Last month, the RIAA pulled the popular open source tool youtube-mp3 from GitHub.

The music group sent a takedown notice arguing that the software violated section 1201 of the DMCA, which prevents people from bypassing technical protection measures.

This enforcement action wasn’t well-received by the developer community . This included GitHub CEO Nat Friedman, who was ‘annoyed’ and personally offered his help to get the repository reinstated. This wasn’t a false promise, as youtube-dl returned today.

GitHub Reinstates Youtube-dl

“We are taking a stand for developers and have reinstated the youtube-dl repo. Section 1201 of the DMCA is broken and needs to be fixed. Developers should have the freedom to tinker. That’s how you get great tools like youtube-dl,” Friedman says .

GitHub has reinstated the repository after some changes were made. These changes include referrals to copyrighted music, which RIAA pointed out in its claim. However, the software still allows people to download files, including music tracks, from YouTube.

After a careful look at the “circumvention” allegations, GitHub now concludes that they are not valid. The company explains that it “received additional information” that allowed it “to reverse” the takedown.

No DMCA Anti-Circumvention Violations

“[O]ur reinstatement, based on new information that showed the project was not circumventing a technical protection measure (TPM), was inline with our values of putting developers first,” GitHub notes.

This new information comes from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), which responded to the RIAA’s takedown request on behalf of the youtube-dl developers. The EFF’s letter explains in detail how the software works and stresses that there is no advanced decryption involved, as we highlighted earlier .

“Youtube-dl stands in place of a Web browser and performs a similar function with respect to user-uploaded videos. Importantly, youtube-dl does not decrypt video streams that are encrypted with commercial DRM technologies, such as Widevine, that are used by subscription video sites, such as Netflix,” the letter reads.

The letter helped to convince GitHub that it wrongly granted the takedown request. And since other copyright issues pointed out by the RIAA were addressed as well, the company decided to reinstate the repository.

Developers First

In addition, the revolt from the developer community was a clear reminder that developers should come first. As such, GitHub also announced that it will overhaul the way it handles DMCA section 1201 claims. One key change is that content won’t always be removed right away.

This change doesn’t apply to regular DMCA takedown notices but to ‘circumvention’ claims specifically. From now on, these will all be manually reviewed and scrutinized by experts.

“When we see it is possible to modify a project to remove allegedly infringing content, we give the owners a chance to fix problems before we take content down. If not, they can always respond to the notification disabling the repository and offer to make changes, or file a counter notice,” GitHub explains.

$1M in Defense Fund

The developer platform will aid developers financially as well. The company announced that it will put $1 million into a defense fund to help open source developers on GitHub protect themselves from overbroad or unwarranted DMCA Section 1201 takedown requests.

In addition, it will also get more involved in the political side of things. Every three years the US Copyright Office reviews its DMCA anti-circumvention exceptions and GitHub will have its voice heard there as well.

“We are also advocating specifically on the anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA to promote developers’ freedom to build socially beneficial tools like youtube-dl,” the company notes.

All in all, it’s safe to say that the RIAA’s takedown attempt has completely backfired. We previously reached out to the music group for comment on related youtube-dl issues, but this request remains unanswered.

The RIAA continues to issue similar DMCA circumvention requests to other companies, including Google. These argue that YouTube rippers violate the DMCA as they bypass YouTube’s “rolling cipher.” At GitHub, those won’t work anymore.

Youtube-dl Devs Are Happy

Sergey, one of the youtube-dl developers, tells us that he is happy with all the support they have received from the EFF, GitHub, as well as the public at large.

“EFF’s help was invaluable. We’d like to thank EFF and Mitch Stoltz personally for their incredible support and dedication. We’d also like to thank GitHub for standing up for youtube-dl and taking potential legal risks by allowing youtube-dl to keep the rolling cipher code,” he says.

“We’re also grateful to all the tremendous amount of support and offers received lately (we physically were not able to respond to everyone) and all youtube-dl users,” Sergey adds.

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

Every year the MPA and RIAA respond to a request from the Office of the US Trade Representative to submit their recommendations for the annual “notorious markets” list.

