laid. Under a private 2025 agreement between rights holders and ISPs, first revealed by L’Informé, the parties tested real-time IP address blocking during the 2026 World Cup, with ARCOM involved.

Italy’s “Piracy Shield” as Inspiration

French officials have not hidden the inspiration for the new law. In a study delivered to the Assemblée nationale in December 2025, the regulator recommended this automated real-time system, citing foreign precedents including Italy’s “Piracy Shield”.

The head of Italy’s own regulator AGCOM, Massimiliano Capitanio, publicly welcomed the vote on Instagram, describing it as France adopting a version of its “Piracy Shield” model.

That comparison is sensitive. Italy’s system has been heavily criticized for overblocking, at one point knocking Cloudflare and countless unrelated sites offline. European ISPs have since demanded that rightsholders be held liable for overblocking damage.

This critique is one of the reasons why ARCOM keeps a human supervision element in the takedown process. This is to avoid overblocking, which the regulator considered as being potentially unconstitutional in France.

Not Live Yet

With the new French law, yet another country moved to a more automated site blocking process. This follows the example of Italy and other countries, with support from rightsholders including the Motion Picture Association.

The updates to the French sports law still have to be implemented formally, which isn’t expected to happen until later this year.

Whether existing orders like the LFP’s will migrate to the automated system once it goes live, or whether only future orders will, is not yet clear. For now, however, France’s pirate sports blocking still runs the old, manual way.

—

The Sports Law, adopted on July 21, can be found via the Assemblée nationale dossier here. A copy of the Court of Paris ruling in the LFP blocking case, issued on July 8, is available here (pdf).

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

To facilitate this process, the company has rolled out several anti-piracy initiatives in recent years.

Both Facebook and Instagram use a “Rights Manager” tool, which is an automated system that runs copyright checks. After rightsholders upload reference files, the system detects infringing material and allows owners to take down or monetize this content.

Rights Manager has been working without much noise for close to a decade. According to Meta’s latest transparency report, Rights Manager is part of a broader enforcement system that proactively removes millions of infringing posts from Facebook and Instagram every month.

Rights Manager’s Backdating Lawsuits

The automated copyright enforcement system is not without flaws. In India, for example, several lawsuits filed at the Delhi High Court alleged that the same copyright enforcement system can be turned against the creators it is meant to protect.

The Rights Manager exploit relies on Facebook’s desktop “Edit Post” feature. When a user edits an existing Facebook post and replaces its attached image or video, the platform keeps the original publication date. This means that users and Meta’s enforcement systems will see the content as older than it really is.

Scammers can allegedly exploit this weakness, Bar and Bench first reported. They can edit their older Facebook pages to add videos, reels, or photos they copied from other creators. To Instagram and Facebook it will appear that their content is older, so they can use it to claim ownership through Rights Manager.

As a result, the scammers can reportedly monetize videos of the original creators, while adding strikes to their accounts too.

Financial educator and entrepreneur Pushkar Raj Thakur says at least 36 of his videos were taken down worldwide this way. His suit argues Meta acted on the claims without checking the rightsholder, metadata or edit history of the posts.

Meta Rights Manager Lawsuit

Thakur took the matter to the Delhi High Court in May as part of a broader lawsuit about false claims. Early on, Meta’s counsel said the company needed to investigate, but the false claims did not stop right away.

In a follow-up hearing, Meta offered the court a series of assurances. It agreed not to remove Thakur’s videos over copyright strikes, not to close his account over repeat strikes, and to restore the deleted content.

Thakur is not backing down, seeking roughly 2 crore rupees (about $210,000) in damages. He also wants the court to order Meta to build safeguards into Rights Manager, including KYC checks, timestamp protections, and metadata verification.

Interestingly, Thakur says Meta denied him access to Rights Manager to protect his own brand, even as the scammers used the very same tool against him.

Meta Must Hand Over the Data

Thakur’s lawsuit is not the only one. Another creator, Neeraj Joshi, filed a similar complaint over the same backdating trick, and this case already resulted in a more actionable order.

On July 9, Justice Jyoti Singh required Meta to preserve Joshi’s verified Instagram account and to hand over the basic subscriber information and IP logs tied to the fraudulent claims within three weeks.

Those records could reveal who is behind the scheme and Joshi’s request for an interim injunction will be heard on August 5.

A Third Case Targets the Rules

The two lawsuits are not the only pressure on Meta. On July 15, another creator, Nitin Joshi, filed a public interest litigation (PIL) that goes after the legal framework itself.

The petition asks the court to set up a Special Investigation Team to probe what Joshi describes as an organized extortion racket, where syndicates file bogus strikes through bot accounts and then demand payment to withdraw them.

It also challenges Rules 3(1)(c) and 4 of India’s IT Rules, arguing they let platforms disable accounts without notice, without naming the complainant, and without checking whether the claimant owns the content.

Joshi wants a forensic audit of Instagram’s copyright strike system, as well as regular transparency reports on repeat complainants. This case remains in its early stages, and it has yet to be heard.

Patching An Exploitable Loophole

For now, the three cases leave Meta with an unusual problem. The same automated system that’s used to remove millions of infringing posts is allegedly being used by scammers to monetize copyright infringement.

Whether Meta has already addressed the loophole, and whether the scammers will be unmasked, remains to be seen. The company has yet to respond to the allegations in court, and it hasn’t commented publicly on the claims.

In any case, it appears that Meta has some work to do on the transparency side as well. At the time of writing, its most recent copyright transparency report is more than two years old, covering 2023.

—

A copy of the order in the Neeraj Joshi case is available here (pdf). The July 1 order in the Pushkar Raj Thakur case can be found here (pdf), and the earlier May 29 order is here (pdf).

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

After Meta’s motion to dismiss was denied last month by U.S. District Judge Eumi K. Lee, Strike 3 filed an amended complaint expanding its claims to 2,973 films, up from the original 2,396.

With that many works at stake, potential statutory damages could reach a massive $446 million.

This week, Meta filed its answer to the amended complaint at the California federal court, denying all allegations while raising several affirmative defenses. At the same time, the company also gave further insight into the piracy allegations.

Meta’s Data Engineer

The original complaint identified a then-unnamed Facebook employee who allegedly used a residential Comcast IP address to download content, while also sharing files through Meta corporate IPs and what Strike 3 described as “stealth” IP addresses.

According to the amended complaint, that single address was linked to the infringement of 97 of Strike 3’s works.

Meta’s answer offers a straightforward explanation that has nothing to do with an organized data collection effort. The company admits that “the subscriber’s adult son was a Contingent Worker at Meta from October 2022 to October 2024.” It further confirms that the same person became “an employee at Meta with the title Data Engineer from April 2025 to May 2026.”

This phrasing is careful. By referring to “the subscriber’s adult son,” Meta positions the alleged torrenting as personal activity on a family member’s home Internet connection, unrelated to Meta.

Strike 3 apparently identified this person through their LinkedIn profile, which Meta says “speaks for itself”. In any case, Meta flatly denies that any employee’s BitTorrent activity was connected to its AI research or data collection.

The amended complaint, however, alleges that the infringement from the subscriber’s account stopped when the son’s contract with Meta ended.

Denials and a Fair Use Fallback

The broader answer follows a standard pattern of denials, which is common at this stage of a lawsuit. Meta denies downloading or uploading any of Strike 3’s adult films.

The tech company does admit downloading “portions of certain publicly available text datasets through direct download and by torrenting for purposes of developing and training some of its LLaMA models,” but insists these did not include adult films.

The company also acknowledges that it tried to prevent distributing any of the text files it had downloaded via BitTorrent for developing and training its language models. This shows that Meta admits sharing other content via BitTorrent, while explicitly denying Strike 3’s torrenting allegations.

In its affirmative defenses, Meta explicitly reserves fair use without asserting it. The company denies sharing any adult content, so fair use is not relevant, but it keeps it as an option just in case.

In the related Kadrey v. Meta lawsuit, where Meta admitted torrenting books for AI-training, fair use is the central defense, and Meta wants to keep that option open here as well.

