After initially denying that Italy’s new Piracy Shield anti-piracy platform had been responsible for any over-blocking, last week telecoms regulator AGCOM conceded that an IP address belonging to Cloudflare had been blocked in error .

While that might be considered progress of sorts, the incident was downplayed as minor on the basis it was rectified a few hours later. No consolation for the many Cloudflare customers affected, of course, but that particular problem isn’t going away. Cloudflare is encouraging its customers to file complaints to draw attention to the perils of widespread blocking measures.

Yet despite calls for more transparency, not to mention an obvious need, AGCOM is still not reporting the IP addresses subjected to blocking, instead preferring to report the volume of IP addresses blocked instead. While the latter is not unimportant information, only the former can shine light on cases where IP addresses are blocked in error. Or when IP addresses are blocked despite the legal provision that prohibits blocking when IPs are not exclusively used for piracy.

New Third-Party Service Imposes Transparency

Official providers of all types of content have understood for some time that if they don’t meet demand, someone else will do it for them. After calls for transparency appeared to fall on deaf ears, transparency has been imposed on the Piracy Shield system thanks to a new, unofficial third-party system: Piracy Shield Search .

The most important feature of the service is the ability to enter an IP address or a fully qualified domain name (FQDN) to find out whether they’re on the Piracy Shield system.

The image below consists of an original blocking order (translated from Italian) issued in response to a blocking application by Sky Italia. To protect Sky’s broadcasting rights for FIM MotoGP World Championship and the Motul FIM Superbike World Championship, the domain http://live.vitocatozzo.eu was added to the Piracy Shield system.

The response from Piracy Shield Search added by us directly underneath the relevant section in the application confirms that the domain was indeed placed on the blocklist. The response also provides the time the rightsholder or its representative added the ticket to the system, which acts as the instruction for ISPs to go ahead and start blocking.

Rightsholder Tickets and Top AS By IP Address

The Piracy Shield Search system shows data relating to currently active blocking, not the total number of requests made or IP addresses/domains blocked to date.

In the image below we can see that 662 rightsholder tickets are currently live, and together they target 2,849 IPv4 IP addresses, zero IPv6 IP addresses, and 6,601 fully qualified domain names. The panel on the right shows the top AS (autonomous systems) ranked by the total number of IP addresses allocated to the AS that are currently subject to blocking.

The ticket panel on the left shows that the system deployed in Italy operates similarly to the blocking system operated in the UK.

Much is made in the media about the requirement to block IP addresses and domains within 30 minutes, possibly to imply that blocking takes place mostly during live matches. However, the two items at the top of the list show that IP addresses and domains are typically added in bulk, long after matches finish or, alternatively, long before they actually start.

Tickets Reveal More Blocking Blunders

The people behind Piracy Shield Search have decided to partially redact IP addresses requested for blocking in rightsholder tickets. Since the search facility on the front page responds to requests for specific IP addresses, there’s no need to expose the IP addresses in full here.

However, since the names of the hosts are displayed in full, it’s possible to determine whether the IP addresses that appear on the left are likely to be operated by CDN companies. More importantly, there may also be enough information to determine whether multiple services potentially share the IP address.

In a post to X, developer and researcher Matteo Contrini confirms what many people had suspected; Cloudflare isn’t the only major CDN provider whose IP addresses have ended up on the Piracy Shield system.

“The platform #PiracyShield is blocking 15 Akamai IP addresses! Not only Cloudflare but also the largest CDN in the world…,” Contrini notes.

The data suggests that transparency is a double-edged sword. Without transparency, there’s no scrutiny, and no specific fuel for criticism. When transparency exists, whether voluntarily or by imposition, scrutiny ensures that criticism can be backed up by data provided by the system itself.

What transparency offers that opacity never does, however, is a powerful incentive to do better. Whether the addition of these IP addresses is due to blunder after uncorrected blunder isn’t clear, but the alternative is unquestionably much worse.

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

The Internet Archive (IA) is a non-profit organization that aims to preserve digital history for generations to come.

The digital library is a staunch supporter of a free and open Internet and began meticulously archiving the web over a quarter century ago.

In addition to archiving the web, IA also operates a library that offers a broad collection of digital media, including books. Staying true to the centuries-old library concept, IA patrons can also borrow books that are scanned and digitized in-house.

Publishers vs. Internet Archive

The self-scanning service offered by the Internet Archive (IA) differs from the licensing agreements entered into by other libraries. Not all publishers are happy with IA’s approach, resulting in a major legal battle two years ago.

Publishers Hachette, HarperCollins, John Wiley, and Penguin Random House filed a lawsuit, equating IA’s controlled digital lending (CDL) operation to copyright infringement. Earlier this year a New York federal court concluded that the library is indeed liable for copyright infringement .

The court’s decision effectively put an end to IA’s self-scanning library, at least for books from the publishers in suit. However, IA is not letting this go without a fight and in December the non-profit filed its opening brief at the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, hoping to reverse the judgment .

High Profile Support

The importance of this legal battle is illustrated by the large number of amicus briefs that are filed by third parties. Previously, IA received support from copyright scholars and the Authors Alliance, among others.

A few days ago, another round of amicus came in at the Court of Appeals, this time to back the publishers who filed their reply last week . In more than a handful of filings, prominent individuals and organizations urge the Appeals Court not to reverse the district court ruling, arguing that this would severely hamper the interests of copyright holders.

The briefs include positions from industry groups such as the MPA, RIAA, IFPI, Copyright Alliance, the Authors Guild, various writers unions, and many others. Legal scholars, professors, and former government officials, also chimed in.

RIAA, MPA, et al.

The RIAA and MPA submitted an amicus brief together with the NMPA and the News Media Alliance. These industry groups draw a parallel between the impact Napster and BitTorrent had on music and movie sales, and the threat IA’s self-scanning library poses today.

