For broadcasters all over the world, the problem of unlicensed IPTV providers, suppliers, and resellers has only grown during the past few years.

Despite many law enforcement actions, it has remained trivial for consumers to buy subscription packages to access the majority of pay TV channels, PPV events, and VOD content. Last year, however, authorities across Europe took coordinated action to deliver what they hoped would be the most significant blow yet.

Operation Targeting Xtream-Codes

In September 2019, the Guardia di Finanza (GdF), an Italian law enforcement agency under the authority of the Minister of Economy and Finance, revealed that a huge operation was underway to dismantle, among other things, the software service known as Xtream-Codes.

What was unique about this particular action is that Xtream Codes itself wasn’t an IPTV provider. The company behind the software/system offered a comprehensive package that allowed people to manage their own IPTV reselling service and associated customers. It was also registered as a company in Bulgaria and had a local VAT number.

Nevertheless, Italian authorities portrayed Xtream-Codes as a pirate operation, one fully deserving of being shut down to face criminal charges.

For more than a year after the demise of Xtream-Codes, things went almost completely quiet. Until last week, that is, when another massive series of raids were carried out, again at the behest of Italian authorities and again making references to Xtream-Codes.

700 Law Enforcement Officers Shut Down 5,500 IPTV Resources

As previously reported , last week the European Union Agency for Criminal Justice Cooperation (Eurojust), announced that 700 police officers had been deployed in 11 countries, shutting down around 5,500 servers and other resources related to pirate IPTV.

The reports were echoed by Itay’s GdF, which claimed that as part of the operation (codenamed ‘The Perfect Storm’) it had managed to discover the identities of “over 50 million users” of pirate IPTV services.

While neither announcement mentioned Xtream-Codes by name, when the platform was shut down last year the exact same number of users was mentioned as being connected to the IPTV management system, one that the Italian authorities had already labeled a major pirate service.

It now transpires that after more than a year of maintaining their silence, the people behind Xtream-Codes have had enough.

Xtream-Codes Breaks Its Silence

Earlier today, the previously silenced Xtream-Codes (XTC) portal suddenly produced a lengthy statement in Italian. Its purpose, according to its authors, is to dispel false claims made about the company’s operations after the huge events of last week.

“The company had been in the software development business since 2015 and until its closure, operated worldwide. Proof of this is the great success of users who used the XTC platform and to whom our heartfelt thanks go, who have recognized our product as the best performing tool on the market, in the field of IPTV software,” it begins.

“Over the years we have received many recognitions and awards for our work from the entire IT community, not least XTC has been recognized as one of the 1000 fastest-growing companies in Europe.”

Noting that the company passed “the legality test” in the USA, XTC notes that it registered for the NAB Show in Las Vegas, an annual trade show produced by the National Association of Broadcasters. That event did not go ahead as planned in April 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic but XTC says that as a company it faced additional problems of its own.

“First of all, the first key concept must be clarified: XTC IS AGAINST PIRACY,” the team insists.

“The hard work carried out in recent years, however, risks being thwarted by the legal events that have arisen in Italy in which the name of XTC, without any foundation, is compared to a criminal association dedicated to the piracy of copyrighted content.”

Xtream-Codes: We Are Against Piracy

The Xtream-Codes system itself could be put to legal uses just as easily as it could illegal uses, since it’s only the licensing status of the content being delivered that makes any difference to its standing. However, in common with software like uTorrent in the BitTorrent scene, Xtream-Codes was well known in IPTV piracy circles simply because it was used by pirate IPTV providers and by extension, many end-users.

All of that being said, it may surprise those who deployed the software in a commercial sense or utilized it in their homes that XTC now claims that it has been working with law enforcement for some time.

“Over the years, XTC has always collaborated with international judicial authorities in order to stop the phenomenon of piracy, to identify and stop those who illegally used our platform. Those judicial authorities, in their sacrosanct activities to combat crime, have always started from the right assumption, which is also the second key concept of the story: THE XTC PLATFORM IS AN ABSOLUTELY LEGAL SOFTWARE,” the company says.

“For these authorities, there has never been any doubt about the lawfulness of the XTC platform, but they have focused their attention, rightly, on the distorted use that some users have made of it and in such cases, XTC has always shown itself to be collaborative in combatting crime.”

Authorities in Italy Saw Things Rather Differently

Unfortunately for XTC, however, the authorities in Italy reportedly saw things in a different light. According to XTC, there was never any attempt to cooperate with the platform to tackle a reported minority of users who abused its systems.