Seeding Was “De Minimis”

As America’s most prolific copyright litigant, Strike 3 has built tens of thousands of lawsuits on the premise that sharing files via BitTorrent is copyright infringement. In those cases against individual defendants, a typical defense is that an IP address doesn’t identify a person.

Meta takes a different route. The company’s ninth affirmative defense doesn’t deny that data was uploaded from its IP addresses. Instead, it argues that any uploads during the torrenting process were “de minimis and did not result in the creation of an identifiable or usable copy of any copyrighted work.”

In other words, the fragments exchanged during BitTorrent transfers don’t amount to a meaningful copy. As far as we know, this argument has not been tested in court before, so it will be interesting to see how this will fare.

Meta also takes aim at Strike 3’s copyrights themselves. The tenth affirmative defense alleges that the adult films may incorporate others’ works without permission and may be “derivative of or copy preexisting works, including works undisclosed in Plaintiffs’ copyright filings with the U.S. Copyright Office.” Strike 3, Meta suggests, may have overstated its own copyright claims.

The remaining defenses include a statute of limitations argument, uncertainty about Strike 3’s copyrights, and a constitutional challenge arguing that the statutory damages would violate the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause.

With potentially hundreds of millions of dollars at stake, it is clear that Meta will fight the matter tooth and nail. Alternatively, an early settlement is also an option. The case now moves forward, with mediation due by early August and a jury trial set for February 2028.

—

A copy of Meta’s answer to the amended complaint, filed at the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, is available here (pdf). For full context, Strike 3’s amended complaint is available here (pdf).

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

The social media company allegedly failed to respond adequately to takedown notices and lacked a proper repeat infringer policy. The National Music Publishers Association (NMPA) claimed it had sent over 300,000 formal infringement notices, many of which didn’t lead to immediate removals.

The battle escalated in January, when X Corp. filed a landmark antitrust complaint against the NMPA and a coalition of major music publishers, accusing them of coordinating a “weaponized” DMCA takedown campaign to coerce X into industry-wide licensing deals.

These explosive allegations set the stage for a high-profile legal battle. However, it didn’t get that far.

Last week, both lawsuits ended without any further fanfare. Joint stipulations of dismissal were filed in the Middle District of Tennessee and the Northern District of Texas on the same day, with identical terms. In both cases, all claims dismissed with prejudice, with both sides paying their own fees and expenses.

The coordinated timing and matching language leave little doubt that these cases were resolved as part of a package deal.

From ‘Maximum Pain’ to Package Deal

The settlement ends a legal battle that took several dramatic turns.

In 2024, X scored a partial win when the court dismissed the music publishers’ direct and vicarious copyright infringement claims, and partially dismissed claims of contributory infringement.

Judge Trauger concluded that X can’t be held liable for making it ‘very easy’ to upload infringing material or for monetizing pirated content. These characteristics are not exclusive to infringing material and apply to legitimate content too, she argued.

The reduced lawsuit continued and by June 2025, X filed a heavily redacted motion to compel, alleging that the NMPA had used its takedown notice campaign to inflict “maximum pain” on X’s business, to motivate Elon Musk’s platform to sign music licensing agreements.

This revelation appeared to bring a potential settlement closer last year, but an agreement was not reached at the time.

Evolving Legal Claims

Instead, X responded with a countersuit. In January, it filed an antitrust complaint accusing the NMPA and the major publishers of a conspiracy to weaponize the DMCA, alleging that a flood of “baseless” notices targeted over 200,000 posts and suspended 50,000 users to coerce licensing deals.

After the Supreme Court’s ruling in Cox v. Sony this Spring, the landscape changed again. X argued that the music publishers’ surviving contributory infringement claim now failed as a matter of law.

The publishers responded with a Second Amended Complaint, reframing their case as an inducement claim, but X called this an attempt to “retrofit” the case, without proper backing. Meanwhile, the publishers moved to dismiss X’s antitrust suit, pointing at weak evidence.

With both sides looking at weakened claims, settlement suddenly seemed a rational exit.

SpaceX Subsidiary

While neither party commented in the reason for the settlement, there may be another reason why the timing made sense for X. The breakthrough follows just a few weeks after the company went public again through its new parent company SpaceX.

SpaceX went public on June 12, raising a record $75 billion at a $1.8 trillion valuation. While X may only be a small part of the new conglomerate, the lawsuit posed a serious uncertainty for investors.

In a pre-IPO prospectus filed with the SEC, SpaceX listed the music publishers’ copyright case as one of seven significant litigation matters. Across all cases, SpaceX reported $399 million in accrued litigation losses as of March 2026. These are probable estimated losses that pose a risk to the company’s finances.

On August 4, SpaceX will announce its first-ever quarterly earnings as a publicly traded company. That’s also the date when several insiders can start selling stock. With that in mind, it doesn’t hurt to have a major liability resolved.

There is no evidence that SpaceX’s IPO directly caused the settlement. Both sides had other reasons to settle after Cox weakened the publishers’ case and the publishers’ dismissal motion threatened X’s antitrust claims. However, it may have played a role nonetheless.

Explosive Claims Fade Out

With both cases now dismissed, the explosive claims from both sides will never be tested in court.

That applies to the music companies’ mass piracy allegations against X, as well as X’s claim that the NMPA used its takedown campaign to inflict “maximum pain” on the social media company. Both claims remain unproven.

Whether the settlements include any financial arrangements remains unknown too. There is no mention of compensation from either side and no licensing deals have been announced either.

When the NMPA settled a similar dispute with Roblox in 2021, it publicly announced an industry-wide licensing deal. In that light, the silence on the X settlement, after more than a week later, is notable.

For now, the three-year legal war between X and the music industry is over. Whether more details will show up in future SpaceX SEC filings or industry disclosures has yet to be seen.

—

Copies of the joint stipulations of dismissal are available here (copyright claim – pdf) and here (antitrust suit – pdf).

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

That original order targeted a specific service and a fixed set of domain names. If rightsholders wanted to add a domain to the blocklist, they had to go back to court.

Later orders against Soap2Day and, more recently, various stream-ripping sites, went a step further. Instead of targeting specific operations run by the same people, they allowed rightsholders to update the blocklist with alternative domains that would pop up, as well as copycats of the already named brands.

These new orders streamlined the site blocking process. Rightsholders no longer had to file a new case for every domain that popped up. They did, however, still have to go back to the Federal Court, which had to issue a new order before anything new could be blocked.

Rightsholders say these types of blocking orders are needed to effectively curb piracy. However, they are not without criticism. Opponents including the Canadian ISP TekSavvy have previously complained that site blocking is a slippery slope, where more sites might eventually get blocked with less oversight.

Hollywood Seeks Broad Blocking Order

Thus far the global trend has indeed been to expand blocking powers and the latest Federal Court order, issued earlier this month, is no exception.

The blocking order, requested by Rogers, TVA, Netflix and various Hollywood studios such as Disney and Warner Bros., targets thirteen named piracy brands. This includes existing domain names, but also any future domains that use the same brands, whether these are linked to the original operation or not.

The order requires Canadian ISPs, including Bell, Rogers, Telus, and TekSavvy, to block an initial list of 18 domains and subdomains. It is also the first Canadian blocking order to cover both IPTV subscription services and public streaming sites in a single proceeding.

The order splits its targets into two groups. Six are IPTV subscription services: Apollo Group TV, Diablo IPTV, GLO TV, IPGuys, Jio TV, and Smart4K/Platinum. The other seven pirate streaming sites are 123Movies, Cineby, FMovies, HydraHD, Putlocker, TheTVApp, and WatchSeries.

After the first site blocking order survived several appeals, there hasn’t been any significant opposition from ISPs to the follow-up orders. That also applies here, as the most recent blocking order was approved without any notable pushback.

Schedule 1 lists 13 domains and five subdomains. With more than 50 million global monthly visitors, 123moviesfree.net is one of the prime targets. However, the value of this order lies less in what it blocks today than in what it can block tomorrow.