In many cases, the industry groups choose to nominate the world’s most popular pirate sites and services for a mention, including but not limited to The Pirate Bay, YTS, RarBG, 1337x, and Popcorn Time, for example.

More recently, however, the MPA and RIAA have begun mentioning ancillary companies that in their judgment are not necessarily pirate services in themselves but due to their provision of systems and infrastructure, are in a position to act affirmatively to reduce the effectiveness of pirate sites.

As reported this week, the MPA and RIAA has now chosen to nominate domain name companies and services including the Njalla privacy service associated with Pirate Bay co-founder Peter Sunde and the Tonic domain registry that is often favored by pirate services.

Pressure Has Been Building on Tonic Domain Registry

In September, the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE), the global anti-piracy coalition made up of the major Hollywood studios, Netflix, Amazon, and dozens of other companies, obtained a DMCA subpoena compelling Tonic to hand over information held on major pirate sites including The Pirate Bay, YTS, 1337x, EZTV, Seasonvar, Tamilrockers, Lordfilms, and many others.

A month later, ACE was back in court again, this time obtaining a DMCA subpoena requiring Tonic to hand over information held on massive Germany-focused streaming site S.to.

The dust had barely settled when ACE returned to court once again, obtaining another subpoena forcing Tonic to give up the identities of the people behind torrent giant 1337x.to (again), streaming site BS.to, Kimcartoon.to, Vumoo.to, Ololo.to, Seriesflix.to, Kinox.to, Movie4k.to plus many more.

Back Once Again With Yet Another Demand For Information

It’s unclear exactly how many pirate sites utilize .to domains for their operations but ACE clearly sees the registry’s involvement as part of their infrastructure as a problem when it comes to its enforcement actions. As a result, a DMCA subpoena ACE obtained in recent days from a California court lists two dozen problematic platforms for which it seeks additional information.

The majority of the domains are focused on streaming movies and TV shows, with sites including Lordfilm, Ymovies, Pelis24, Series24, HDGo, HDSS, Flixtor, Soap2Day and Solarmovie all getting a prominent mention.

Also present in the demand for information is a selection of popular torrent indexes such as TorrentGalaxy, Monova, and Glodls. These make an appearance alongside sites operating in different niches such as popular Germany-focused piracy forum Boerse and proxy-centric platform Unblocked. DDL-Warez is also featured in the subpoena but at the time of writing appears to be down.

Sites Infringe Copyrights in Popular Movies and TV Shows

Along with each site is a claim that they infringed rights in a specific movie or TV show. These include the movies Frozen II, Dolittle, Wonder Woman, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Beautiful Boy, Bird Box, Triple Frontier, and Scoob! In the cases of Series 24 and Flixtor, both stand accused of illegally offering the first episode in the TV series Watchmen.

The application was filed by Jan van Voorn, Executive Vice President and Chief of Global Content Protection for the Motion Picture Association.

“The ACE Members (via the Motion Picture Association, Inc.) are requesting issuance of the attached proposed subpoena that would order Tonic Domains Corporation to disclose the identities, including names, physical addresses, IP addresses, telephone numbers, e-mail addresses, payment information, account updates and account histories of the users operating the websites [listed below],” it reads.

A letter to Tonic Domains attached to the subpoena repeats a similar message.

At the same time, ACE also obtained a second DMCA subpoena claiming that the linking site Huho.to infringed its members’ copyrights in the movies Beauty and the Beast and It Chapter Two. The claim is that Huhu.to connects users of the popular ‘ Watched ‘ mobile application to cyberlockers containing infringing content so, as a result, its operator’s details should be handed over.

The anti-piracy coalition lists a number of sites where the movies were hosted including Clipboard.cc, GoUnlimited.to, Mixdrop.to, Upstream.to, Vivo.sx, Vidlox.me, and Clipwatching.com, but these sites don’t appear to be direct targets in the subpoena.