“Digital piracy has inflicted a huge economic toll on those industries and, by extension, on their ability to invest in new creative works and the artists who make them. Internet Archive’s theory of fair use represents a threat just as grave.”

Industry groups fear that if the Internet Archive is allowed to digitize and lend books, it could set a precedent for other forms of media. For instance, if services were able to lend music, movies, or news media to the general public, these industries might face similar challenges.

“Deeming Internet Archive’s mass reproduction and distribution program to be fair use would no doubt embolden not only Internet Archive itself but also other online platforms to freely ‘lend’ all types of copyrighted works to the public in digital formats,” they write.

“That would catastrophically harm the digital markets on which the music industry, the movie and television industry, the news industry, and similar industries depend to profitably create and distribute their works—and would thereby undermine the incentive for the creation of new works that copyright law exists to protect.”

According to the amici, there is nothing fair about IA’s digital library; instead, they see it as “unambiguous copyright infringement.”

Copyright Experts, Professors, and Lawmakers

A second amicus brief is submitted by more than a dozen professors and scholars of copyright and intellectual property law. They stress that IA’s practice should not be seen as “transformative” fair use, arguing that the library offers a “substitution” for books that are legally offered by the publishers.

This sets the case apart from current legal precedents including the Google Books case , where Google’s mass use of copyrighted books was deemed fair use.

“IA’s exploitation of copyrighted books is thus the polar opposite of the copying that was found to be transformative in Google Books and HathiTrust . IA offers no ‘utility-expanding’ searchable database to its subscribers. What it does offer is access to full-text books as a clearly competing substitute for the versions licensed by book publishers,” the legal scholars write.

Another amicus brief adds more heavyweight support for the publishers. This includes former judges and two dozen government officials and lawmakers, including Lamar Smith, former Chair of the House Judiciary Committee, and Bob Goodlatte, former Chair of the House Judiciary Committee.

This brief also rejects the Internet Archive’s fair use arguments, framing the library as a threat instead.

“IA does not further the public interest, but rather undermines incentives to create and disseminate books that benefit society. Thus, its actions are decidedly not protected by fair use,” their brief reads.

IA and AI

The final amicus brief we want to highlight comes from a broad collection international and regional trade groups from outside the United States. These include the International Publishers Association, the International Video Federation, and the Association of Canadian Publishers.

These groups also reject the fair use arguments. They stress that in addition to directly competing with the interests of publishers, IA’s library is also an indirect ‘artificial intelligence’ threat as the digitized books can be used as AI training material.

“The Internet Archive is an obvious source of high-quality works for AI training since these works have been professionally edited and improved by publishers. Entering the terms ‘Internet Archive DRM’ into any search engine results in a number of links to software tools that remove the Internet Archive’s DRM technology along with instructions on how to use it.

“Even if AI training is ultimately determined by U.S. courts to not be a fair use, Amici fear that the Internet Archive’s CDL collection has already been used as an AI training tool,” the international trade groups add.

In summary, the book publishers have plenty of external support for their legal battle. However, it remains to be seen whether any of these amici, including those in favor of IA, will influence the eventual outcome of the appeal.

—

Below is an overview of the amicus briefs that were filed over the past few days, all in support of the publishers.

– RIAA, MPA, NMPA, News Media Alliance .
– Former government officials, former judges, and intellectual property scholars .
– Copyright Alliance .
– Various organizations that represent the interests of writers and other creators .
– Professors and scholars of copyright and intellectual property law .
– International and regional trade bodies .

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

Sports leagues and their broadcasting partners across Europe believe that their piracy problems begin with the existence of illicit suppliers.

It follows that if those illicit suppliers can be prevented from reaching their subscribers, reasons for buying TV packages from the black market will be mostly eliminated and legal subscription sales will ensue.

As the legal owners of the rights in question, these corporate giants have the luxury to frame the issue however they choose. However, when the war on piracy begins to take a toll on those not even remotely involved, it raises the question of who has the authority to step in and where the threshold for intervention lies.

On Friday, a judge handling a copyright case concluded that since messaging platform Telegram had failed to help rightsholders identify the operators of certain Telegram channels, something needed to be done. Insisting that there was no other option available, the judge issued an order for Telegram to be blocked by ISPs throughout Spain.

The judge described the measure as “necessary” and “proportional” and in a few hours’ time, if not already, around eight million users of Telegram in Spain will have a chance to chime in with their opinions, but not via Telegram, obviously.

Update: March 25, 2024 : Amid a huge backlash in Spain, including criticism of the decision and the government by opposition parties, the blocking order has been suspended. See update below.

Media Giants Want to Unmask Telegram Channel Operators

Existence of the order and some general details were revealed by Telecinco on Friday.

The publication reported that as part of a copyright complaint previously filed by anti-piracy group EGEDA, Mediaset España, Atresmedia, and Movistar Plus, the rightsholders had demanded information from Telegram that could help them identify the operators of piracy-linked Telegram channels.

Despite the involvement of the court, Telegram failed to respond; Judge Pedraz concluded that since the investigation would now take more time, in the interim Telegram would have to be blocked by ISPs throughout Spain.

Telegram has previously been blocked by Iran, China, and Pakistan, among others, but the addition of Spain came as a surprise. Expecting to find considerable unreported nuance, TorrentFreak tracked down the order; issued by Juzgado Central de Instrucción Número 5 and dated March 22, 2024, it begins with a section marked “Factual Background.”

Case Background as Reported in the Order

The order describes the present proceedings in connection with the “continued infringement of intellectual property rights,” carried out by “owners of various channels created on the Telegram social network,” and an ongoing investigation involving the prosecutor’s office.

In a report dated March 8, 2024, the prosecutor’s office requested a six-month extension of the investigation period. This followed an EGEDA request and a writ filed on behalf of rightsholders Telefónica Audiovisual Digital (TAD), Movistar+, and Movistar Plus+.