The Catch-All ‘Expanded Scope’ Order

The blocking order adds a new feature which is framed as an “Expanded Scope.” Earlier Canadian orders reached a single brand and its copycats. The latest blocking order goes further, as it also covers “similarly infringing platforms operating under other brands.”

This effectively means that the movie studios and other rightsholders can add new pirate sites and services to the blocklist. Justice Southcott agreed that this is needed to deal with the piracy whac-a-mole problem where new pirate sites swiftly take the place of blocked ones.

“[W]hen access to infringing platforms is blocked, other similarly infringing platforms appear and/or increase in popularity,” the order reads.

To justify the expansion, Justice Southcott looked at a recent UK High Court order, described as an “omnibus order,” which we covered in May. According to the Motion Picture Association, which represents its member studios in site blocking efforts, this order makes it possible to block any “structurally infringing audiovisual piracy service” without naming it in advance.

The UK judgment itself has still not been published on BAILII or the National Archives, as far as we know, but it is clearly seen as the new frontier in site blocking efforts.

Adding New Brands

The order explains how new brands are added through what it calls a “Simplified Procedure.” To add a platform, rightsholders must file an affidavit which confirms that the new target meets the order’s conditions.

In this case, it means that the target’s sole or predominant purpose is the unauthorized distribution of the studios’ film and television works, that it operates like the IPTV or open-web services already named, that it is reachable in Canada, and that the operator was sent a notice of infringement and given seven days to respond.

If no targeted ISP files a notice of motion to object within five business days, the updated list takes effect without any hearing and no further order from the court. These new submissions can be made every ten business days.

That last part is a subtle but notable change. Under the stream-ripper order issued last month, ISP silence meant the Court “may grant an Order amending Schedule 1 as proposed by the Applicants without further proceedings.” A judge still signed off, even if nobody argued.

Under the new order, silence alone is enough. The proposed list “shall be considered Schedule 1 under this Order,” with no involvement from the court at all.

Together, the two changes remove both limits that applied before. The court no longer has to sign off on blocklist updates, and the additions no longer have to involve a brand that was already named in the case.

Justice Southcott describes this as “an incremental modification to precedent site-blocking orders.”

A Judicial Guardrail

Justice Southcott did not grant everything the studios asked for. The rightsholders wanted the new order to also apply to “any works for which the Applicants own the copyright.”

The order limits its scope to “the Applicants’ Works,” meaning the specific titles mentioned in the judgment. In practice, that prevents the studios from using copyrights they acquire later to justify new additions, without first going back to court.

Not everyone is convinced that the safeguards go far enough.

TekSavvy, which previously fought back against site blocking in Canada, published a critical compliance page for the order. While the company did not oppose the current order, it remains highly skeptical.

“[W]e see blocking orders as a grave violation of network neutrality and a fundamental change to what we do as an ISP. The principles of common carriage and network neutrality mean ISPs carry traffic to and from end users in as neutral a fashion as possible,” TekSavvy notes.

The latest order runs for two years, with the blocklist starting at 13 domains and five subdomains. The more telling figure may be how many names get added before it expires.

—

A copy of the site-blocking order, issued by Justice Southcott, is available here (pdf). The full domain list can be found here (pdf).

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

The platform remained online despite a fierce anti-piracy crackdown that led to the demise of Megaupload, Hotfile, and many other file-hosting services.

Uptobox eventually met its fate in September 2023, when a coalition of entertainment companies including Disney, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, Paramount, and Warner Bros. obtained a court order to seize its servers at various data centers.

Uptobox Crackdown

The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment claimed responsibility for the operation, which was carried out simultaneously in France and the UAE. While Uptobox put up a fight in court, hoping for a comeback, the courts disagreed and kept it offline.

Behind the scenes, Disney was pursuing a parallel case against a French national residing in the UAE. Local news site L’Informé previously identified the defendant by his X.com pseudonym “Starouille”, who previously described himself as the CTO of Uptobox.

In October 2023, Disney obtained an order from a Paris enforcement judge, authorizing seizures of up to €16.127 million against his personal bank accounts. In the legal paperwork, Disney described the defendant as one of the “founders, operators, and de facto co-directors” of Uptobox.

When the seizure was executed at the BNP Paribas bank, it froze approximately €197,000. Two additional seizures followed under separate orders. These seized assets are not damages awards, but they are kept as a security while the case is fought on its merits.

Not a Director

Starouille, who is identified in the legal paperwork as ‘M. [U]’, did not agree with the way Disney described him. His lawyer Me Damien Faupin argued that he was a technical contractor who managed server infrastructure, not a co-director. The CTO title on social media did not reflect reality, the lawyer clarified.

In January 2025, the enforcement judge agreed that Disney could not prove the defendant’s director role, ordering the seized funds released. However, Disney objected and requested a stay of execution while they appealed. This decision eventually came this month.

After considering all evidence, the Court of Appeal upheld the finding that Disney failed to prove Starouille was a de facto director. The evidence showed he began as a freelancer in 2012, but there’s no evidence that he actually had a managerial function.

“The fact that [the defendant] presented himself on social media, notably on his Facebook and Twitter accounts, as ‘Chief Technical Officer’ (CTO) of Uptobox does not in itself constitute, even assuming this title to be accurate, a sufficient element to establish that, beyond operations of installation, maintenance, and upgrading of servers, he was more generally engaged in management or technical development of the service,” the court said (all quotes are translated).

The Court of Appeal noted that there was insufficient evidence to prove the defendant was engaged in the general management of the service. Instead, his role was strictly limited to operations, maintenance, and server upgrades. This was corroborated by evidence seized at hosting provider Opcore, which listed him as “interlocuteur technique N1” (Technical Liaison Level 1).

While the court concluded that Disney failed to prove that the defendant had a director role, it ultimately ruled that the funds should remain frozen for another reason.

DNS Tweets Keep Funds Frozen

The court order notes that the defendant was not ignorant of the alleged piracy-facilitating activities of Uptobox. In fact, his own social media posts showed that he was aware of site blocking efforts and shared information on how these could be bypassed.

For example, in one of the X/Twitter posts that are no longer public, Starouille wrote (translated): “for those who can no longer access Uptobox/Uptostream, change your DNS on all your devices (procedure here: uptobox.info/dns). You can also use uptobox.link.”

When a user asked whether this was about “yet another court order,” Starouille replied: “yes, where Uptobox is not condemned, just 4 ISPs. As usual…” He later posted specific instructions for changing DNS settings in a Freebox router’s download manager.

According to the Court of Appeal, these posts show that the defendant was aware of the blocking orders, as well as the copyright-related reasons for these blocking measures. His defense that the DNS instructions were meant to help rightsholders contact the service was dismissed.

“[The defendant] cannot validly maintain that his message, far from enabling the circumvention of an institutional block, was solely intended to allow users, rightsholders such as the appellant, or any other natural or legal person to be able to contact the company or the service, in particular to report a copyright infringement problem.”

This was not the first time Starouille’s social media activity was used against him in court. As L’Informé previously reported, a since-deleted tweet showing a car entering a parking lot tagged “@online DC2” helped entertainment companies locate Uptobox servers at Scaleway’s second data center in Vitry-sur-Seine, facilitating the September 2023 raid.

Importantly, this is not a finding on the merits. Starouille is not held liable, the court merely concluded that Disney’s claims are plausible enough to keep the funds frozen for now.

From €16 Million to €306,000

The defendant also booked a win, at least on paper. Disney previously calculated its claim using the lost Disney+ subscription revenue over 2020-2023, applying its 15% streaming market share to Uptobox’s estimated one million monthly unique visitors.

The Court of Appeal adjusted this number downward, citing a study which concluded that roughly 80% of pirates already subscribe to legal streaming services. This means that these would not necessarily result in lost revenue.

Additionally, the court found that Starouille’s alleged wrongful conduct was limited to his July-August 2023 social media posts, which further limits the claim.

Ultimately, this shorter ‘liability’ window and the reduced lost subscriptions, slashed the authorized asset freeze of more than €16 million to €306,000. However, since this is still more than the €197,000 that’s frozen at BNP Paribas, nothing is returned yet.