“[The authorities] have never attempted to interact with XTC to try to intercept the dozen users, among the more than 2500 who counted the platform before closing, who used it illegally. XTC was in fact equated to that ten or so subjects, even placing it at the top of this criminal association,” the company complains.

XTC says that in September 2019 it was shut down and also blocked by all ISPs in Italy, a decision accepted on the basis that the truth would soon come out. However, a year on XTC says it is now suffering due to claims that it has been carrying on its business under alternative branding.

“Today, after about a year, XTC is burdened with further very strict precautionary measures, which cannot be reported here for reasons of confidentiality, since some say we are continuing our business under a different name.

“For this infamous affirmation, devoid of any foundation, once again XTC has had to suffer serious consequences, primarily in terms of reputation, which we have built with so much effort over the years,” the company complains.

Criticism of the Press and Authorities

Given the technical nature of a system like Xtream-Codes and the tendency of the mainstream media to take reports by the authorities at face value, it came as no real surprise when many publications took the information they had been provided last year and extrapolated it.

XTC says it remains very disappointed with much of the reporting, which failed to acknowledge that its systems and software only managed IPTV streams and the company did not provide any content itself. The overall intent of XTC, of course, is something to be determined at trial but in the meantime, the company feels it has been poorly treated.

“IPTV is the future and it is very sad that we have been forced to stop for no good reason. It is as if the Italian authorities are trying to spread the message that IPTV software is illegal. For this reason, we have decided to break the silence and denounce the heavy harassment we are undergoing both as XTC and personally, with the awareness that, after this story, to which we are total strangers, nothing will be the same as before.

“But, as someone said ‘soon the time of honors will be over’ and what is seriously assumed at this stage by the investigating bodies must be proven before the Italian judiciary, in which XTC places its utmost and unconditional trust,” the XTC team adds.

Hoping for an outcome in its favor, the company says it has suffered “incalculable damage” due to the actions against it but is now promising that when the truth does come out, it will be “filing a bill” to recoup its losses.

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

Back in August, members of the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE), an anti-piracy coalition featuring the major Hollywood studios, Netflix, Amazon, and more than two dozen other companies, filed a lawsuit against US company TTKN Enterprises, LLC.

Better known online as IPTV service Crystal Clear Media (CCM), TTKN and owners Todd and Tori Smith of Florida were accused by Disney, Paramount, Amazon, Warner, Universal, Netflix, Columbia and StudioCanal of operating a pirate service providing access to thousands of live and title-curated television channels in breach of their copyrights.

“Blatantly Infringing Service”

Citing blockbusters including Disney’s Frozen II, Warner Bros’ Harry Potter collection, Columbia Picture’s Bad Boys for Life, and Universal’s Mr. Robot, the companies alleged that TTKN/CCM’s operators had gone to great lengths to hide their roles in an operation that had illegally streamed these titles and more to the public. Domains including mediahosting.one, crystalcleariptv.com, ccmedia.one, ccbilling.org, cciptv.us, ccreborn.one, ccultimate.one, superstreamz.com, and webplayer.us, were mentioned as supporting the operation.

Describing CCM as a “blatantly infringing service”, the entertainment companies noted that despite being acutely aware that rival service Vaders had previously come to an untimely end for similar actions at the hands of the same plaintiffs, CCM continued to provide an illegal VOD service to the public. Furthermore, the service also continued to expand its reach via a network of resellers.

“Defendants’ reseller program plays a pivotal role in their infringing enterprise. Defendants’ resellers market and promote CCM as a substitute for authorized and licensed distributors,” the lawsuit claimed.

Alleging willful direct copyright infringement, the plaintiffs demanded the maximum statutory damages of $150,000 per infringed work plus the same amount per work as a result of CCM inducing others by “encouraging, and promoting” the use of CCM for copyright infringement purposes.

Parties Reach Settlement Agreement

While these kinds of cases have the potential to roll on for some time, it transpires the plaintiffs and TTKN/CCM plus named defendants Todd and Tori Smith have agreed to settle their dispute. The agreement was reached on November 2, 2020, and as a result, they are together asking the court to sign off on a judgment in favor of the plaintiffs, awarding a permanent injunction and damages.