After detailing the rules concerning investigations and time limits, the Judge notes in the absence of an extension, the current investigation is set to expire on March 29, 2024, having run for the maximum 12 months allowed under Article 324.1 LECrim .

Request for Judicial Assistance

The order then turns to the corporate entity operated by Telegram in the British Virgin Islands and the letters rogatory (letters of request) sent by the Spanish court to the Virgin Islands seeking judicial assistance.

“For the successful completion of the investigation, it is necessary to carry out the proceedings contained in the rogatory commission sent to the Virgin Islands, but so far there has been no news of compliance with the aforementioned instrument of cooperation,” the order reads.

“Numerous diligence of investigation will be pending depending on the information that will be provided by the execution of the above-mentioned international rogatory commission. Therefore, the period of investigation should be extended for six months in order to carry out the pending proceedings.”

Information Required For a Private Criminal Prosecution

The order reveals that non-compliance with the international rogatory commission sent by the Judge to the Virgin Islands on July 28, 2023, has effectively brought the investigation to a halt. The information sought by Judge Pedraz is required to support a private criminal prosecution brought by the media companies, not the state.

Private prosecutions in criminal cases are favored by sports rightsholders in the UK; as the alleged victim, rightsholders conduct their own investigations, harvest their own evidence, then act as the prosecution in the same case. There are no restrictions on the amount of legal firepower they’re permitted to deploy, meaning that in most cases defendants face the best lawyers money can buy.

Lack of Cooperation from Virgin Islands

Whether this aspect of the request is known to Telegram isn’t clear from the order. Indeed, the order makes no comment on whether Virgin Islands authorities even passed on the request, raising the question of what Telegram knows, or even if it knows anything at all.

“Telegram was requested to inform about certain technical data that would allow the identification of the holders of the accounts used for the infringement of the intellectual property rights of the entities appearing as Private Prosecutor. The lack of collaboration of the authorities of the Virgin Islands, who are only requested to communicate with the managers of the social network TELEGRAM, leads to the adoption of the precautionary measures requested by the private prosecutors,” the order reads.

“This repeated commission of the crime against intellectual property rights justifies the adoption of the requested precautionary measures, since the principles of necessity, suitability, and proportionality are met. The requested precautionary measures are the only possible measures in view of the lack of collaboration of the Virgin Islands authorities. There is no other type of measure that could stop the reiteration of the facts denounced.”

From this statement it’s clear that the rightsholders requested a complete block of Telegram in Spain and the Judge considered that a reasonable request.

Blocking Millions of Telegram Users is Acceptable

“The measure is suitable because its execution could put an end to the infringement of intellectual property rights denounced to prevent access through the TELEGRAM network to the contents of the aforementioned rights. The measure is proportional to the seriousness of the conduct denounced and in this analysis is related to the necessity of the measure,” the order continues, with the legal justification (translated from Spanish) as presented below.

The ISPs instructed to carry out the blocks within three hours of receiving the order are: Vodafone España, Orange Espagne, Orange España Virtual, MASMOVIL IBERCOM, Digi Spain Telecom, Telefónica España, Telefónica Móviles España, AVATEL TELECOM, ADAMO TELECOM IBERIA, AIRE NETWORKS DEL MEDITERRÁNEO, and PROCONO .

The Telegram assets to be blocked are: Telegram Web (https://web.telegram.org/k/), Telegram Messenger (https://telegram.org/), and Telegram Apps for Android and iOS. It appears the rightsholders were well-prepared since they mandate the following:

Apps: disable and block the connection [IP addresses, protocols, ports and any other connection element], to suspend the operation of the ‘Telegram’ application (app) of the connections from Smartphone and/or Tablet of the Operators’ users who have the “Telegram” “app” installed on their devices, operated from any operating system (Android, iOs).

Blocking Telegram or Denying Access to Non-Infringing Users

Judge Pedraz frames these measures as the blocking of Telegram but the mechanism chosen clearly shows that Telegram can still reach Spanish ISPs but the blocks they’re required to put in place prevent Telegram users from accessing the platform. That’s especially the case in respect of the apps where interference is directed towards functionality of apps on users’ devices.

While some may dismiss this as semantics on the basis that blocking pirate sites operates similarly, Telegram is not a pirate site and most Spanish users of Telegram are not pirates.

Whereas it might be reasonable to assert that most Spanish visitors to The Pirate Bay do so to infringe and therefore have no legal basis to visit the site, most visitors to Telegram do not visit the platform to infringe. Even of those that do, only a tiny minority will visit the channels in question. Nevertheless, millions of innocent Telegram users will soon be prevented from going about their entirely legal business.

That raises the fundamental question of the nature of the scales used to weigh the competing interests in this case and, more fundamentally, who is actually being punished here; Telegram as claimed, or non-infringing Spanish users?

Three Days to Appeal, Including Weekend

“An appeal for reform may be filed against this order, within a period of three days, before this Central Preliminary Examining Court, and/or, if applicable, an appeal, in a single effect, before the Criminal Chamber of the National High Court,” the order concludes.

As far as we’re aware there’s no recent news to indicate an appeal. These types of cases have traditionally seen ISPs step in but since the major ISPs in Spain are either rightsholders in their own right or have a commercial interest in blocking going ahead, an appeal from that direction seems unlikely.

We’re currently unaware of any comment from Telegram but given the scale of the response versus the problem to be solved, this matter is likely to attract international attention and scrutiny. Common wisdom suggests that when an adversary is making a mistake, he should be allowed to do so without being interrupted, so we may hear from Telegram in due course.

Update: March 25, 2024 : Amid a huge backlash in Spain, including criticism of the decision and the government by opposition parties, the blocking order has been suspended. National Court Judge Santiago Pedraz has requested a report from the General Information Commissioner’s Office (Comisaría General de Información) to provide data on the characteristics of Telegram and an assessment of the impact the measure could have if implemented.