Documents supporting the DMCA subpoenas can be found here 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 (pdf)

List of Domains and Main Use (Both Subpoenas)

lordfilm.to – streaming
ddl-warez.to – down
boerse.to – piracy forum
pepecine.to – streaming
ymovies.to – streaming
pelis24.to – streaming
kinoz.to – streaming (kinox.to alternate)
monova.to – torrents
unblocked.to – proxy site
glodls.to – torrents
byte.to – DDL/streaming
enstream.to – streaming
series24.to – streaming
hdgo.to – streaming
ilgeniodellostreaming.to – streaming
movie-blog.to – DDL index
torrentgalaxy.to – torrents
goojara.to – streaming
supernova.to – streaming
levidia.to – streaming
flixtor.to – streaming
hdss.to – streaming
solarmovie.to – streaming
soap2day.to – streaming
huhu.to (subpoena 2)

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

With more ways to stream online video than ever before, protecting video continues to be a key issue for copyright holders.

This is often achieved through Digital Rights Management, which is often referred to by the initials DRM. In a nutshell, DRM is an anti-piracy tool that dictates when and where digital content can be accessed.

Google is an important player in this area. The company owns the Widevine DRM technology which is used by many of the largest streaming services including Amazon, Netflix and Disney+. As such, keeping it secure is vital.

Widevine DRM

Widevine DRM comes in different levels. The L1 variant is the most secure, followed by L2 and L3. While the latter still protects content from being easily downloaded, it’s certainly not impossible to bypass, as pirates have repeatedly shown.

Despite its vulnerabilities, Google doesn’t want to make it too easy for the public at large. This became apparent a few hours ago when the company asked the developer platform GitHub to remove dozens of “Widevine L3 Decryptor” repositories.

The code, originally published by security researcher Tomer Hadad, is a proof-of-concept code Chrome extension that shows how easy it is to bypass the low-security DRM. Google was aware of this vulnerability and previously informed Krebs Security that it would address the issue.

Google Targets Widevine L3 Decryptor Code

One option would be to patch the security flaw but, for now, Google appears to be focusing on the takedown route. In a DMCA notice sent to GitHub, the company requests the immediate takedown of dozens of “Widevine L3 Decryptor” copies.

“The following git repository [sic] contain circumvention technology that enables users to illegally access video and audio works protected by copyright,” Google writes .

“This Chrome extension demonstrates how it’s possible to bypass Widevine DRM by hijacking calls to the browser’s Encrypted Media Extensions (EME) and decrypting all Widevine content keys transferred – effectively turning it into a clearkey DRM,” Google adds.

Google sees the code, which was explicitly published for educational purposes only, as a circumvention tool. As such, it allegedly violates section 1201 of the DMCA, an allegation that was also made against the youtube-dl code last month.

The takedown notice includes a long list of repositories that were all made unavailable by GitHub. This doesn’t cover the original code from Tomer Hadad, who already removed his version in late October, citing “ legal reasons .”

Google views this vulnerability as a serious matter and the company says that it has also filed a Sensitive Data takedown request to prevent the Widevine’s ‘secret’ private key from being publicly shared.

Sensitive Data Request

“In addition to this request, we have filed a separate Sensitive Data takedown request of this file: /widevine-l3-decryptor as it contains the secret Widevine RSA private key, which was extracted from the Widevine CDM and can be used in other circumvention technologies.”

That last mention is interesting as private keys, which are simply a string of characters, are not seen as copyrighted or private content by everyone.

“If you distribute your key with the software, then whatever form it is in, I would not consider it “private” at all,” a commenter on Hacker News points out.

Googling the AACS Key

This ‘key controversy’ is reminiscent of an issue that was widely debated thirteen years ago. At the time, a hacker leaked the AACS cryptographic key “09 F9” online which prompted the MPAA and AACS LA to issue DMCA takedown requests to sites where it surfaced.

This escalated into a censorship debate when sites started removing articles that referenced the leak, triggering a massive backlash.

At the time, the controversial AACS key was still readily available through Google’s search engine. In that regard very little has changed. Despite Google’s sensitive data takedown request, the Widevine RSA key is easy to find through its own search engine.