In respect of the injunction, the defendants comprehensively agree not to distribute any copyrighted content owned by the plaintiffs or their subsidiaries in any manner, including via streaming. All operations of Crystal Clear Media must be completely shut down within five days of any injunction and its operators are barred from distributing or otherwise releasing any of its source code, domain names, trademarks and other assets.

“Defendants irrevocably and fully waive notice of entry of the Permanent Injunction, and understand and agree that violation of the Permanent Injunction will expose Defendant to all penalties provided by law, including contempt of Court,” it reads.

“Defendants consent to the continuing jurisdiction of the Court for purposes of enforcement of the Permanent Injunction, and irrevocably and fully waive and relinquish any argument that venue or jurisdiction by this Court is improper or inconvenient.”

Proposed Judgment Includes a Massive Damages Award

The original complaint included references to the now-defunct Vaders IPTV service that was also targeted by the same plaintiffs in a largely secret lawsuit in Canada. However, while the Vaders/Vader Streams matter ended in a $10 million damages award in favor of the studios, TTKN/CCM has agreed to pay substantially more than its former rival.

“Damages are awarded in favor of Plaintiffs and against Defendant TTKN Enterprises, LLC d/b/a Crystal Clear Media, in the total amount of forty million dollars ($40 million),” the proposed judgment reads.

While the proposed consent judgment and permanent injunction are yet to be signed off by Judge George H. Wu in a California court, the nature of the agreement means that is likely to be a formality in the days to come.

The proposed orders can be found here ( 1 , 2 , 3 pdf)

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

A recent survey commission by the Asia Video Industry Association’s Coalition Against Piracy ( CAP ) and conducted by YouGov revealed that around 53% of online consumers in Thailand use illegal streaming platforms or torrent sites to access otherwise premium content.

The survey also found that of those who admitted using such platforms, around 66% claimed to have canceled some or even all of their legal subscriptions as a result. This and other similar reports helped sound alarm bells in the country so, last month, authorities carried out a series of actions to shut down pirate sites.

Raids During October, Resurrected Sites Hit Again in November

On October 22, the Department of Special Investigation carried out raids targeting a number of illegal sites, shutting several down while seizing computer equipment. Among them were Kingiptv.cc, Doohdbox.com, and Hdplay.tv but it appears that the operators of these platforms weren’t immediately ready to throw in the towel.

According to local media reports , the three sites switched to new domains – Kingiptv.cc to Kingiptv.info, doohdbox.com to skyhdbox.com, and hdplay.tv to hdlive.site. This prompted further action by the authorities.

Lieutenant Colonel Wichai Suwanprasert, head of the DSI’s Bureau of Technology and Cyber Crime, says that his unit traced the whereabouts of the resurrected sites and subsequently raided four locations in Bangkok, Nakhon Pathom, and two areas in the central province of Samut Prakan.

In addition to shutting down the four streaming platforms, which together generated an alleged seven million baht per month (US$229,357), officers also seized computer hardware, mobile phones, bank books and ATM cards.

“These websites were streaming copyright material belonging to True Visions Group Co and the Motion Picture Association without permission,” said Police Lieutenant Col Wichai.

Earlier Collaboration Between the MPA and DSI

TrueVisions is a cable and satellite television operator in Thailand and as the group representing the major Hollywood studios and Netflix, the Motion Picture Association needs little introduction.

The MPA and DSI already have an operational relationship. Following an MPA request late 2019, the DSI shut down streaming portal Movie2free.com, arresting a 22-year-old man.

At the time, Movie2free.com was Thailand’s most popular pirate site and one of the most popular on the Internet, period. It had previously appeared in the MPA’s overview of “notorious pirate sites”, which was submitted to the United States Trade Representative.

Site-Blocking in Thailand

Back in August, the Department of Intellectual Property (DIP), the Ministry of Digital Economy and Society (DES), and the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC) announced new site-blocking provisions to deal more efficiently with the threat posed by pirate sites.

After a court hands down a blocking injunction, Internet service providers now have just 15 days to block domains, including new domains that are used by pirate site operators to circumvent blocking orders. Failing to do so so means an ISP can be fined under the Computer Crimes Act.

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

In 2018, US broadcaster DISH Network sued pirate IPTV service SET TV for offering many TV channels illegally obtained from DISH’s satellite service.

That lawsuit came to an end in 2018 when SET TV’s operators were ordered by a Florida court to pay $90 million in statutory damages. However, as far as DISH was concerned, there were more loose ends to tie up.