For now, Starouille’s savings remain frozen and the merits case is pending. No piracy damages have been awarded yet, but the ruling shows that publicly instructing users to circumvent court orders can be used to justify piracy-related asset seizures.

—

A copy of the Paris Court of Appeal ruling is available here (pdf).

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

While the associated site already closed its doors in March, the action is vital for Vietnam since the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) recently classified it as “Priority Foreign Country,” because of its lacking anti-piracy enforcement.

Last month, USTR formally started a Section 301 investigation which opened the door to potential trade sanctions. As part of this process, stakeholders were requested to provide input on Vietnam’s alleged shortcomings. This includes the piracy challenges and concerns, which are highlighted as the primary concern.

One of the key submissions for the USTR investigation comes from the Motion Picture Association (MPA), which represents the major Hollywood studios, Netflix and Amazon. The MPA has vast experience in the country through its anti-piracy arm ACE and assisted in local copyright enforcement efforts for years.

This cooperation resulted in the takedown of the Fmovies piracy ring, for example, and ACE also provided key intelligence for the recent HiAnime action. While the MPA is pleased with the enforcement efforts, it hasn’t been pleased with how Vietnamese courts and prosecutors deal with the matter.

MPA: ‘Mild Sentences are the Problem’

When MPA submitted its commentary the HiAnime arrests had not been announced yet. The MPA has since applauded the arrests, but its USTR filing suggests that the eventual sentences will be crucial.

Previously, the prosecutions of key defendants in the Fmovies piracy ring, dubbed the largest piracy operation ever, resulted in suspended prison sentences and relatively low fines. The same applied to the operator of the popular BestBuyIPTV service.

MPA’s SVP Global Policy and Government Affairs, Gail MacKinnon, informed the USTR that the lack of deterrent penalties in Vietnam are the main reason why online piracy remains a significant problem in the country.

“Without sentences and monetary penalties that outweigh the financial gains from copyright infringement, online piracy operations originating in Vietnam will not be sufficiently deterred,” MPA’s submission reads.

“There needs to be visible and credible consequences to effectively deter infringement and counter the perception that piracy is a low-risk, high-reward activity,” MacKinnon adds.

Copycats, Successors, and Resurgents

MPA notes that, as a result of the mild sentences, major takedowns are often only a short-lived success. Pirate brands or operations often reappear swiftly, a problem India’s High Court previously likened to a “hydra-headed” threat.

In its recommendations to the USTR, MPA urges Vietnam to make sure that such copycats and successors are also addressed properly.

“Take effective and deterrent enforcement action against the notorious piracy services identified by MPA, including timely follow-up actions against any successor, mirror, or copycat sites that emerge”

“Criminal enforcement action must be taken against the operators of these pirate syndicates to ensure that they do not resurface. Consistent enforcement is also necessary to deter the emergence of copycat
services that fill the gap left by these shutdowns.”

Much of the same critique is shared by International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA), which highlighted the same problem in their submission to the USTR’s Vietnam investigation.

The IIPA documents the same pattern in more detail, tracing a rather obvious branding shift that started in 2023, when Zoro.to was shut down by ACE, but not before it was rebranded as AniWatch. A year later, Aniwatch became HiAnime, which eventually went offline this year.

IIPA’s submission, which also predates the HiAnime crackdown announcement, also calls for tougher enforcement and deterrent sanctions.

“It is critical for responsible enforcement authorities, including the relevant police units, the MPS, and the Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism (MOCST), to follow through on infringement complaints, take meaningful and effective enforcement actions, and impose deterrent sanctions against infringing websites.”

Dispatch 38

Both the MPA and IIPA acknowledge that Vietnam has started to take the piracy problem more seriously. In May, the Vietnamese government issued Official Dispatch No. 38, asking agencies nationwide to intensify IP-related enforcement efforts, including actions against piracy websites.

Dispatch 38 also requests prosecutors and courts to prioritize serious copyright cases, improve prosecution timelines, and to strengthen deterrence. The MPA separately notes that the Ministry of Public Security is drafting amendments to the Penal Code to better address high-tech crimes and cyber offenses.

Whether the recent wave of enforcement actions and policy signals will be enough to change Vietnam’s piracy image has yet to be seen. The HiAnime arrests are recent, and the planned prosecution of the site’s operators will be the first real test of whether the judicial system is ready to move along.

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The IIPA’s Section 301 comments are available here (pdf). The MPA’s filing can be found here (pdf).

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

With help from private and public partners from all over the world, authorities seized well over a thousand domain names of pirate sports streaming sites. In the United States, the effort was branded “Operation Offsides”, which initially targeted nearly 400 domain names offering unauthorized World Cup streams. That turned out to be just the start.

Operation Offsides

Note: More details were released on July 20 by the DoJ and ACE. These are available below.

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced Operation Offsides on June 26, targeting pirate sites that streamed World Cup matches. The seizure warrant was filed in the Eastern District of Virginia, but this appears to be sealed, as we were unable to locate a copy in the court database.

The DOJ and Homeland Security Investigations ran a similar crackdown during the 2022 Qatar World Cup, seizing 78 domains at the time. The 2026 action is at least five times larger, however, and was the result of international cooperation.

The domains were identified with assistance from FIFA, beIN Media Group, NBCUniversal, ACE, the UFC, and Warner Bros. International coordination through the DOJ’s ICHIP network extended the operation’s reach to Peru and Bulgaria, described in the announcement as known centers of online piracy activity, with supporting actions in Croatia, Romania, Poland, and Colombia.

The authorities did not mention any domains by name but TorrentFreak traced many through passive DNS data, with the current tally at 627 identified domains (listed below). While the seizures hit several major sports streaming sites, other popular sites operating under foreign-registry TLDs outside U.S. jurisdiction managed to survive.

Visitors of the blocked domain names, meanwhile, ran into the following splash banner, listing many of the partners involved.

The “Operation Offsides” seizures came in waves. Last weekend, more than 100 additional domains were seized, many of them fallback domains that pirate sites had switched to after the initial round. That same report also revealed that several operators switched to Iranian .ir fallback domains, in an effort to switch to infrastructure that is harder for U.S. law enforcement to reach.

Colombia Leads “Operation Red Card”

Two days before the World Cup final, Colombia’s Fiscalía General announced the results of a separate multinational enforcement effort it had coordinated under the name “Operación Tarjeta Roja” (Operation Red Card).

The international action brought together prosecutors, law enforcement agencies, and public ministries from nine countries: Colombia, the United States, Ecuador, Peru, Paraguay, Argentina, the Dominican Republic, Brazil, and Chile, with support from private-sector audiovisual and sports organizations.

In Colombia alone, 1,140 domains and URLs used for unauthorized sports streaming were ‘blocked’. Across all participating countries, the total reached 1,840. Similar to the U.S. operation, the authorities did not name any domains.

“While the planet focused on the FIFA World Cup 2026, a group of nations went after the structures that profit from counterfeiting and theft of digital content,” said Fiscalía’s Raúl González Flechas, commenting on the news.

The Colombian operation, which targeted both counterfeiting and piracy, also resulted in 15 arrests. Four suspects in Soacha, near Bogotá, were accused of hacking into a telecom company’s platforms to offer cheap ‘pirated’ cable TV, posing as employees of the company. Two of the four accepted the charges.

Separately, 11 people running shops selling counterfeit World Cup merchandise were charged with trademark infringement and related offenses. Authorities seized 4,223 counterfeit sports items, 11,353 fake logos ready to be applied to garments, and 2,150 counterfeit Colombian Football Federation shields during raids in Bogotá, Itagüí, Cali, Acacías, and Bucaramanga.

Argentina Blocks FútbolLibre

Argentina also contributed to Operación Tarjeta Roja earlier in the tournament. In early July, the country’s UFECI cybercrime unit opened investigations against three platforms: Stella TV, Tele Latino, and sites associated with FútbolLibre, one of the most widely used pirate sports streaming brands in the country.

FútbolLibre had already been under investigation since 2022. This time, complaints from rightsholders DirecTV and Personal Flow provided additional evidence.