A statement from the Podomos party criticized the government for failing to act in the face of “genuine censorship” at the hands of the “oligopoly of complainant communication companies” whose interests are “taking precedence” over the “freedoms of many citizens.”

Update: Official statement from the communications office of the National Court (translated from Spanish)

The judge of the National Court Santiago Pedraz issued an order this Monday in which he agreed, prior to the temporary suspension of the resources associated with Telegram, to request a report from the General Information Commissioner’s Office on the Telegram platform. The magistrate requests information about its characteristics as well as the impact that the temporary suspension, that he agreed to in an order last Friday and whose execution remains suspended, may have on users.

In the aforementioned order, the magistrate ordered the telecommunications and Internet access operators to temporarily suspend Telegram in the framework of a procedure against the owners of various channels created on the social network, for continued violations of intellectual property rights.

In his resolution, Pedraz explained that the measure has legal support contemplated in article 13.2 of the LECrim: “In the investigation of crimes committed through the internet, telephone or any other information or communication technology, the court may agree, as first steps, ex officio or at the request of a party, precautionary measures consisting of the provisional removal of illicit content, the provisional interruption of the services offered by said content, or the provisional blocking of both when they are located in a foreign country.”

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

The Motion Picture Association’s interest in file-hosting platform DoodStream first came to light in a submission to the USTR in October 2022 .

The MPA described DoodStream as a video hosting service offering free storage and premium services including priority encoding and an ad-free experience. Videos uploaded to the platform were embedded on many other streaming sites, the MPA reported, and as a result, traffic was booming.

The MPA estimated the site received 82.7 million visits in August 2022, while using the services of DDoS-Guard in Russia and OVH in France.

“DoodStream operates a partner program that offers financial remuneration, either per download or stream depending on the country of origin,” the MPA informed the USTR in its ‘notorious markets’ submission.

DoodStream rates

A year later in a new submission to the USTR, the MPA described DoodStream as a ‘top priority’ for its anti-piracy efforts.

DoodStream in the Spotlight

In its October 2023 submission to the USTR’s notorious markets report, the MPA’s cyberlocker and video streaming category listed DoodStream front and center as the priority problem. The MPA still believed the site was operating from OVH in France but also listed other companies as hosts, including Online S.A.S., Hetzner Online GmbH, and Interkvm Host10 SRL.

The MPA noted that the Delhi High Court had ordered ISPs to block DoodStream in 2023, a measure also handed down by a French court during the same year. The Paris court noted that the site “encouraged the infringement of copyright and related rights by setting up tools specifically designed for the mass and illicit sharing of protected content.”

“The operators are located in India,” the MPA informed the USTR.

Entertainment Giants Team Up Against DoodStream

Two months later, Karyn Temple, Senior Executive Vice President and MPA Global General Counsel referenced DoodStream before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property and the Internet ( pdf ) . DoodStream continued, business as usual, until now.

In a lawsuit being heard at the High Court of Delhi, eight plaintiffs are listed as follows: Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc., Amazon Content Services LLC, Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc., Disney Enterprises, Inc., Netflix US, LLC, Paramount Pictures Corporation, Universal City Studios Productions LLP and Apple Video Programming.

A total of six defendants include the domains doodstream.com, doodstream.co, dood.stream and their underlying websites (defendants 1-3), plus a server (defendant 4) used by defendants 1 to 3 which allegedly facilitates storing and dissemination of illegal content. Defendants 5 and 6, neither of whom have been named, are reportedly site operators.

According to counsel for the plaintiffs, “rogue cyberlocker websites provide an infrastructure specifically designed to incentivize hosting, uploading, storing, sharing, streaming, and authorize the downloading of copyrighted material without obtaining authorization from the plaintiffs.

Claims Against The DoodStream Defendants

The plaintiffs allege that a massive amount of infringing content to which they have exclusive rights, is uploaded by users on the defendants’ websites.

“Counsel for plaintiffs say the studios approached defendants upon noticing this infringing content, first in June, 2023, after they discovered the identity as to who was operating these websites, who happen to be individuals based in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India, arrayed as defendants nos. 5 and 6,” an order from the court reads.

“This, according to plaintiffs’ counsel, was achieved after some effort since the WHOIS details of defendant nos. 1 to 3 were masked.”

The court notes that the plaintiffs continuously pursued the defendants to take the infringing content down. However, despite promises to comply, a mechanism built in to the site simply generated new links whenever content was supposedly removed.

“Further, uploaded content would also generate a link which could be disseminated by the uploader and therefore, potentially could be disseminated through parallel websites. Thus, as per counsel for plaintiffs, the takedown itself was elusive and of no effect, since the system immediately permitted generation of a new link.”

The court notes that through this mechanism, DoodStream becomes a “hydra-headed monster” that is difficult to police through takedowns alone.

Plaintiffs Want DoodStream Shut Down

The plaintiffs submit that DoodStream should either be comprehensively blocked or a Local Commissioner should be appointed to take over the administration of the sites. However, counsel for the defendants told the court that their clients are prepared to “exhaustively and completely” remove the plaintiffs’ content from the platform.

Due to the link generation mechanism in operation on the site, the plaintiffs expressed concern that content taken down would nnot stay down. The defendants offered assurances that they would “change the features on their websites’ architecture” to ensure that once the process of takedown is complete, regeneration would not be allowed.

In view of this undertaking, the court ordered ( pdf ) all content belonging to the plaintiffs to be taken down within 24 hours, and ordered the defendants to hire a chartered accountant to disclose all revenue generated by the sites since their launch.

The case is listed for hearing on April 8, 2024.

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

Pirate site blocking is one of the entertainment industry’s favorite enforcement tools. In recent years, it’s become a common practice in many countries around the world.