DISH Sues Simply-TV and Goes After a Reseller

Early 2019, DISH filed another lawsuit in Florida, this time targeting individuals and companies behind Simply-TV, a pirate IPTV service that was believed to be connected to SET TV. By August that same year, the lawsuit was over after DISH was awarded $30 million in statutory damages plus an injunction.

As recently reported , DISH still didn’t give up the chase, suing an individual named as Lisa Crawford in a Florida court, claiming she was a reseller of both SET TV and Simply-TV. Several business entities were also named as defendants.

These cases have a tendency to drag on but in this case, the whole thing was settled in a matter of weeks.

Agreed Judgment and Permanent Injunction

On Thursday, DISH filed a notice of dismissal against the business entities named in the original complaint including LC One LLC, LC Pryme Enterprises LLC, LC Pryme Holdings LLC, LC Pryme One Enterprises LLC.

“This Notice of Dismissal is filed pursuant to the Confidential Settlement Agreement reached between DISH and Defendant Lisa Crawford,” the notice reads.

A short time later, DISH filed documents relating to the agreement, establishing several agreed facts and laying out the terms of the settlement.

“Defendant sold device codes and subscriptions to the Unauthorized Streaming Services through various websites including ptiptv.com, GriffTV.com, Lazertvstreams.com and FlixStreams.com. In addition, Defendant advertised the Unauthorized Streaming Services through Facebook and other forms of social media,” the filing reads.

“Defendant participated in the operation of the Unauthorized Streaming Services after the Set TV service was shut down. DISH Programming was redistributed without authorization on the Unauthorized Streaming Services throughout this time period.

“During that time Defendant trafficked in at least 40,000 device codes to the Unauthorized Streaming Services.”

Defendant Agrees to Pay DISH $30 Million in Statutory Damages

According to the agreement, the sale of the 40,000 “device codes” (subscriptions) will cost Crawford a huge amount of money. DISH says that each subscription is worth $750 in statutory damages, meaning that the total amount payable to the company is a cool $30 million. That being said, things could have been very much worse if DISH had pursued the $100,000 per offense/subscription maximum.

In addition to the damages agreement, the parties have also settled on a set of conditions for an injunction, including that Crawford never again gets involved in offering pirated DISH programming to the public. She is also barred from operating the websites ptiptv.com, GriffTV.com, Lazertvstreams.com and FlixStreams.com, which must be transferred to DISH.

Former Customers May Be at Risk

Part of the agreement requires Crawford to hand over pretty much everything associated with her reselling business over to DISH, including all computers, servers, receivers, software, and set-top devices. The agreement also goes much further than that though and may have consequences for Crawford’s former customers.

“Defendant shall transfer to DISH or a designee selected by DISH, within seven (7) days of the date of this Order, all device codes, renewal codes, subscriptions and applications for Defendant’s Pirate Streaming Services, as well as all computers, phones, servers and all social media, financial, online or other accounts associated in any way with Defendant’s Pirate Streaming Services,” the agreement reads.

This includes “books, documents, files, records, or communications whether in hard copy or electronic form, relating in any way to Defendant’s Pirate Streaming Services” plus “the identities of manufacturers, exporters, importers, dealers, or purchasers of such services and devices..”

This is important because DISH has a history of not only shutting down pirate services but also chasing down former subscribers for cash settlements. Whether it will do so in this case is yet to be seen but after shutting down a seller of satellite card-sharing codes a while back, the company has used the data handed over in the matter to pursue many other individuals.

The Agreed Judgment and Permanent Injunction is available here (pdf). It is yet to be signed off by the court but given its nature, that’s likely to be a formality.

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

Blocking of regular piracy websites has been a feature of anti-piracy enforcement in Europe for almost 15 years.

The way these blocks are achieved is broadly similar, with entertainment industry companies filing “no-fault” injunctions against Internet service providers who stand before the courts accused of facilitating the copyright-infringing activities of their subscribers.

Once this infringement has been identified and the ISPs put on notice by the courts, they are required to block access to the sites in question, using basic DNS techniques or in the UK, for example, more sophisticated methods that require a VPN or similar tool to tunnel through.

IPTV Blocking – A More Sophisticated Beast

In recent years, live sports groups such as the Premier League and UEFA have obtained similar injunctions that are more complex. These ‘dynamic’ blocking efforts require intricate work by the organizations’ anti-piracy partners, who identify the IP addresses of specific ‘pirate’ servers, including those that can be changed at short notice, in order for ISPs to block them at match times.