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

The music industry has increased its enforcement actions against stream-ripping tools and services in recent years.

The RIAA and other music groups have filed lawsuits, sent cease and desist orders, and issued numerous DMCA takedown notices.

RIAA Takes Down Youtube-DL

Until recently these efforts were hardly noticed by the public at large but late last week something changed. When the RIAA targeted the very popular open-source tool YouTube-DL, many people responded in anger.

Last Friday the RIAA asked the developer platform GitHub to remove the YouTube-DL code and various forks because it allegedly violates the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provisions.

By enabling the public to download content from YouTube, the tool allegedly bypasses YouTube ‘rolling cipher’ protection. Not just that, the code also included links to copyrighted works to illustrate its use.

Cease and Desist Notices

Following our initial coverage, we learned that the pressure against YouTube-DL had already started weeks earlier in Germany. Law firm Rasch, which works with several major music industry players, sent out cease and desist orders in the hope of taking YouTube-DL offline.

Hosting service Uberspace was one of the recipients. The company hosts the official YouTube-DL site and still does so today. Instead of taking the website down, Uberspace replied to the notice through its own lawyer, who said that the hosting company hasn’t don’t anything wrong.

When the cease and desist notice was filed, yt-dl.org wasn’t even hosting the tool, as all download links pointed to GitHub, the company informs us.

“The software itself wasn’t hosted on our systems anyway so, to be honest, I felt it to be quite ridiculous to involve us in this issue anyway – a lawyer specializing in IT laws should know better,” Jonas from Uberspace says.

Former Maintainer Tageted as Well

The host wasn’t the only entity to be targeted. The German law firm also sent a cease and desist notice to developer Philipp Hagemeister who previously maintained the YouTube-DL repository. He also denies the accusations.

“They did not understand that I was no longer a maintainer, basically alleged that youtube-dl was an illegal enterprise rather than a legit open-source project, and misunderstood a bunch of other technical stuff,” Hagemeister tells TorrentFreak.

Both Uberspace and Hagemeister don’t want to go into too much detail as this is a pending legal issue. However, both defend their actions in relation to YouTube-DL. And they’re not the only ones who were ticked off by the enforcement actions, as we learned this weekend.

Takedown Backfires as Copies are Everywhere

Soon after the RIAA notice took YouTube-DL offline many developers spoke out in protest. They believe that the music industry group went too far and started to republish copies of the code everywhere.

Over the past several days, we have seen hundreds of new forks and copies appear online. These were also posted to GitHub , where YouTube-DL forks remain easy to find and continue to be uploaded.

The code was also posted in some places one wouldn’t expect. For example, there’s still a copy in GitHub’s DMCA notice repository, which some people find quite amusing. And the list of pull requests can be quite entertaining in themselves.

One of the most creative responses we’ve seen was posted to Twitter by @GalacticFurball who encoded YouTube-DL into images that can be easily shared, encouraging others to share these as well.

“I would also suggest that you save and repost the images, as one single source kind of defeats the point. Maybe start a hashtag trend or something. Make songs, and poetry. Get that data out there.”

This triggered even more creativity, with people finding alternative means to share the code online, all to counter the RIAA’s takedown request.

GitHub’s CEO Offers to Help YouTube-DL

Meanwhile, GitHub’s CEO Nat Friedman wasn’t sitting still either. While the Microsoft-owned developer platform had to respond to the takedown notice, Friedman himself actively reached out to YouTube-DL’s developers to help them get their project reinstated.

The CEO joined YouTube-DL’s IRC channel hoping to connect with the owner of the repository so he can help to get it unsuspended.

“GitHub exists to help developers. We never want to interfere with their work. We want to help the youtube-dl maintainers defeat the DMCA claim so that we can restore the repo,” Friedman told TorrentFreak, explaining his actions.

It’s clear that GitHub exists to help developers. That said, for the company’s CEO to jump in and personally help someone to respond to a DMCA claim, is quite unprecedented. As it turns out, the RIAA’s notice ticked off Friedman as well.

“This one annoyed me,” Friedman says.