In the Netherlands, it took over a decade for the first order to be approved. After detours through the Supreme Court and the EU Court of Justice, the final order was issued in 2020, targeting The Pirate Bay .

With all the legal paperwork in order, the doors were open to more blocking requests, especially after rightsholders and local ISPs signed a covenant to streamline the process. If a court orders one company to block pirate sites, by agreement the other ISPs will follow suit.

After the initial Pirate Bay blockade, a follow-up order targeted YTS, EZTV and other torrent sites in 2022. Last year, Lookmovie and Flixtor were singled out in yet another case, despite a challenge to the ‘dynamic’ nature of these orders, which allows new domains to be added continuously.

Blocking Shadow Libraries

All blocking requests were submitted by local anti-piracy group BREIN , which acts on behalf of rightsholders. These include the major Hollywood studios but BREIN’s purview is much broader. Last week, it obtained the latest blocking order, this time on behalf of the publishing industry.

Issued by the Rotterdam District Court, the order requires a local Internet provider to block two well-known shadow libraries; “Anna’s Archive” and “Library Genesis” (LibGen).

News of this new court order was shared by BREIN which notes that both sites were found to make copyright infringing works available on a large scale. At the time of writing, a published copy is not available but, based on the covenant, all large Internet providers are expected to implement the blockades.

“These types of illegal shadow libraries are very harmful. The only ones who benefit are the anonymous owners of these illegal services. Authors and publishers see no return on their efforts and investments,” BREIN comments.

“Copyright holders deserve an honest living. There are numerous legal ways to obtain ebooks. If desired, this can also be done very cheaply; through the library for example.”

Dynamic Order

The Rotterdam court issued a so-called ‘dynamic’ blocking order, meaning that rightsholders can update the targeted domains and IP addresses if the sites switch to new ones in the future. This also applies to mirrors and increases the blockades’ effectiveness, as there is no need to return to court.

Previously, Internet provider KPN challenged these ‘dynamic’ orders, suggesting that they are too broad. The court rejected this argument, however, noting that the process hasn’t led to any major problems thus far.

BREIN further reports that Google is voluntarily offering a helping hand. As reported in detail previously , the search engine removes blocked domains from its local search results after being notified about an ISP blocking order.

“The effectiveness of the blocking measure is increased because Google cooperates in combating these infringements and, at the request of BREIN, completely removes all references to websites that are blocked by order of the Dutch court from the search results,” BREIN writes.

Elephant in the Room

The blockade of the two shadow libraries is a key victory for BREIN; Anna’s Archive and LibGen are the largest sites of their kind along with a similar platform, Z-Library. Interestingly, however, the latter is not part of this blocking order.

Z-Library is the target of an ongoing criminal investigation by the U.S. Government, an enforcement effort in which BREIN also played a role . It is not clear why the site isn’t part of the blocking request, however.

This ‘omission’ is notable considering the anti-piracy group’s earlier stance. After Z-Library’s initial shutdown, BREIN explicitly warned that it would obtain a court order to block Z-Library if it came back online.

Instead of going after Z-Library, BREIN’s latest blocking request targets two other shadow libraries. BREIN must have its reasons not to include Z-Library in this legal effort but the group didn’t immediately respond to our request for clarification.

Update: After publication BREIN explained that it focused on these two domains as they are seen as more popular than Z-Library. Z-Library is targeted by the U.S. but BREIN is planning to request a blockade in the future if the site stays online.

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

Pirate sites are frustrating rightsholders across all continent and many of them see website blocking as the solution.

In Ecuador, blocking measures are not new. Five years ago, the country’s National Intellectual Property Service was the first to order local Internet providers to block several domains of sports streaming site “Rojadirecta”.

These blockades were issued following a complaint from the local football league LigaPro . How effective the measure was is unknown, but the piracy problem didn’t disappear. On the contrary, pirate streaming services only appeared to gain more traction.

LigaPro Boss Celebrates Site Blocking Win

In recent months, LigaPro’s boss Miguel Angel Loor repeatedly drew attention to the ongoing problems. In common with his counterpart in Spain, Loor is determined to make progress on the anti-piracy front and, a few days ago, he reported a notable victory.

“HISTORICAL. For the first time in the history of Ecuador, LigaPro achieves an URGENT ACT that orders the imminent blocking of websites used for unauthorized broadcasting of [LigaPro] matches,” Loor writes .

The recent order targets 22 sports streaming domains, including sinfutboltv.com, librefutboltv.com, futbollibre.com, intergoles.co and jokerlivestream.co. The associated IP-addresses, many of which are shared Cloudflare addresses, are also listed. Blocking these outright can lead to trouble though, as we’ve seen in Italy .

Site blocking isn’t an entirely new concept in Ecuador, but this is the first time that the football league has obtained a court order of this kind. And it’s not going to be the last either, as LigaPro and its partners are determined to keep up the pressure.

“This fight has just begun and we are going to act with the full weight of the law to protect the most popular sport in Ecuador, from which thousands of families live,” Loor says.

Target: MagisTV

In recent weeks, the football league has taken a stand against various piracy services. In addition to the now-blocked sites, it singled out one major target that has yet to be addressed: pirate IPTV service MagisTV.

MagisTV is a popular IPTV service in Latin America, well-known for providing access to premium content for a small subscription fee. The platform has previously been branded a notorious piracy market by Hollywood’s MPA, who suggests that its operators are in China.

“MagisTV has become not just a distributor of infringing content, but also a brand: resellers can purchase credits from magistv.net for MagisTV-branded IPTV services, which they then resell in the form of monthly, quarterly, or yearly
subscriptions,” MPA wrote last October .

In addition to being featured by resellers, these brands typically rely on word-of-mouth promotion by their users. However, last month, a whole new audience was reached when MagisTV became the poster child of a new anti-piracy campaign.

Anti-Piracy Push Backfires?