Three federal judges ordered ENACOM, Argentina’s communications regulator, and NIC Argentina, the country’s domain registry, to block access to 14 platforms and sites. However, as is often the case, there is no shortage of copycats using the same brands.

Pirate Ad Revenue Targeted

The enforcement wave was not limited to government action. The Trustworthy Accountability Group (TAG) previously announced that it had cut off advertising revenue to 1,376 sites that illegally streamed sports or offered other World Cup content, through its Pirate Domain Exclusion List.

Rather than targeting domains directly, TAG aims to starve pirate streaming site operators of the ad revenue, so they will eventually give up.

“Global sporting events like the World Cup are prime targets for criminals who try to intercept legitimate ad dollars by stealing popular streaming content,” said TAG COO Rachel Nyswander Thomas.

More Results Expected

With the World Cup final set for this weekend, additional enforcement results from other participating countries may still be announced.

Whether these combined efforts have had lasting impact on pirate sports streaming availability has yet to be seen. The disruption certainly has an effect, but the enforcement efforts have also shown that some pirate site operators are resilient.

The success of these and future enforcement efforts will largely depend on how far the reach of the international authorities goes, and whether pirate site operators can still find unblocked fallback infrastructure. By the next World Cup in 2030 we should know more.

This article will be updated if more results from participating countries or partners come in.
—

Update July 20: A day after the World Cup final, the DOJ announced that Operation Offsides seized more than 1,000 domains across three separate enforcement actions during the tournament, up from the “nearly 400” cited in its original June announcement.

Below is a non-exhaustive and non-verified list of 627 domain names that, according to information gathered by TorrentFreak, were seized as part of Operation Offsides.


0u888.com
101livesportsvideos.com
11kora.com
1kora.com
1sportshd.xyz
1ststream.lol
1yallashoot.com
247sports.pro
247sports1.live
360kkora.com
360koora-live.com
360kora.com
360koratv.com
365kora.net
4kstream.online
808ball13.com
808sbo24.com
808score.net
90sport.com
925zhibo.com
99smartideas.com
aalexspt.xyz
abcvip83.live
abcvip86.com
acrli.org
ahsa-news.com
akhbar4news.online
akora-live.com
alamalkoora.info
alkooralive.com
alphastreams1.online
altasupercaps.com
alwansport.com
american-streams.xyz
aparatchi.com
arkooora.live
articlecontentdatabase.com
articletech.info
asyallakora.live
atkorat.net
awartoendnowars.com
bally-sports.click
balondeportes.com
barnstormingtour.com
beiin-match.com
bein-live.com
bein-match-worldcup.com
bein-match.com
bein-match.net
bein-mattch.com
bein4kora.com
beinkoralive.com
beinmatch-tv.space
beinmatch26.com
beinmatchs.blog
beinmatchs.life
beinmatchtv.com
beinmatsh.com
bhoomsports.com
bintv.net
bizzstreams.xyz
bj88ca.live
bluelive79.com
bluelive81.com
bluepool.info
bobsullivanforgov.com
bolasrolando.com
bonglautv.org
bracupgi.org
buff-streams.store
buff-streams.xyz
buffstreams.app
cagesharkdive.com
ccrackstreams.lat
childluresprevention.com
cityanma365.com
codyslajolla.com
communitymarketinginc.com
coolkora.today
coollkoora.live
crichd.tech
crichdbest.com
cupshots.live
daddylive.org
daddylive.site
daddylivestream.lol
dami-tv.pro
dartsstreams.com
daysports.online
defendersportstreams.com
deporflix.net
deporte-libre.live
deporte-libre.online
deportelibree.com
deportelibretv.com
digi-hdsport.net
dingdongsport.org
dongleweb.xyz
dosenow.net
dot-spor.com
dotsport.online
drhealthbenefits.com
dudestream2.com
dy-xq.com
ecrackstreams.com
egoal.net
egpnews.com
egylivehd3.com
egynoww.com
ekoralive.com
elitegoltv.pro
embedhd.org
eplayhd.com
erosmactv10.com
espnlive.net
evisa-gov-md.net
exorbitantprivilege.net
extremesportstv.online
f-x.site
falconstreams.org
fawanews-tv.net
fbstream.cc
feed-247.xyz
fifaonlineworldcup.com
finalstreams.xyz
firstrowsports.org
fitforcedaily.com
fkoraa.com
flavoursful.site
flixlive.pro
flixmv.com
foorja.live
footfytv.live
footstreams.link
footy100.net
footybite.app
footybitei.com
footybitez.app
fotoklikk.live
fotytv.com
foxtrend.click
freedomgloryproject.com
freekoora4you.com
freekora.com
fsportsshd.xyz
fullmatch-hd.com
funteam.info
futbol-libres.org
futbollibre-ag.com
futbollibre-hd.com
futbollibre-tv.com
futbollibre.gratis
futbollibrego.online
futbollibregratis.org
futbollibrehd.org
futbollibremundial.com
futbollibreonline.com
futbollibrestv.com
futbollibrestv.net
futbollibretotal.com
futbollibretv.site
futbollibretvenvivo.click
futbollibretvgratis.com
futbollibretvs.org
futbollibreusa.com
fuutbollibre.com
gavanglinks.com
gnolia.com
go4koora.net
go4kora.com
go4koraa.com
go4score.app
goal-koora.live
goal2.live
goalkora.com
goallivetv.com
goatsports.xyz
gogoalstream.com
goheali.com
golkoora.com
gollibre.com
golygoal.com
gomitoep.xyz
gomoodboard.com
gonutradeal.com
gosports.website
gosporttv.com
goto-matchat.live
gstream24.xyz
h9soccer.website
halastream.net
haya-live.com
hayasport.com
hd2live.com
hd7-new.com
hdlive7.com
hesgoals.lol
hesgoaltv.lat
hitcast.xyz
hitslink.xyz
ibuffstreams.app
icrackstreams.app
ifootybite.xyz
ihdstreams.site
ilovesharepoint.com
imethstreams.app
institutobancopalmas.org
interoutemediaservices.com
inyoureyesmovie.com
isoc-gfsi.org
istreameast.app
itamaeao.com
jazzstream.xyz
jgtvsports.com
jokerlivestreams.net
jonstream.lat
jonstream.lol
kaifangshui.com
kevinsport.com
kevinsport.lat
kevinsport.lol
kevinsport.org
kevinsport.space
kevinsportlive.lol
kilasod.com
kilasod24.com
kkooora4live.net
knatech.info
knupath.com
kooora-city.com
kooora-dz.com
kooora-mobashir.com
kooora-now.com
kooora-sia.com
kooora-sport.com
kooora365.com
kooora365.net
kooora4live.online
kooora4lives.net
kooora4livetv.com
koooraa4live.com
koooragoal360.com
kooorapro.com
koora-euro.com
koora-live-live.com
koora-livehd7.com
koora-lives.run
koora-tv.com
koora-yallashoot.live
koora.world
koora1live.com
koora24.space
koora48.com
koora4livehd.com
kooraa4live.com
kooragoal24.com
kooragol-live.com
kooraiive.info
kooralite.com
kooralive69.com
kooraliveworldcup.com
koorallive24.com
koorastar.org
koorati.com
kora-999.com
kora-city.com
kora-gol.com
kora-live4k.com
kora-online.net
kora-online24.com
kora-onlineone.com
kora-plus.app
kora-s.com
kora-shoot.com
kora-show.com
kora-yalla.org
kora1lives.com
kora24.online
kora26.com
kora360-live.com
kora360-lives.com
kora360-tv.com
kora4.xyz
kora48.com
kora999-live.com
kora999.com
kora999live.com
kora999live.net
kora999live.org
koraastar.blog
koraastar.com
koracity-hd.com
koracity-live.com
koraextralive.com
korahnet.live
koralives.mov
koralivetv.online
korallive.online
koraonlines.com
koraprotv.com
korasportlive.com
korat5.com
koratair.com
koratcity.info
koratonline.net
korats.net
koraworlds.com
korax90.net
korralive.info
lasthopesports.site
libre-pelota.com
librefutbol.today
librefutbolgratis.com
librepelotatv.com
liva7hd.info
livahd7.xyz
live-hdtv.xyz
live-yallashootx.com
livehd6.com
livehd7.online
livehd7s.info
livehd7top.com
livehd7watch-on.com
livekora.pro
livescorer.net
livesoccers.live
livesyria.info
livevss.net
livevstv.net
luxurycreeks.xyz
masterstream.site
megaevent.store
mipirlotv.org
mjumbo.dad
movish.net
mpokora-online.net
mundialenvivohd.net
myscore.org
nbatv.live
newucity.xyz
no2tv24.com
okkora-live.com
okkora.live
onesportsworld.online
onionstream.live
openphacts.org
panda-hd.online
pelota-libres.com
pelota-libretv.com
pelota-libretv.org
pelotalibre-hd.org
pelotalibre.website
pelotalibreargentina.org
pelotalibreenvivotv.com
pelotalibregratis.com
pelotalibrehd.org
pelotalibrehoy.com
pelotalibres.net
pelotalibrestv.org
pelotalibretotal.com
pirlotv.live
pirlotv.online
pirlotv.sale
pirlotv.site
pirlotvblog.com
pirlotvenvivo.info
pirlotvhd.lat
pirlotvhd.run
pirlotvhd.website
pirlotvonline.click
pirlotvpl.com
pirlotvplay.dev
pirlotvs.app
pirlotvs.blog
pirlotvs.com
pirlotvs.online
playcapos.com
pockeemtv.click
powerstreams.online
ppcmasr.com
ppv.to
primeplaylive.website
primevideo.website
qiuke.app
qiuyou.live
rdcanais.com
redditsoccerstreams.name
rhinoarena.com
ripplenetwork.forum
ripplenetwork.lol
rojadirecta.fan
rojadirecta.mobi
rojadirecta.pics
rojadirectaatv.com
rojadirectaftv.com
rojadirectahd.blog
rojadirectahd.click
rojadirectahd.dev
rojadirectahd.lat
rojadirectahd1.club
rojadirectahd1.xyz
rojadirectahoy.com
rojadirectamexico.com
rojadirectaoficial.com
rojadirectapl.com
rojadirectastream.blog
rojadirectastv.net
rojadirectastv.org
rojadirectatv.fan
rojadirectatv.net
rojadirectatv2.com
rojadirectatvenvivo.click
rojadirectatvenvivo.pro
rojadirectatvenvivohd.info
rojadirectatvhd.life
rojadirectatvhd.net
rojadirectatvlibre.com
rojadirectavivo.xyz
rojadirectvlive.com
rojatvblog.com
rolandsledge.com
sa-koora.com
samokoora.com
sandersunfiltered.com
saoketv39.xyz
saoketvlive.com
score-808.net
score8o8.com
sgtpepperat50.com
shahid-koora.live
shazysport.click
shazysport.live
shd247.info
shd247.live
shootwithyalla.com
shstream.live
sia-bth.net
sigmastreamer4th.online
siir-tv.live
sirtv.net
smartcric.click
smartstudysask.com
socceraccess.net
sognandoeballando.com
songkhep.com
sportcxh.site
sportontv.space
sportp2plive.store
sportplus.live
sports-x.net
sportsbay.pro
sportsdaldal.site
sportsfeed24.app
sportsfeed24.org
sportsgames.today
sportsgoals.xyz
sportshd.app
sportsmachine.xyz
sportsonline.click
sportsonlline.click
sportssonline.click
sportsupa.xyz
sportsurge.ws
sportsurgez.com
sporttsonline.click
sportytrend.net
sportzane.com
ssirtv.com
streambest.mom
streambtw.com
streamcenter.live
streamcorner.click
streamcorner.fyi
streamcraft.click
streameast.mov
streameastlinks.com
streamfree.app
streamfree.link
streamiz.click
streamninja.online
streamninja.xyz
streams.center
streamsports99.fun
streamthunder.org
streamticker.xyz
streamtpday1.xyz
stremonsport.net
strm01.app
strumyk.net
super-surge.store
supra-stream.com
surfg.org
swhlegal.com
syarlive.xyz
syirialive.pro
syria-live.net
syria-live.today
syria2011.net
syria2012.net
syriaalive.pro
syrialive-hd.com
syrianlive.live
syriaolives.com
syrlive.com
syrlive.net
syrlive.world
tarjetaroja.fan
tarjetaroja.space
tarjetarojablog.com
tarjetarojamas.com
tarjetarojaonline.net
tarjetarojas.com
tarjetarojatv.click
tarjetarojatv.life
tarjetarojatv.space
tarjetarojatvblog.net
tarjetarojatvenvivo.click
tarjetarojatvenvivo.store
tarjetarojatvs.org
tarjetarojatvstream.com
techbugs.info
techiguides.info
telefullhd.net
the-hesgoal.com
the-tv.app
thefootybite.site
thefutbollibre.com
theglasslands.com
therealone.online
thesports.today
thetvapp.link
thetvappv2.com
tibbaa.com
tipslab.info
tnt-usa.website
tonnalukal.com
topstream.lol
totalsportek.tips
totalsportekz.app
totalsportekz.com
transitionnorthfield.org
trendgola.org
tructiepbongda.space
tulibrefutbol.com
tulnit.com
tv-shihab.xyz
tv-sir.com
tv-sport-hd.net
tv-yalla-shoot.com
tv96.world
tvhd2.com
tvlibr3.com
tvlibre-online.com
tvnise.com
tvsportslive.org
tvtvhd.com
ufreetv.com
ukdaddy.online
us-cap.org
vanishingny.org
victorystreams.xyz
vipbox-tv.live
viper-play.org
viperplay.net
vipleague.run
volokit.xyz
watchme.mom
wesnamanphotography.com
whfkfhgk.com
wikisports.site
wildnature.xyz
worldcuplives.online
www-futbollibre.com
x5tolic.com
xoilac68.com
xscore360.com
xuperlive.com
yacinetvsport.com
yala-shoot.net
yala-shots.today
yala-sport-now.com
yalaalive.com
yalalive.app
yalla--live.net
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yalla-soccer.com
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yalla-worldcup.com
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yallasellit.com
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yallashoot-id1.xyz
yallashoot.fun
yallashoot4k.online
yallashooti-tv.com
yallashootlive22.com
yallashot.life
yallasnap.net
yallasootlive.com
yallaspor.xyz
yallasyarah.com
yallatoo.com
yallatun.com
yallaworld.site
yoresport.com
yyzb2288.com
znochikai.com