While unpopular, there is nothing particularly surprising about these efforts. Content companies have obtained the necessary legal permissions and have a right to protect their businesses. And for the ISPs, it should be a simple case of them ‘firewalling’ the IP addresses in question so that subscribers cannot access them directly to watch live matches. However, it seems pretty clear that something else is going on too.

ISPs’ Vested Interest in Stopping Pirates

Now that they are both broadcasters and ISPs, companies including Sky have a vested interest in stopping piracy. This means that while blocking injunctions against ISPs used to be fiercely contested, that’s no longer the case. In fact, in a recent blocking case brought by UEFA in Ireland , it was revealed in court documents that Sky actually supported the action, despite being a defendant.

While that’s the company’s prerogative, something more worrying was mentioned in the same case. It appears that in this matter, Sky or others acting on its behalf, have been monitoring the traffic of Sky subscribers who accessed the servers of pirate IPTV providers.

Perhaps Not the ‘Dumb Pipe’ ISPs Are Usually Portrayed As

In the order obtained by UEFA in the High Court of Ireland in September, comments made by Justice David Barniville revealed that the activities of Sky subscribers were used to support the application by UEFA to have pirate services blocked.

“I am satisfied that the [blocking] Order is necessary for the purpose of protecting the Plaintiff’s copyright against infringement. I note from the evidence, and accept, that there has been a significant shift away from the use of websites in more recent years in favor of devices and apps, in particular, set top boxes that can be watched on televisions in people’s living rooms,” Justice Barniville wrote.

“The affidavit of Jiajun Chen provides a confidential traffic analysis which evidences the use of the Sky network by Irish viewers to watch online illegal UEFA content.”

That the traffic analysis itself is “confidential” feels just a little ironic, given that it apparently reports on communications that should have been confidential too.

In this case, Mr. Chen appears to have obtained access to at least part of the Internet habits of some Sky subscribers. Any requests made from customers’ connections usually go straight from their devices via the ISP to the ‘pirate’ servers in question, meaning that only Sky should be in the middle. Reading between the lines, Sky appears to have monitored, logged, and made available information related to these communications to support the application of the plaintiff.

Worryingly, this monitoring of customers’ traffic has been going on for some time , since it was briefly covered in previous blocking injunctions obtained by the Premier League. Precisely what information is being held is unclear but if it relates to attempts to access ‘infringing servers’, any and all data (if only metadata) is available to ISPs.

No Expectation of Communications Privacy?

Putting aside the issue of copyright infringement for a moment, this type of monitoring behavior is unlikely to sit well with the customers of ISPs who either demand or at least expect privacy. Neither does it sit well with Ed Geraghty , a Senior Technologist at UK-based charity Privacy International.

“Censorship and monitoring of the Internet, generally, leads to chilling effects and violates our human right against arbitrary interference to our privacy, home, and correspondence. This is just another example that despite cries to the contrary from industries and governments alike, the Internet is a heavily surveilled and highly regulated space, where tracking is rampant,” Geraghty informs TorrentFreak.

“In recent years there have been great strides in the roll out of end-to-end encryption and the safety and privacy it can offer the content of our communications whilst in transit, but fundamentally there’s still – necessarily – huge amounts of metadata attached to our every interaction online.”

What Can Be Done to Prevent ISP Monitoring?

While some will argue that privacy shouldn’t apply when subscribers are reportedly breaking the law, the big question relates to the slippery slope. If subscribers’ activities are apparently being monitored for one type of traffic today, how long before other types of traffic are considered fair game too? Preventing this, privacy experts insist, is not just possible but also necessary to prevent Internet surveillance from getting out of hand.

“Depending on which point the ISPs are monitoring, there are various ways you can attempt to obscure your traffic – for instance, using third-party DNS over HTTPS, or a VPN – but be aware that this is merely shifting who can see your traffic away from your ISP to someone else,” Geraghty adds.

Given their simplicity and wide availability, the use of VPNs to prevent monitoring is a natural choice and something that has been gaining traction in recent times. David Wibergh from OVPN says he believes that Sky is proposing the “black holing” of IP addresses instead of blocking DNS queries, which is problematic in itself.

“As IP addresses are typically in temporary use and could be used by several sites simultaneously, it can lead to unexpected and obtrusive blocking of content that has nothing to do with piracy,” Wibergh says.