“Perhaps because of the importance of tools like youtube-dl for archivists, and our related archive program and funding of the Internet Archive: We are thinking about how GitHub can proactively help developers in more DMCA cases going forward, and take a more active role in reforming/repealing 1201.”

GitHub’s CEO suggested that YouTube-DL won’t be reinstated in its original form. But, the software may be able to return without the rolling cipher circumvention code and the examples of how to download copyrighted material.

RIAA Efforts Backfire

By now it is clear that the RIAA’s takedown notice backfired badly. With the ‘Streisand Effect’ in full swing, there are now probably more copies of YouTube-DL online than there ever were.

However, there is more. Reading between the lines Friedman suggests that the current DMCA rules may be too strong in some cases. For example, tools like YouTube-DL have non-infringing uses, and there can be upsides to circumventing copy protections as well. To archive content, for example.

This issue may eventually become a policy question. Every four years the US Copyright Office grants new exemptions to the DMCA section 1201 anti-circumvention rules, and it wouldn’t surprise if these tools are put on the agenda in the future.

Instead of simply taking down YouTube-DL, the RIAA may have actually poked the bear and increased support for such tools. Not only from developers at home, but also from big players such as GitHub. Putting that cat back in the bag is not going to be easy.

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

Enlarge (credit: YouTube / Getty / Aurich Lawson )

A popular tool used for archiving YouTube videos, YouTube-dl, is gone from GitHub after the Recording Industry Association of America filed a claim arguing that the code is inherently illegal under copyright law.

GitHub, which is owned by Microsoft, removed 18 projects on Friday that previously hosted versions of YouTube-dl, a Python library that allows for the downloading of YouTube video and audio files. Those repositories now display a message reading, "This repository is currently disabled due to a DMCA takedown notice. We have disabled public access to the repository."

Although the notice is framed as a DMCA issue, the takedown notice from the RIAA, dated Friday, does not make claim that YouTube-dl is an act of copyright infringement. Instead, it alleges that the code itself is a violation of a different section of Us copyright law (as well as German copyright law), because the "clear purpose of this source code is to... circumvent the technological protection measures used by authorized streaming services such as YouTube, and [to] reproduce and distribute music videos and sound recordings owned by our member companies without authorization for such use."

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With a video game history dating back decades, Nintendo is perhaps the most well-known brand in the market.

Nintendo’s characters including Mario and Zelda are much loved but despite the availability of many official titles, some fans feel that some deserve an update or have some gaps filled in their gaming universes.

One of these fans is modder Kaze Emanuar who, over the past several years and in conjunction with his team, has released a steady flow of unofficial Nintendo-based gaming titles, much to the delight of fans.

The Missing Link

During the summer, Emanuar and partners released The Missing Link, a fan-made title that utilized the engine from the now 20-year-old game The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, the first Zelda game with 3D graphics. The purpose of The Missing Link was to bridge the gap between the critically-acclaimed 1998 title and the 2000 release of Majora’s Mask.

To play The Missing Link, players need a copy of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time in .n64, .z64 or .wad format (compatible with N64 and Wii) and the assistance of a trio of patches, after which the new game can be enjoyed utilizing the assets from the donor game.

The title was well-received by the gaming press but given its nature and the increasingly litigious stance of Nintendo, it was only a question of when the gaming giant would send in its legal team to deal with the rogue code, not if.

The Missing Link Has Gone Missing

Since its inception, The Missing Link has been hosted on Github Pages but following a new complaint from a Nintendo of America-appointed attorney, it has now been resigned to history.

“The copyrighted works are the video games in Nintendo’s The Legend of Zelda video game franchise, including without limitation the audio-visual works, story lines, characters, and imagery in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (U.S. Copyright Reg. No. PA0000901848), The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask (U.S. Copyright Reg. No. PA0001940271), and others,” the complaint filed with the Microsoft-owned platform reads.

“Nintendo has reviewed the reported material and does not believe it qualifies as a fair use of Nintendo’s copyright-protected work.”