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

Since the framework officially launched in 2025, a series of orders have targeted sports streaming sites, shadow libraries, movie piracy portals, and pirate IPTV services.

The official blocklist has grown to more than 1,000 domain names and a new order, issued by the President of the French-speaking Business Court of Brussels on July 3, classified 113 additional domain names as copyright infringing.

French Piracy Portals

BAPO published its implementation decision on 10 July, without revealing the names of the requesting rightsholders. However, since the targeted sites mostly deal with movie and TV piracy, it would not be a surprise if it comes from Hollywood, Netflix, and Apple again.

The implementation order does not mention any of the domains by name, but TorrentFreak obtained a copy of the full blocklist, which shows that 113 domain names were added through the latest order. Most of these domains are connected to the French-language download portals Zone-Telechargement and Wawacity. Others include Lookmovie, Movix and KissKH.

The order requires five of Belgium’s large ISPs, including Telenet, Proximus, Mobile Vikings, Orange Belgium, and DIGI Communications, to block these sites. Unlike one of the earlier orders, it does not require third-party DNS resolvers to act.

The French-language orientation makes sense given it was issued by the French-speaking Business Court of Brussels, but it also connects this order to a much older enforcement cycle in a neighboring country.

Blocks are Outdated Already

The list of all new domains, which is available below, shows that Zone-Telechargement and Wawacity use a wide variety of largely identical novelty TLDs. This appears to be a direct response to site blocking orders issued by France’s ARCOM.

Each time French ISPs implement a new round of DNS blocks, the operators register a fresh domain name and redirect their user base through dedicated landing pages and Telegram channels. These updates happen so frequently that the Belgian site blocking order was already outdated before ISPs got the chance to implement it.