“By using a VPN provider you remove the internet providers’ capabilities of performing blocking, surveillance and traffic analysis, as the only traffic originating from you is towards the VPN provider’s server. It’s crucial to choose a VPN provider that is trustworthy as VPN providers are able to perform the same form of traffic shaping as the ISP. But even if there is a risk that VPN providers log; it’s a guarantee that your ISP logs. ”

Daniel Markuson, Digital Privacy Expert at NordVPN , says that perceived privacy intrusions like these will only will lead to more uptake.

“Blocks of services and the subsequent discoveries of traffic monitoring and trade will lead to an increased demand for VPNs,” Markuson says.

“Whenever a government announces an increase in surveillance, internet restrictions, or other types of constraints, people turn to privacy tools. We saw similar spikes in different regions: for example, when the US repealed net neutrality, or the UK passed the law dubbed ‘ The Snoopers’ Charter ‘.”

Finally, a simple, obvious, but nevertheless important comment from Harold Li, Vice President of ExpressVPN , that applies to all Internet users concerned about the privacy of their communications.

“The onus is still on consumers to take action and protect themselves,” he concludes.

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

Over the past several years, the Premier League has obtained blocking orders from the High Court of England and Wales, which compel ISPs in the UK to block pirate streaming services .

These so-called ‘dynamic injunctions’ are more flexible than their torrent and streaming site counterparts due to their ability to react more quickly, blocking streams as they appear close to and during match times. The idea is to frustrate customers of pirate IPTV services in particular, so that they migrate back to official offerings.

UEFA Begins to Block Pirate IPTV Streams in the UK

Back in 2017, UEFA, the governing body of football in Europe, decided that it too could benefit from this type of legal action. Following in the steps of the Premier League, UEFA obtained a similar High Court injunction that compelled ISPs including BT, Virgin, Sky and TalkTalk to block pirated match streams in the UK. The effort was expanded a year later .

Soon after, the Premier League expanded its blocking efforts to Ireland, obtaining a stream-blocking injunction against several major ISPs including Eircom, Sky, Virgin and Vodafone. This summer the league obtained permission to continue its efforts in Ireland , a path now being followed by UEFA.

UEFA Obtains High Court Order to Begin Blocking in Ireland

After a successful application to the High Court, UEFA has now been granted permission to compel several local ISPs to block access to pirated match streams during the 2020-21 season.

RTE reports that in common with the injunction obtained previously by the Premier League, Eir (Eircom), Sky Ireland Ltd, Sky Subscribers Services Ltd, Virgin Media Ireland Ltd and Vodafone Ireland Ltd are covered by the injunction. This means that they will be required to work with UEFA’s anti-piracy partners to render various IP addresses related to pirate servers inaccessible to their customers, at least during match times.

While the ISPs are now required by law to cooperate in UEFA’s blocking efforts, only Sky came out in support of UEFA’s application. While this should come as no surprise given its position as a broadcaster, companies including Virgin Media have a vested interest in stopping piracy of live games too.

As a result, the remainder of the ISPs did their part by remaining neutral, effectively guaranteeing that the injunction would be handed down, like those before it had too.

Of course, relevant issues were considered by the Court, including that such an injunction is not only necessary but not overly complicated either. Furthermore, costs of implementation must not be excessive while the interests of all affected parties – including those of Internet users – must also be respected.

However, having been down this path several times before, applicants and the courts are now very familiar with the procedure and the various parameters required to have injunctions signed off.

Blocking Injunctions Are a Well-Trodden Path

Despite their relative youth, dynamic blocking injunctions have developed quickly over the past three years but how they work from a technical perspective is a closely-guarded secret. The theory is simple; anti-piracy companies identify the broadcasting servers of pirate IPTV providers and feed these to ISPs so they can be firewalled but the precise parameters remain a closely guarded secret, albeit with some leaks .

These blocking efforts can usually be circumvented when IPTV subscribers deploy a VPN to nullify their ISPs’ blocking measures, something which is now common practice among a growing subset of IPTV subscribers. However, this year there is talk of a new state of play on the ground in respect of the Premier League’s ability to disrupt suppliers.

Precisely what is happening isn’t yet clear to us but there are reports that some IPTV providers are finding the Premier League’s efforts more intrusive than they were previously. The Premier League has already admitted that is has new powers for the coming season so time will tell who will come out on top, once the dust settles.

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

When UK citizens move overseas they often report missing out on basic things they take for granted at home. Colman’s mustard, Yorkshire tea, Cadbury’s chocolate, Kelloggs Cornflakes and Marmite all get a mention, but entertainment is often high on the list too.