The complaint goes on to demand the removal of the website at https://tml.z64.me/ and any related repositories, stating that the URL in question contains “an unauthorized derivative work” of Nintendo’s The Legend of Zelda video game franchise “in violation of Nintendo’s exclusive rights.”

Gone But Not Forgotten

While Github responded to the complaint as expected by taking the project down, an archive copy still exists, as does the ROM patcher tool required to transform backup copies of Ocarina of Time into The Missing Link.

And, of course, the necessary .n64, .z64 or .wad files continue to be available from a number of ROM sites and archives (despite Nintendo doing whatever it can to close several down ), meaning that The Missing Link will live on, if only underground.

This takedown by Nintendo will not have come as a surprise to Emanuar and his team. Considering the fate of earlier projects such as Super Mario 64 Online , Super Mario 64 on the PC and in a browser , a Donkey Kong remake , plus many others, having Nintendo on their tail was almost certainly a calculated occupational hazard.

And, while unpalatable to some, it is ‘only’ a DMCA takedown, not a lawsuit, which would be an entirely different matter for all involved.

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

When Microsoft’s Windows XP launched in 2001, it was somewhat of a revelation.

Built on Windows NT and a clear step up from the consumer variants of Windows that preceded it, the OS reigned for years after being installed on millions of machines.

It’s currently estimated that around 0.8% of Windows PCs are still running Windows XP, despite Microsoft offering zero support for the relatively ancient OS. Nevertheless, there was mild euphoria among coders last month when it was confirmed that the source code for XP, among other things, had been leaked online , presumably to the dismay of Microsoft.

Leaked via 4chan, Distributed via Torrents and MEGA

For the vast majority of interested onlookers, the leak probably meant very little in practical terms. With no support from Microsoft, running Windows XP is already a security gamble, regardless of any additional leaks.

However, when Microsoft confirmed it was actively investigating the leak, some presumed the company would act very quickly to have the code disappeared from the web. Quite when the upload to MEGA was taken down is unclear but it didn’t take long for the file to be removed following a complaint.

Torrents, of course, are much more complicated. While it is possible to have some torrent sites respond to takedown requests, sites such as The Pirate Bay will happily index pretty much anything – including the source code leak.

Predictably, the leaked content is available via the site today and not even the mighty Microsoft can do much about that. However, when checking the hash value in Google search and scouring the DMCA notice archive hosted by Lumen Database, there appears to have been little or even no effort to have links to the source code removed from Google or Twitter.

Granted, most of the sites mentioning the content have taken care not to link directly to the leaked source itself, with many preferring to post unclickable but entirely usable magnet links instead. Nevertheless, just days after the leak was reported, a very public repository of the code appeared much closer to home and nothing was done about that either.

Source Code Published to Microsoft-Owned Github

On September 29, a handful of days after the leak reportedly appeared on 4chan, someone called ‘shaswata56’ thought it would be a good idea to post the source code for Windows XP on Github, for the world to see and download. The interesting thing here is that Github is owned by Microsoft, so the computing giant was effectively hosting its own leak.

Given the presumed sensitive nature of the source code, one might conclude that it would be spotted and deleted quickly. However, despite all the publicity, it took a full 10 days for Microsoft to do anything about it, at which point it had to serve its own company with a DMCA notice requesting that the code be taken down.

Takedown Notice to Github

“I work in Microsoft Security Incident Response. The code in question is from a Windows XP source code leak,” the DMCA notice dated October 8 and filed with Github reads.

“The GitHub content is pulled directly form [sic] a torrent (that was also taken down),” it continues.

The notice originally contained a hash value for the source but that was censored by Github, presumably to stop any additional infringement. However, archive copies of the now-removed repository show that hash value in full, which can be easily converted to a torrent, one that is very much alive and being shared by many people.

Microsoft Not Too Bothered By The Leak?

Clearly, Microsoft’s claim that the torrent was somehow taken down was incorrect but that’s not a huge surprise since once a torrent is being spread, stopping people with access to magnet links or even a hash is incredibly difficult.

That being said, it would’ve been trivial to remove the source from Github on the day it was published. Instead, it took exactly 10 days, a lifetime where leaks are concerned and a little bit embarrassing when it’s your own site doing the distribution.

