Over the past several months we’ve been documenting the unfolding of one of the most unusual situations in torrent site history.

After being placed under intense legal pressure by Hawaii-based law firm Culpepper IP, torrent site YTS – the second most-visited torrent site on the planet – is now confirmed to be working with the law firm , providing it with user data to be used in copyright infringement actions.

During the past week there have been several new developments, with some interesting twists and turns.

For example, yesterday we revealed that information provided by YTS is now being used to fuel what appears to be a new email-based settlement demand scheme against the site’s own users.

We also reported that, in response to YTS’s apparent cooperation in legal action, large torrent sites 1337x, TorrentGalaxy (TGx) and Glotorrents banned YTS uploads to their platforms, cutting themselves off from the now-tarnished reputation of YTS. However, at least one of them has a new issue to contend with.

Culpepper IP Now Targeting 1337x and an Uploader

Following the announcement by 1337x, which was the first site to ban YTS uploads, Culpepper IP went to court in Hawaii with a brand new request. On behalf of Splintered LLC and using the increasingly-common DMCA subpoena process, Culpepper IP hopes to obtain at least two sets of key information, one that relates to 1337x itself and the other one of its uploaders.

The dispute centers around the comedy-romance movie ‘Playing it Cool’. First released in Estonia in 2014, it was made available in the United States during 2015 but was widely panned by critics, achieving a score of 14% on Rotten Tomatoes . Now, however, links to the torrents of the movie are causing problems for 1337x.

DMCA Subpoena Filed in Hawaii

The subpoena targets two main third-party entities that provide services to 1337x. At the top level, it seeks to compel the Tonics Domain Corporation, the operator of 1337x’s .to domain, to reveal the mailing address, email address, telephone number and payment details of the “customer(s) that registered domain: 1337x.to from August 20, 2017 through August 20, 2020.”

Since 1337x uses the services of Cloudflare the subpoena also seeks to compel the CDN company to hand over the name, physical address, email address, telephone number, payment records and IP address log history from August 30, 2020 to the present day. It references a specific ‘infringing’ URL from where a torrent related to ‘Playing it Cool’ can be downloaded, as shown in the image below.

The image above clearly shows buttons for magnet links and a torrent file download but follows up with a ‘PLAY NOW (STREAM)’ button too. This leads to a third-party platform that claims to offer the movie to stream but according to reports should not be trusted .

Whether this URL was fully tested to be infringing before the DMCA subpoena was applied for isn’t clear. Nevertheless, Culpepper IP also want Cloudflare to hand over information that would allow it to find out who is supposedly infringing the rights of the movie company on that site too.

DMCA Subpoena Granted – But What Next?

The law firm notes, correctly, that this authorization doesn’t have to come from a judge but can be signed off by a clerk of the court, which is exactly what happened just before the weekend.

Whether Tonic or Cloudflare will have any useful information to hand over remains unclear but they will be required to do so during the first few days of September in order to comply with the terms of the subpoena. The big question thereafter is what Culpepper IP intend to do with that information, should it prove actionable.

As previously reported, the company managed to get piracy app CotoMovies onside, which shut down and handed over information on its users. YTS, as we already know, is also cooperating with information to assist lawsuits.

Meanwhile, under the direction of the same law firm, Popcorn Time, Showbox-linked , and other YTS-branded operations are under pressure too, some on the trademark front .

The DMCA subpoena documents relating to 1337x are available here ( 1 , 2 , 3 pdf)

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

For many seasoned BitTorrent users, 1337x.to is a familiar name. The site has been around for more than a decade and is generally known for its lively community.

Over the years 1337x has steadily climbed through the ranks. It is currently the third most-visited torrent site , trailing only behind The Pirate Bay and YTS.mx.

1337x Bans YTS Uploads

While there is generally not much competition between public torrent sites, 1337x’s staff has taken a big decision that directly impacts YTS. Without warning, the site decided to ban all YTS torrents, including the site’s upload bot.

The YTS bot is connected to YTS.mx and adds hundreds of new movie torrents every week. While many torrent users appreciate the constant stream of fresh content, the reputation of YTS has been severely damaged due to its operator sharing user details with movie studios.

These private details, including IP and email addresses, were taken from the YTS database which by itself has nothing to do with 1337x. However, the 1337x staff characterized this as a ‘snitch’ move and no longer wants to be associated with anything related to its rival.

“In light of the admin/sysop/owner giving up user data, I put banning them to a staff vote which returned a unanimous decision,” 1337x admin ‘Blackjesus’ informs TorrentFreak.

Movie Companies Sued YTS Users

YTS data-sharing practices have already resulted in several lawsuits against YTS users after the site itself previously signed a settlement agreement with movie studios .

Initially, it was not 100% certain that the data was being willingly shared but an article we published this week left no doubt . That prompted 1337x to take action, a decision that wasn’t taken lightly.

“We had considered banning them a few months back when it was first made public that they were potentially compromised and TF published several articles about them being sued but they magically continued to operate. Your latest article about them giving up user data was the straw that broke the camel’s back.”

The ban doesn’t affect YTS.mx directly, as they are still able to publish torrents on their own site. However, the releases on other sites act as a promotional tool as well, so in the long run, it can certainly have an impact.

EZTV Uploads Are Banned Too

While the initial ban only affected ‘YTS’ uploads and the ‘YTSAGx’ bot, it directly resulted in the ban of another popular account as well; EZTV.

EZTV.io hijacked the original EZTV group years ago and in 2015 started promoting the new YTS site after the official YTS group shut down. It wasn’t entirely clear if the two were connected but when the EZTV bot started uploading YTS releases to 1337x yesterday the site’s staff knew enough.

“After banning the YTS bot account the EZTV bot account started uploading YTS torrents. This is the confirmation we needed that EZTV and YTS are linked. We always suspected it. We know YTS and EZTV are not the original groups/sites,” Blackjesus tells us.

“We allowed them to upload on 1337x because people liked their small encodes and apart from stealing the YTS name they did not seem to be doing anything malicious. We never fully trusted them and that’s the reason that neither account was ever promoted to VIP.”

TorrentFreak reached out to YTS for a comment on the ban, but we have yet to hear back.

More Bans Coming?

People who search for YTS or EZTV on 1337x won’t see any new torrents and that’s not going to change anytime soon. At the time of writing, all older uploads from these accounts remain available.

The 1337x team are also discussing their concerns with other torrent site admins, who may follow the site’s decision.

“I suspect more bans to follow shortly,” Blackjesus says, noting that most people he spoke with agree on the matter.

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