To illustrate, the order includes 37 Wawacity domains and 36 Zone-Telechargement domains. However, both sites have been operating from a .poker TLD since July 9th, and several of the previous iterations such as .codes and .expert are not in the Belgian blocklist either.

The rightsholders are aware of the domain hopping habits of these sites, as they specifically requested the court to block “signpost” information pages that help people to bypass blockades.

Blocking Info Pages With No Infringing Content

For example, the blocklist includes wawacity-info.com and zone-telechargement-info.com. These sites do not host copyrighted content and do not link to any infringing files. They are simple landing pages that tell visitors what the current active domain is, and how blocking measures can be bypassed.

Rightsholders asked the court to block these domain names as well and this request was granted by the court and also approved in BAPO’s implementation order. While the signpost pages don’t link directly to infringing material, they are facilitating access.

This would fall under the Belgian blocking powers and the “facilitate access” language is specifically referenced in the implementation order, as shown above.

Whac-A-Mole

The two blocked signpost pages are nearly identical, suggesting that Wawacity and Zone-Telechargement are run by the same operation. This also explains why they change their domain names in tandem.

Whether the operators plan to change the domain names of their signpost pages is unclear. They also update tens of thousands of followers through Telegram, where the messaging is again identical, which points to a joint operation.

These sites are not the only ones that regularly change domain names either. Movix, which is also targeted in the same order, has already moved to a new TLD as well and remains accessible.

If anything, the Belgian example shows that site blocking itself is far from a perfect remedy. Although BAPO’s blocking order can be updated weekly with up to 50 new domains, pirate site operators often only need a few minutes to direct traffic to a new TLD.

It would not be a surprise to see rightsholders target the Telegram channels next, hoping to further limit the exposure. Whether these and other measures will eventually break the morale of pirates has yet to be seen.

—

– animepahe.pw 
– animepahe.com 
– animepahe.org 
– anime-sama.to 
– anime-sama.pw 
– anime-sama.org 
– anime-sama.si 
– anime-sama.tv 
– kisskh.co 
– kisskh.do 
– kisskh.id 
– kisskh.la 
– kisskh.ovh 
– kisskh.at 
– kissdl.eu 
– lookmovie.foundation 
– lookmovie.pn 
– lookmovie0.to 
– lookmovie2.la 
– lookmovie2.pe 
– lookmovie2.to 
– lookmovie4.to 
– lookmovie5.to 
– lookmovie6.to 
– lookmovie7.to 
– lookmovie8.to 
– lookmovie9.to 
– lookmovie.com 
– movix.cash 
– movix.chat 
– movix.cloud 
– movix.golf 
– movix.club 
– movix.llc 
– movix.online 
– streamex.net  
– streamex.sh 
– voir-anime.to 
– watchseries.bar  
– watchseries.best 
– wawacity.tours 
– wawacity-info.com 
– wawacity.beauty 
– wawacity.click 
– wawacity.cv 
– wawacity.diy 
– wawacity.energy 
– wawacity.farm 
– wawacity.futbol 
– wawacity.golf 
– wawacity.gratis 
– wawacity.im 
– wawacity.ing 
– wawacity.irish 
– wawacity.lat 
– wawacity.lifestyle 
– wawacity.motorcycles 
– wawacity.news 
– wawacity.party 
– wawacity.pet 
– wawacity.pictures 
– wawacity.pizza 
– wawacity.promo 
– wawacity.rent 
– wawacity.rodeo 
– wawacity.run 
– wawacity.shop 
– wawacity.supply 
– wawacity.surf 
– wawacity.taxi 
– wawacity.team 
– wawacity.tips 
– wawacity.today 
– wawacity.tools 
– wawacity.town 
– wawacity.win 
– wawacity.zone 
– zone-telechargement.tours 
– zone-telechargement-info.com 
– zone-telechargement.beauty 
– zone-telechargement.cv 
– zone-telechargement.diy 
– zone-telechargement.energy 
– zone-telechargement.farm 
– zone-telechargement.futbol 
– zone-telechargement.golf 
– zone-telechargement.gratis 
– zone-telechargement.im 
– zone-telechargement.ing 
– zone-telechargement.irish 
– zone-telechargement.meme 
– zone-telechargement.monster 
– zone-telechargement.motorcycles 
– zone-telechargement.news 
– zone-telechargement.party 
– zone-telechargement.pet 
– zone-telechargement.pictures 
– zone-telechargement.pizza 
– zone-telechargement.promo 
– zone-telechargement.rent 
– zone-telechargement.rodeo 
– zone-telechargement.run 
– zone-telechargement.shop 
– zone-telechargement.supply 
– zone-telechargement.surf 
– zone-telechargement.taxi 
– zone-telechargement.team 
– zone-telechargement.tips 
– zone-telechargement.today 
– zone-telechargement.tools 
– zone-telechargement.town 
– zone-telechargement.win 
– zone-telechargement.zone 

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

While the diary’s importance is universally recognized, the accessibility of its digital manuscripts has been at the center of a Dutch copyright battle that eventually made its way to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU).

The legal dispute was triggered by differences in copyright protection terms in the EU. Parts of Anne Frank’s manuscripts remain protected in the Netherlands until 2037, while the same material entered the public domain in Belgium and many other EU member states years ago.

To navigate these conflicting laws, the Dutch Anne Frank Stichting published a scholarly edition online using “state-of-the-art” geo-blocking to prevent Dutch residents from accessing the site. Visitors from the Netherlands and other countries where the work is protected are met with a clear message, informing them about these access restrictions.

“The scholarly edition of the Anne Frank manuscripts cannot be made available in all countries, due to copyright considerations,” is the message blocked visitors get to see.

Despite these blocking measures, the Swiss-based Anne Frank Fonds was not pleased. The Fonds essentially argued that if a block isn’t 100% bypass-proof, the content shouldn’t be online at all.

The Dutch lower court dismissed this argument, stating the defendants had taken reasonable measures to prevent access from the Netherlands. The Fonds appealed, without result, and the case is now heading back to the Dutch Supreme Court, which referred several questions to the EU’s top court to decide the fate of VPN neutrality and the sufficiency of geo-blocking.

State-of-the-Art Geo-Blocking Is Good Enough

In January, Advocate General Rantos published his opinion concluding that geo-blocking is a sufficient measure and that VPN providers are neutral intermediaries. That opinion was not binding, but it set the tone for what followed.

Last week, the CJEU’s Second Chamber delivered its final judgment. The Court ruled that a work that’s in the public domain in some EU member states, but still under copyright in another, can be published on a geo-blocked website without being considered an infringing “communication to the public” in the protected country.

The Court recognized that geo-blocking can be circumvented with a VPN, but that is not the decisive factor. If a publisher specifically chose to use a state-of-the-art geo-blocking to block visitors from a specific country, it is clear that these people are not the intended audience.

“While it is true that geo-blocking measures, including state-of-the-art measures, can, like any technological measure, be circumvented, particularly through the use of a VPN or similar service, the possibility of such circumvention cannot, in itself and in all circumstances, be a decisive factor in finding those measures to be inadequate and, therefore, ineffective,” the judgment reads.

The Court also rejected the idea that publishers should be required to use stricter access controls, such as subscriptions or login requirements. Imposing those measures would disproportionately restrict free access for users in public-domain countries.

The Anne Frank website also uses a self-declaration barrier, shown above, asking visitors to confirm that they are accessing the site from a public-domain country. The Court found that this type of measure, on its own, is not sufficient or effective.

VPN Providers Are not Liable

VPN providers are not liable if they are used to bypass state-of-the-art geo-blocking measures. The same logic also holds if the geo-blocking measures are ineffective to begin with.

The EU’s top court sees VPN providers as neutral intermediaries, referring to previous rulings where YouTube and Uploaded were not held liable for pirating users. As an intermediary, a VPN itself simply acts as a secure, neutral routing tool that’s not communicating anything to the public.