Quite why a rapid removal wasn’t executed isn’t clear but coupled with what appears to be a lack of enthusiasm to remove links still available via Google, it makes one wonder how concerned Microsoft is about the leak after all.

Or, just possibly, the company realizes just how futile it all is.

The DMCA notice is available here

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

Over the past few years, copyright holders have asked Google to remove billions of links to allegedly pirated content.

At one point, the search engine processed close to three million links per day. A dazzling number to say the least.

In recent years this number has slowly declined. This is in part due to Google’s active policy to make pirate sites less visible in its search results. After years of complaining, these efforts were well received by copyright holders.

Three Million Reported Domains

Despite the slowdown in absolute numbers, Google continues to process plenty of takedown notices. This week, the search engine reached a new milestone. Since it started counting, it has now received takedown notices for three million unique domains.

This ‘achievement’ prompted us to take a close look at what this number is made up of. Where are all these alleged pirate sites coming from? Who are the main offenders, and which domains shouldn’t be in this list?

We start with the most targeted domain name, which is 4shared.com. The file-hosting service was once one of the largest websites on the Internet. While its popularity has diminished in recent years, its track record remains clearly visible in Google’s transparency report .

Since 2011, more than 5,400 copyright holders have flagged 68,348,390 ‘infringing’ 4shared.com links to Google. The vast majority of these, 91 percent, were indeed removed from search results.

This makes 4shared the absolute takedown king. The site is followed at a distance by mp3toys.xyz, rapidgator.net, chomikuj.pl, uploaded.net, which were flagged between 27 million and 52 million times. Those are still ‘respectable’ numbers of course.

0.001% of the Domains Recieve 10% of the Notices

While looking through the list of targeted domains it becomes apparent that it’s top-heavy. The 30 domains that were called out the most have nearly 500 million flagged URLs. This means that 0.001% of all targeted domains received more than 10% of all notices.

At the same time, we can say that the majority of the reported domains are only flagged incidentally. These may be smaller pirate sites or sites exploited by scammers to post incidental spam links. However, it’s also very common for legitimate sites to be targeted, often by mistake.

IMDb and Discogs

Two of the most frequently targeted legitimate sites are IMDb and Discogs. Both sites have an elaborate information database of entertainment content, either video or audio. This appears to be quite confusing to some copyright holders. Over the past years, Google was asked to remove 5,077 IMDB links and 8,198 URLs from Discogs . All of these requests were rightfully denied.

Copyright Holders Target Themselves

Intriguingly, copyright holders have also flagged their own websites as piracy portals. HBO famously sent a takedown notice for HBO.com , which was targeted 28 times in total. Pretty much all major copyright holders have had their sites targeted, including Disney.com, Netflix.com, Warnerbros.com, and many others.

The most bizarre mistakes we’ve seen actually don’t involve a domain but an IP-address. Over the past years, several companies reported 127.0.0.1 , which points to localhost, meaning that the reporter is flagging its own network.

News Publishers

News sites are frequently labeled as copyright infringers as well. We can look up any random news site and there’s a good chance that it’s been reported. This includes the BBC, which was wrongfully flagged by Warner Bros. The BBC, for its part, mistakenly accused TorrentFreak of being a pirate site as well.

These takedowns are relatively rare but, over time, the numbers add up. The Daily Mail, for example, had 1,991 URLs flagged, The New York Times 803 URLs, The Guardian 785 URLs, and CNN had 727 URLs reported as ‘infringing’.

Millions of Mistakes

Government organizations are not immune to takedown requests either. If we zoom in on the US we see that the sites of the FBI , the Justice Department, and the Senate have all been targeted. Even the White House isn’t safe , as it was called out more than a dozen times.

Although many mistakes come from rightsholders, we should mention that the takedown system is regularly abused by imposters as well. These tend to report many URLs from legitimate domains too.

All in all, it is safe to say that, on the surface, the milestone of three million flagged domains only shows part of the picture. On the one hand, it consists of a small group of notorious pirate sites. However, there are many more sites that don’t really deserve to be reported.