Earlier this month, the BARCELONA S.C’s football team posed in front of a banner urging fans to ‘say no to MagisTV’, hoping to make an impact.

The plan on display here is that once fans learned about this illegal operation, they would stop using it. In reality, it also served as indirect promotion, making people aware of a ‘cheap’ piracy service they’d never previously heard of.

It’s hard to say what the net effect of the campaign was, but in response to LigaPro’s latest site-blocking announcement on X, several people replied with screenshots of their MagisTV setup.

“Thank you for the recommendation to use MagisTv, excellent service,” said one.

This example shows that simply telling people to stop using a service isn’t always the best strategy, and may even backfire. Nevertheless, Loor and his colleagues are determined to push on, promising a radical fight against pirate sites and services.

“The fight against piracy by the authorities against those who distribute or buy illegal content is going to be radical. Step by step we are going to go against all these Magis TV and other IPTV or signals that provide our content illegally,” Loor said earlier this month.

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

Being able to receive and impart knowledge and ideas with other people is one of the most important things any human will ever do.

The information shared or received won’t always be accurate, even if we believe it is. It might not be accurate even if it appears in several widely read online newspapers. All anyone really expects is a tiny effort to ensure that they aren’t being fed fabricated nonsense made up on the spot.

Apparently, even that’s too much to ask; illegal streaming detector cars , really?

Something Something PIRACY SHIELD WARNING

The image below shows how Google responds to a search for a very specific term. The search term ‘piracy shield’ relates to an anti-piracy system that enjoyed its full launch in Italy on February 2, 2024. We’ve written about Piracy Shield and the legislation supporting it on dozens of occasions, including numerous times in the last few weeks.

Of the available ‘Top Stories’ space, we get a quarter while the remaining 75% is allocated to three extremely popular, UK-focused publications, all of which expend considerable resources on SEO and here, tell exactly the same ‘story’.

While TorrentFreak’s regular readers will already know what Piracy Shield is , who built it and why , exactly how it functions from a technical perspective, and all of its ‘secret’ targets thus far , it’s likely that readers of the publications above were less aware of it.

After reading the articles, not much would’ve improved.

Stand By Brits, This Will End Illegal Streaming, FOREVER

The Piracy Shield system was donated by Italian football league Serie A to Italian telecoms regulator, AGCOM. The technical section of an Italian law firm worked on development, the system was accredited for use in Italy under Italian law, and is currently hard at work trying to block access to Italian content, in Italy.

That obviously leads seamlessly and not at all unnaturally to headlines like these.

Given these end-of-days headlines, some may have been comforted that the doom portrayed at the start of the articles had completely disappeared by the end.

From “the crackdown may stop games being streamed illegally for good” at the start, to variations on “there are no plans for a similar procedure to be adopted in the UK” at the end. That’s either the most miraculous recovery seen recently, or the textbook definition of clickbait.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t matter, because it’s still not entirely true. Or indeed true at all.

Anyone Remember The Premier League?

The Piracy Shield system in Italy exists in the main to block pirate sports streams, delivered by premium IPTV piracy platforms or those accessed via web-based streaming portals. To ensure the legality of blocking under Italian law, so-called ‘precautionary measures’ with the ability to adapt to changing circumstances, i.e evasive action by pirates, are issued against pirate sites.

If these ‘dynamic injunctions’ and a Piracy Shield-type system turned up in the UK tomorrow, the scenarios outlined in the articles above definitely would not happen, and for very good reason.

Always Credit The Source

Dynamic injunctions for tackling live sports piracy were actually pioneered and developed in the UK, by none other than the Premier League.

In fact, in Football Association Premier League Ltd v British Telecommunications Plc & Ors. (2017/2018) , the High Court of England and Wales issued the first ever dynamic injunctions for tackling live sports in favor of the Premier League. Since then, such injunctions have been in constant force at ISPs around the country, season in, season out, controlled and executed by the by Premier League’s own system.

That’s six/seven years of experience for the Premier League. Piracy Shield launched four weeks ago.

Think of it like the scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail where King Arthur tries to use the Holy Grail as leverage over the master of a French castle, but is informed that the master probably won’t be interested since “he’s already got one.”

Or just make something up.

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

In a little over a week’s time, Italy’s Piracy Shield system will have been fully operational for two whole months.

Claims that IPTV piracy would be eliminated almost overnight helped to convince lawmakers that without Piracy Shield and the legislation that underpins it, Italian football could die.

In reality, the system was never capable of eliminating piracy and football in Italy was never on life support; the big question now is whether it’s performing close to predictions, or even having any effect at all.

Two Months of Dynamic Blocking

During a hearing Wednesday to review Piracy Shield’s performance after almost eight weeks in the trenches, AGCOM President Giacomo Lasorella provided data to show participation in the Piracy Shield platform, specifically the number of entities that filed applications and received accreditation.

Lasorella revealed that 314 requests have been received to date, including five relating to the main users of the platform; broadcasters DAZN, Sky (Comcast) and RTI (Mediaset Group), Serie A, and Serie B. The remaining 309 applications were received from the ISPs required by law to implement blocking instructions issued by Piracy Shield.

In its first full month of operations, the platform handled blocking instructions related to 11 precautionary measures, all of them issued to protect live sports: football from Serie A and Serie B, UEFA Champions League, UEFA Europa League, and UEFA Europa Conference League, plus Formula 1, MotoGP, Eurocup Basketball, ATP and WTA tennis.

“In total from February 2 to March 3, 3,127 fully qualified domain names and 2,176 IP addresses were blocked,” Lasorella said, noting that figures are available to show IPs blocked each day.

“Obviously these blocks mainly appear when there are sporting events; they are definitely encouraging results which we say testify to the incisiveness of AGCOM’s action.”

The Measure of Success

Whether the nature of AGCOM’s reporting will change as blocking matures is unknown, but in common with other countries, success in Italy is expressed through the use of blocking data; essentially the number of IP addresses and domains blocked. That’s not entirely unexpected but as a measure of success, it’s almost completely meaningless.