“The provider of a VPN or similar services that are used in order to circumvent an ineffective geo-blocking measure and are lawful technical tools which users may legitimately use cannot be regarded as also having communicated the work to the public,” the judgment reads.

The Court explained that a VPN provider “does not give end users access to a protected work” and added that it “does not play an ‘indispensable role'” in any act of communication.

This conclusion is significant. It effectively confirms that the EU’s highest court does not see VPN providers as copyright infringers simply because their technology enables users to bypass geographical restrictions.

The Broader Fallout

The CJEU ruling means that VPN providers are not held directly liable under EU law. However, this finding still has to be interpreted by local courts.

In this case, it goes back to the Dutch Supreme Court, which still has to decide whether the geo-blocking system deployed by the Anne Frank Stichting actually meets the “state-of-the-art” threshold.

The ruling comes at a time when the status of VPNs in copyright enforcement is also being tested from the opposite direction. In France, for example, VPNs are required to block pirate sites, as they are seen as key intermediaries, similar to ISPs.

The CJEU ruling is not in direct conflict with the French court orders, which are issued under the French Sports Code. However, these blocking orders are actively contested too and may eventually find their way to the EU’s top court as well.

—

A copy of the CJEU’s judgment in Case C-788/24 (ECLI:EU:C:2026:559) is available here.

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

The Spanish-language site is particularly popular in Latin America and served more than a billion annual visits at its height.

This popularity didn’t go unnoticed with rightsholders. The site has been on the anti-piracy radar for years and the Motion Picture Association (MPA) flagged the site in its most recent report to the U.S. Trade Representative.

According to the MPA, AnimeFLV’s operators are believed to be located in Peru, Chile, and Mexico. In the latter two countries, the anime portal is also among the 100 most-visited websites. However, due to recent changes this traffic rank will likely drop.

“There are currently no videos”

AnimeFLV ran without significant issues for years, but that changed in mid-June. While the site remained online with the content listings intact, the video player categorically returns the message “Actualmente no hay videos,” informing visitors that ‘there are currently no videos.’

In other words, the popular anime site has effectively become a ghost directory of series and movies.

Initial hiccups were reported in April already but the site recovered from those. By late June, however, bug reports on GitHub from the Aniyomi anime app’s extension tracker confirmed that AnimeFLV’s player returned no video sources at all.

The site’s operators have not issued any statement to this day. No anti-piracy organization has taken credit either, but the video disappearance comes at a time when several major anime and manga operations were dismantled.

A Wave of Pirate Site Shutdowns

In April, we reported that TuMangaOnline, also known as ZonaTMO, was shut down following an enforcement action from Korean rightsholders.

Also in April, the backend infrastructure of many prominent pirate sites was knocked offline. These sites were linked to the popular “Piracy-as-a-Service” operations such as MegaCloud and VidCloud, that also acted as a hosting platform.

A few weeks earlier, the massive anime pirate site HiAnime had already closed its doors. While this action long remained unexplained, earlier this month Vietnamese authorities eventually launched a criminal prosecution against seven people associated with the piracy ring.

While AnimeFLV’s issues fit in this bigger picture, we can’t independently link it directly to these earlier crackdowns. The mid-June date doesn’t directly link to any other known enforcement actions either.

A Valuable Ghost Directory

What makes AnimeFLV’s situation unusual is that the site hasn’t disappeared. The front end remains fully functional, and the ‘ghost’ directory is still being updated.

Why the operators remain silent on the video issues is food for speculation. However, the fact that they keep the site online suggests that it may not permanently close its doors. Whether it will continue as a directory-only site or something more has yet to be seen.

While AnimeFLV still gets plenty of residual traffic, Leiinad World notes that potential successors were quick to enter the scene too. This includes a newer site called AnimeAV1, which references the more modern AV1 codec, instead of the outdated and largely obsolete FLV (Flash) container format.

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

As part of the “Operation Offsides” enforcement action, led by U.S. authorities, more than 100 domain names were seized over the past days.

These new seizures came more than two weeks after the U.S. Department of Justice officially announced the action. While no new announcement was released, the recent seizures in part target fallback domains that pirate sites switched to following the initial crackdown.

For example, when the buffstreams.plus domain name was seized, ibuffstreams.app took its place, pointing to the same server infrastructure. This backup domain did not go unnoticed and was subsequently seized, pointing to the now-familiar banner.

These secondary domain seizures also targeted many other domains and brands, including sportsurge.ws, footybite.app, totalsportekz.app, and istreameast.app. A longer list with more examples is available below.

Iranian Fallback

As long as the people running these sites are not caught, they will often launch new domain names. This is not new, but a recent series of domains caught our eye, as it is using seemingly more resilient fallback: Iran’s .ir country-code top-level domain.

OSINT data gathered by TorrentFreak found that buffstreams.ir, sportsurge.ir, and footybite.ir are all active and operational. These domains resolve to the same Ukrainian IP-address, which was previously used by the now seized buffstreams.plus, ibuffstreams.app, and sportsurge.ws domains.

The Iranian domains are paired with Iranian nameservers, ns1.pars.cloud and ns2.pars.cloud, which are also new as the earlier domains relied on Cloudflare nameservers. This suggests that the operators are intentionally moving away from American infrastructure.

Three Years in the Making

Iranian WHOIS data doesn’t reveal when the domains were registered, but SSL certificate logs tell us these .ir domains are not recent emergency registrations.

Both buffstreams.ir and sportsurge.ir received their first SSL certificates on September 22, 2023, within six minutes of each other. Their certificate chains have been renewed without interruption every 90 days since.

In other words, the .ir domains were set up nearly three years before Operation Offsides was announced. All this time they were presumably kept in reserve as a fallback and following the recent seizure actions they were brought to the fore.

The same certificate information also shows that, a few days ago, these .ir domains moved away from the Google SSL certificates they have been using for years. Instead, they switched to certificates from Let’s Encrypt.

More Iranian Links

The three domains on pars.cloud are not the only pirate streaming brands using .ir. Our investigation identified at least 20 additional streaming-related .ir domains spread across several operator clusters.

This includes Totalsportek, nflbite, and nflstreams branded sites with .ir domains, which are all share the same Cloudflare nameserver pair, indicating that they are run from the same account. There is also a separate .ir-linked mlb66 and nhl66 operation, which has been in use for a while.

These .ir domains are not necessarily a response to the recent U.S. domain seizures, as they’ve been around for much longer, but they show that more operators have discovered the .ir ccTLD.

In fact, we have also seen a cluster of Iranian sports streaming domains that are registered, but are not serving any content. These include nbabite.ir, nbastreams.ir, nhlbite.ir, mmastreams.ir, nflstream.ir, stream2watch.ir, and streameastt.ir. These may be waiting to be deployed at a later moment.

Political Tensions

Iran’s .ir country-code TLD is managed by IRNIC, which is part of the Institute for Research in Fundamental Sciences, an academic institution based in Tehran. This makes it essentially unreachable for U.S. law enforcement.

Because of American sanctions, U.S. domain registrars are not allowed to resell .ir domain names. At the same time, given the current state of U.S.-Iran relations it is unlikely that IRNIC will voluntarily cooperate with U.S. authorities to target these domain names.

For pirate sites operators, .ir domains are also appealing due to a revision of IRNIC’s WHOIS policy in 2023. As a result, public queries no longer return registration dates, registrant names, or other contact information. For outsiders, these domains are essentially anonymous.

Notably, Iran’s copyright laws do not cover works from outside Iran, as the country is not a signatory to the Berne Convention, the WIPO Copyright Treaty, or a member of the WTO. This further complicates enforcement actions.

Of course, there are plenty of downsides to using .ir domain names. The international sanctions will make it challenging to monetize these domains, while Iranian domains are more complicated to register, and may also seem less trustworthy to the broader public.

Also, if an Iranian domain name gets millions of monthly visits, including a large American audience, the U.S. authorities may try to target these operations from alternative angles.

—

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Update July 15, the following domain names were added:

– 1sportshd.xyz
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– american-streams.xyz
– bizzstreams.xyz
– buff-streams.xyz
– ccrackstreams.lat
– dongleweb.xyz
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From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.