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

As one of the leading CDN and DDoS protection services, Cloudflare is used by millions of websites across the globe. This includes many pirate sites.

Copyright holders would ideally like the company to cease its ties with these platforms, but Cloudflare sees things differently. It positions itself as a neutral third-party intermediary that will only take action in response to valid court orders.

Cloudflare DMCA Subpoenas

Thus far, court orders that have required Cloudflare to block or terminate a pirate site have been very limited. More commonly, rightsholders obtain DMCA subpoenas from US courts requiring the CDN provider to hand over information it has on the operators of pirate sites.

During the first half of 2020, Cloudflare received 31 of these requests which targeted 83 accounts. Many of these were adult sites or relatively smaller pirate portals. This month, however, the anti-piracy coalition ACE has upped the ante.

Last week we reported that ACE had obtained a subpoena to go after several pirate streaming sites . This week the crackdown continues, with the anti-piracy coalition requesting Cloudflare to expose information associated with The Pirate Bay and many other high profile sites.

ACE Targets The Pirate Bay and Other Top Pirate Sites

The list of targeted sites ( 46 in total ) includes several of the top torrent sites , including YTS, 1337x, EZTV, LimeTorrents, and Tamilrockers. Other high profile non-English targets such as Cinecalidad, Pelisplus, Gnula, Altadefinizione, and DonTorrent are listed as well.

The subpoena is requested by the MPA’s Jan Van Voorn, who writes on behalf of ACE and its members Amazon, Columbia Pictures, Disney, Netflix, Paramount Pictures, and Universal City Studios. The requested information will help the anti-piracy group to investigate the sites in question.

“The purpose for which this subpoena is sought is to obtain the identities of the individuals assigned to these websites who have exploited ACE Members’ exclusive rights in their copyrighted works without their authorization,” the request reads.

“This information will only be used for the purposes of protecting the rights granted under Title 17, United States Code,” Van Voorn adds.

Cloudflare Will Hand Over Personal Details

At the time of writing the subpoena has yet to be signed off by a court clerk, but that is usually not a problem. ACE will then forward it to Cloudflare which will hand over the requested details , including names, IP-addresses, email addresses, physical addresses, phone numbers, and payment details.

How useful the provided information will be to ACE remains to be seen. Many of the affected pirate sites should be aware of the possibility that their information can be shared, and could have taken precautions.

Why Now?

Aside from the many high profile targets in this legal request, ACE’s sudden attention to Cloudflare DMCA subpoenas is interesting by itself.

In the span of just a few days, ACE has asked the company to identify the operators of more than 80 sites. Many of these sites, including The Pirate Bay, have been Cloudflare customers for years. Why ACE has decided to take action now, as opposed to years ago, is unknown.

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A copy of ACE’s request for a DMCA subpoena, submitted to a California federal court, is available here (pdf) . A full list of all the affected domain names is provided below.

– yts.mx
– pelisplus.me
– 1337x.to F
– seasonvar.ru
– cuevana3.io
– kinogo.by
– thepiratebay.org
– lordfilm.cx
– swatchseries.to
– eztv.io
– 123movies.la
– megadede.com
– sorozatbarat.online
– cinecalidad.is
– limetorrents.info
– cinecalidad.to
– kimcartoon.to F
– tamilrockers.ws
– cima4u.io
– fullhdfilmizlesene.co
– yggtorrent.si
– time2watch.io
– online-filmek.me
– lordfilms-s.pw
– extremedown.video
– streamkiste.tv
– dontorrent.org
– kinozal.tv
– fanserial.net
– 5movies.to
– altadefinizione.group
– cpasmieux.org
– primewire.li
– primewire.ag
– primewire.vc
– series9.to
– europixhd.io
– oxtorrent.pw
– pirateproxy.voto
– rarbgmirror.org
– rlsbb.ru
– gnula.se
– rarbgproxied.org
– seriespapaya.nu
– tirexo.com
– cb01.events
– kinox.to
– filmstoon.pro
– descargasdd.net

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