The true measure of success isn’t the number of IP addresses blocked or domains rendered inaccessible, but the rate at which new customers sign up and/or remain loyal to legal broadcasting services.

The broadcasters, DAZN and Sky, for example, will already have the data for February, most likely accurate to a single subscriber. Without sight of that all-important data, AGCOM could block the entire internet and those figures would still mean nothing. The unlikely prospect of actually blocking the entire internet took a step closer in February, however.

AGCOM Addresses Over-Blocking Allegations

Following a blunder mid-February that saw an IP address belonging to Zenlayer CDN blocked in error , someone with accreditation to input IP addresses on behalf of rightsholders added one belonging to Cloudflare, with predictably disastrous results .

Those who expected an explanation or perhaps an apology, received something else entirely. During a TV appearance helpfully facilitated by TG24, a channel operated by key Piracy Shield user Sky, AGCOM’s commissioner stated categorically that there had been no blunders. Reports published by journalists at Wired and DDaY were described as “absolutely false” and the whole debacle found itself dismissed as “fake news”.

During the hearing Wednesday, AGCOM’s president conceded that there had indeed been some “critical operational issues” and even went on to explain what had happened.

“The problems we encountered essentially concern the need to discriminate the legal contents from the illicit ones that exist on the same platform. That is, there are platforms where there are legitimate sites and illicit sites together, and the law prescribes that the sites must be uniquely dedicated to, let’s say, the illicit contents.”

Pirates Using Devious Methods? Impossible, surely

The issue of shared IP addresses and the likelihood of overblocking was repeatedly raised by tech experts in the run-up to the new legislation being passed last year. Assurances that blocking ‘dual use’ IP addresses would be explicitly forbidden in the text, which would be strictly adhered to, eventually led to a prediction that was only 50% accurate.

According to Lasorella, however, this is a trap being laid by pirates.

“Subjects addicted to piracy are increasingly using so-called Content Delivery Networks, CDNs. Content Delivery Networks by their nature may not be uniquely intended for activities therefore licit and illicit appear together,” Lasorella said.

“On the same IP address used for the violation of copyright can exist a perhaps fictitious domain that spreads legitimate content and this evidently prevents this address from being obscured.”

Or in Cloudflare’s case last month, evidently not.

Lasorella confirmed that one of the accredited reporters uploaded a ticket to the Piracy Shield platform which contained a Cloudflare IP address. Since legitimate and illegitimate sites shared the same IP, all found themselves blocked. AGCOM’s president said everything was sorted out “in a couple of hours” but from online reports, a minimum of four hours seems closer to events on the ground.

Potential Showdown With Cloudflare, Google

While describing events of that Saturday a few weeks ago, Lasorella mentioned that a Cloudflare IP address had been blocked and then took the opportunity to state that Cloudflare is “always more involved in these proceedings” due to its provision of DNS and VPN services “that actually facilitate online copyright violations.”

Google also received a mention; the company seems prepared to work with AGCOM to deindex pirate sites that appear in reports uploaded to Piracy Shield, but at the moment has not “considered being accredited” to the platform.

“Google has confirmed its intention not to intervene on its DNS through a local block,” Lasorella said.

It’s a little early to predict how this situation will play out but after blocking Cloudflare last month, following repeated warnings, even from Cloudflare itself , AGCOM has a side order of “we told you so” to contend with. That’s in advance of a starter being prepared right now.

In an email sent out to all customers affected by the erroneous blocking last month, Cloudflare is now encouraging users to file an official complaint with AGCOM. The stated aim is to “expand government awareness” of the collateral damage caused by IP blocking in the hope that will prevent overblocking in the future.

AGCOM already seems fully aware of the risks but, as a completely impartial regulator, must also weigh the interests of football against the interests of everyone else. Its response to these letters may prove informative.

Blocking of [website redacted] via the Piracy Shield Platform

On Saturday, February 24, 2024, a Cloudflare IP address was blocked in Italy through the Italian government’s Piracy Shield system. As a result of this action, Internet users in Italy were unable to access tens of thousands of websites. Although the block was removed within hours because of the number of innocent sites affected, we have identified your website as one that appears to have been temporarily blocked.

The Italian Media Regulator (Autorità per le Garanzie nelle Comunicazioni, AGCOM) provides interested parties, including the managers of websites and pages, the right to lodge a complaint about blocks implemented through the Piracy Shield Program. Cloudflare believes it is important to document the collateral damage caused by IP blocking in order to expand government awareness of the risks of the practice and hopefully prevent future overblocking. If you would like to submit a complaint, you can submit your own complaint to tavoloantipirateria@agcom.it and agcom@cert.agcom.it, as laid out on the AGCOM website.

To assist you, we have prepared the below template email, in both English and Italian, that may be used to submit your complaint to AGCOM:

Template email to AGCOM:

Re: Blocking of [website] via the Piracy Shield platform

We write to file a complaint regarding the blocking action ordered by the Autorità per le Garanzie nelle Comunicazioni (AGCOM) of IP address 188.114.97.7 on Saturday, February 24, which rendered our website [redacted] inaccessible to Internet users in Italy. While we understand that the blocking order under AGCOM’s Piracy Shield was intended to prevent copyright infringement, our website does not infringe copyright and has never been accused of copyright infringement.

We formally complain about this action and request that AGCOM take immediate steps to prevent any future blocking of our website and other innocent websites.

Re: Provvedimenti di blocco Piracy Shield / blocco del sito [website redacted]

Scriviamo per presentare un reclamo in merito al blocco ordinato dall’Autorità per le Garanzie nelle Comunicazioni, sabato 24 febbraio 2024, dell’indirizzo IP 188.114.97.7 24, che ha reso il nostro sito web [redacted] inaccessibile agli utenti Internet in Italia. Pur comprendendo che l’ordine di blocco previsto da “Piracy Shield” di AGCOM era finalizzato a prevenire la violazione del diritto d’autore, segnaliamo che il nostro sito web non viola il diritto d’autore e non è mai stato accusato di simili illeciti.