Brits are known for their love of soaps, including the long-running Eastenders and Coronation Street, for example. Moving abroad often means missing out on these home comforts but for many years ex-pats have found ways to access these shows abroad, with many turning to various IPTV services to get their fix.

UKTVEverywhere – Endorsed by the Rich and Infulential

One of the services established to scratch this particular itch was US-based UKTVEverywhere. The service offered a long list of UK TV channels that on home soil were ordinarily covered by a regular TV license. However, by capturing these signals in the UK and broadcasting them worldwide, the service became popular with viewers overseas, including some notable celebrities.

For example, business tycoon and The Apprentice star Lord Sugar (Alan Sugar) regularly took to Twitter to reveal that he was enjoying the services of UKTVEverywhere while living in the United States. There was no obvious sign that he was getting paid for the endorsements but on more than one occasion the businessman promoted the IPTV platform.

Catching up on Eastenders on http://t.co/rd74p6UO5c .The writers need to put Alfie and Kat back in the vic.The new cast are a total joke.

— Lord Sugar (@Lord_Sugar) January 2, 2014

Similarly flattering comments were also tweeted by outspoken broadcaster and journalist Piers Morgan, who said he was using UKTVEverywhere to watch a UK football show in the United States and highly recommended the service to “all Brits living abroad.”

About to watch #FootballFocus in NY using @Uktveverywhere – amazing device, highly recommend to all Brits living abroad.

— Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) March 9, 2013

But despite these presumably free plugs from the rich and famous, UKTVEverywhere was running on borrowed time. Many shows broadcast on these channels are owned by divisions of two broadcasters – the BBC and ITV – and it appears they weren’t happy with the IPTV service making money from its programming.

BBC & ITV Channels Disappear: The Beginning of the End

After previously noting that displaying their logos raised trademark issues, several months ago UKTVEverywhere announced that it would stop offering channels from the BBC and ITV. They weren’t the only channels offered by the IPTV provider but given the target audience, that meant that the big soaps and other popular titles such as Doctor Who and Love Island would no longer be available.

Without these, ex-pats were unlikely to favor the service and sure enough, it eventually disappeared leaving subscribers high and dry with reportedly no refunds issued.

As many expected, the demise of the service was linked to legal action by BBC Studios and ITV, a fact now confirmed by a message on the site’s homepage .

“This domain name has been transferred to the BBC and ITV in settlement of their copyright dispute against its former owner,” it reads.

“BBC One, BBC Two, BBC iPlayer, along with ITV and ITV Hub are not lawfully available outside of the UK. It is an infringement of copyright to distribute, publicly perform or reproduce the content on these channels, without the consent of the respective copyright owners, or to induce such infringement.”

A joint statement from the BBC and ITV puts more meat on the bones.

“As producers and distributors of premium content, we have the right and obligation to take action against piracy, in accordance with relevant laws in the territories we operate. Ensuring that our content is viewed legally, equally ensures we will be able to bring our viewers the programs they love and expect,” the companies say.

“BBC Studios and ITV both produce thousands of hours of quality British programming, which in turn gives vital employment to writers, producers, cast and crew. Illegal streaming of this content means a wide range of workers were being deprived of their rightful earnings.”

BritBox: New Domain Owner Standing By To Do Business

A check of domain WHOIS records reveals that the UKTVEverywhere.com domain is now owned by Denipurna Limited, a company associated with the BBC and ITV streaming service BritBox. Having launched in the United States during 2017, BritBox subsequently launched in Canada and then the UK, with an Australian release penned in for 2020.

Given that BritBox offers episodes of national favorites such as EastEnders and Coronation Street within hours of them airing in the UK, it is clear why both the BBC and ITV wanted UKTVEverywhere out of the market, a short-term mission that has now been accomplished.

However, there are dozens of other platforms offering similar services, including many mainstream ‘pirate’ IPTV suppliers, so the job isn’t done yet, not by a long way.

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

Over the past several years Italy’s Guardia di Finanza has been applying increasing pressure to various players in the piracy ecosystem.

In addition to targeting distributors of movies, TV shows and live sports via subscription services, the authorities have also homed in on suppliers of pirated newspapers and periodicals. A new law enforcement operation revealed Wednesday continues along those same lines.

Operation Evil Web

The new action is being spearheaded by the Economic-Financial Police Unit of the Guardia di Finanza of Gorizia. The unit reports that following an investigation it was able to secure a preventative seizure order to block access to 58 websites and 18 Telegram channels.