Ci doliamo formalmente di questa iniziativa e chiediamo che AGCOM voglia prendere provvedimenti immediati per prevenire qualsiasi futuro blocco del nostro sito e di altri siti web conformi alla legge.

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

Most anti-piracy tools and mechanisms, whether dedicated online platforms or legislation crafted to achieve a particular goal, have issues that affect their performance.

No matter how tough, legislation could be of date when finally implemented, or reveal itself to be unwieldy in practice, too costly, or simply ineffective. Technical solutions may face compliance and regulatory issues, while pirate adversaries remain light on their feet by ignoring them all.

One key to success for rightsholders is to exploit pirates where they’re most vulnerable, i.e anywhere where they’re reliant on services operated by businesses that already comply with the law and are more likely to take action.

The European Commission’s Recommendation (Toolbox) published on Tuesday, focuses on just that by providing guidance on enforcement, suggesting priority actions, and encouraging use of existing anti-counterfeit/anti-piracy tools.

Cooperation, Coordination and Information Sharing

The Commission says a key aim of the Toolbox is to promote and facilitate effective cooperation between rightsholders, providers of intermediary services, and competent authorities, by promoting good practice and use of appropriate tools and new technologies.

The headline focus is anti-counterfeiting but within the text the EC notes that “most guiding principles, good practices and tools” developed under the recommendation can also be relevant when tackling pirated content online. In particular, voluntary actions taken by online intermediaries, “enhanced cooperation among competent national authorities,” and the sharing of information and data.

Cooperation and increased information sharing are essential and should be further promoted, at all levels, in accordance with Union law, the protection of personal data and the freedom to conduct business under Article 16 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (‘ the Charter ’). Good practices should be identified, and recommended to all actors, including e-commerce marketplaces, transport and logistic service providers, payment services providers, social media providers, providers of domain name services, etc. Secondly, further cooperation and information sharing should be encouraged. This relates to all competent authorities, including market surveillance authorities that currently may not have competences for IP-infringing activities, and promoting further the use of dedicated tools such as the IP Enforcement Portal (‘IPEP’)…

Payment Services, Social Media Platforms

The EC highlights payment services as an area where more can be done. On one hand, these companies are central to rightsholders’ activities. On the other, they can also be used to support IP-infringing activities. The EC says that to prevent misuse of their services for IP-infringing activities, payment services should be encouraged to implement the following good practices:

(a) to clearly state in their terms and conditions, as a ground for suspension or termination of their contract with sellers, any finding, including by the competent authority, of the use of their payment services for IP-infringing activities;
(b) to set up notification mechanisms allowing rightsholders using their payment services to notify any IP-infringing activity;
(c) where technically and economically feasible, to have an information system in place to enable the identification of operators engaging in IP-infringing activities, across different payment services, when one payment service provider has terminated its services with such operators on the grounds of IP-infringing activities;
(d) to exchange information with other payment service providers on trends regarding IP-infringing activities and to put in place specific measures against repeated misuse of their services, particularly where there has been a finding by a competent authority that their services have been used for IP-infringing activities.

Social media providers should similarly prevent misuse of their services, including by having systems in place to identify and take action against those misusing their services for IP-infringing activities.

Domain Name Registries/Registrars

The Commission’s Recommendation naturally assumes that where the law compels intermediaries or service providers to take action, that should be the standard minimum response. However, when entities are asked to go above and beyond, which appears to underpin almost every proposal in the Toolbox, service providers find themselves “encouraged to implement” various measures.

In respect of domain names, Directive (EU) 2022/2555 obliges “TLD name registries and entities providing domain name registration services” to “collect and guarantee the integrity and availability of domain name registration data.” EU Member States should further require these entities to “respond without undue delay” to requests for the disclosure of registration data following requests from “legitimate access seekers.”

Legitimate access seekers include those considered competent under EU or national law for the prevention, investigation, detection, or prosecution of criminal offenses. However, the definition can also encompass anyone with a legitimate reason to access the information, which includes rightsholders and their agents.

When access to domain name registration data that is personal data is sought, TLD-name registries and entities providing domain name registration services established in the EU and/or offering services in the EU are encouraged to recognize as legitimate access seekers any natural or legal persons who make a request for a right to information pursuant to Directive 2004/48/EC .

Member States are further encouraged to share intelligence and data on emerging piracy trends, including lists of websites that have been held by competent authorities to have carried out IP-infringing activities, the tactics and behaviors of alleged infringers, and to explore news ways to share information on those who “repeatedly engage in IP-infringing activities.”

Dynamic Injunctions, Unmasking Petty Infringers

Several EU Member States already have mechanisms in place that allow rightsholders to obtain injunctions against infringers and intermediaries, but the Commission would like to see more.

Specifically, Member States are encouraged to provide for the possibility of dynamic injunctions that can be applied to IP-infringing activities that are similar to those already identified, but are yet to be identified, such as the use of mirror sites.

The Commission also encourages Member States to ensure that petty infringers can’t escape simply because their activities are not commercial in scale or even commercial at all.

“Member States are encouraged to provide for the possibility for the competent judicial authorities to order disclosure of the relevant information to effectively fight IP infringements which are not on a commercial scale, in response to a justified and proportionate request of the claimant in proceedings,” the Commission writes.

“For these purposes, the relevant information could consist of the same information which may be requested in accordance with Article 8(2) of Directive 2004/48/EC , including the email address, telephone number and IP addresses relating to alleged infringers or participants to alleged infringing activities.”

The European Commission’s Recommendation (Toolbox) can be found here (pdf)

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