With combined annual traffic of around 80 million visits, the authorities claim that by blocking these platforms they have disrupted around 90% of the audiovisual and editorial piracy carried out in Italy. Given the availability of pirated content in the region, regardless of blocking, that figure sounds optimistic but the operation is clearly significant nonetheless.

Investigation Into IPTV Expanded Overseas

According to the GdF, the investigation began by targeting an IT expert operating under the online nickname of ‘Diabolik’. The authorities haven’t yet positively identified this developer but given the existence of a Kodi addon called Diabolik441 dedicated to Italian content with links to the Evil King branding (GdF’s operation is called ‘Evil Web’), it seems likely this was one of their targets. An Android application using the same name is also featured in a GdF video (see below).

After reportedly identifying Diabolik, the investigation broadened to several regions of Italy and then overseas, including Germany, the Netherlands, and the United States. Three other IT experts also became part of the investigation, identified by GdF as ‘Doc’, ‘Spongebob’, and ‘Webflix’.

Again, GdF hasn’t identified these alleged IT experts using anything other than their nicknames but nevertheless describes them as “real oracles” when it comes to the illegal distribution of movies, pay TV, live sports, cartoons, newspapers, magazines, manuals, and even pornography. All four developers have been reported to the “competent judicial authorities” for prosecution.

Authorities Trying to Identify 1,000 IPTV Subscribers

In Italy, piracy-enabled set-top devices are called ‘pezzotto’ and in common with many regions, are used by huge numbers of end users hoping to gain free or cheap access to pirated movies, TV shows, and live sports. GdF says work is now underway to identify around 1,000 pezzotto/IPTV subscribers – some local, some overseas – so that they can be prosecuted for breaches of copyright law and receiving stolen goods.

According to the authorities, penalties can reach up to three years in prison and a fine of 25,000 euros. Similar penalties were mentioned back in Febraury when the Guardia di Finanza said it had reported 223 subscribers of pirate IPTV services to the judicial authorities.

Enhanced Site-Blocking Procedures

GdF reports that thanks to a new “procedural innovation”, it is now possible to more effectively block sites that facilitate access to previously blocked domains.

“This procedural innovation is allowing, day by day, the immediate inhibition of hundreds of new web domains illegally created in order to circumvent the original provision of the Judicial Authority,” its announcement reads.

“In addition, the procedures for international judicial cooperation have been activated – and are still in progress – in order to seize the servers from which multimedia contents are distributed in violation of copyright.”

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

Large scale criminal prosecutions of alleged copyright infringers are relatively rare in Canada but according to information just revealed by the Novia Scotia RCMP, a big case is on the horizon.

Operation Hotwire Targets Illegal IPTV

According to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, in June 2019 the Federal Serious and Organized Crime Unit (FSOC) began an investigation after receiving a complaint from a local telecoms company that its content was being streamed for profit by an individual using IPTV.

The telecoms company, which isn’t being named, reportedly carried out an investigation of its own and then referred the matter to the police. That generated enough interest for the police to begin their own inquiry and in August 2019, police supported by investigators from Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada searched a home on Shore Drive in Bedford, Nova Scotia, seizing electronic equipment and financial documents.

A 35-year old man from Bedford was arrested at the home “without incident” and was later released from custody. Fast-forward exactly a year and on August 13, 2020, Nova Scotia RCMP FSOC filed court documents related to charges against two individuals in Nova Scotia. They are now being named as Riad Thomeh, 36, and Kayla Thomeh, 33, both of Bedford.

Laundry List of Copyright Infringement Related Charges

As per RCMP, Riad Thomeh is charged with the following:

• Possession of a Device to Obtain Use of Telecommunication Facility or Service
• Laundering the Proceeds of Crime
• Possession of Property Obtained by Crime x18
• Distribute Copyrighted Material – Copyright Act
• Re-transmit Encrypted Programming Signal – Radiocommunication Act
• Decode Encrypted Programming Signal – Radiocommunication Act

Kayla Thomeh is charged as follows:

• Laundering the Proceeds of Crime
• Possession of Property Obtained by Crime

“Three companies operated by Riad and Kayla Thomeh are also facing 44 charges, including Possession of a Device to Obtain Use of Telecommunication Facility or Service, Laundering the Proceeds of Crime and Possession of Property Obtained by Crime, as well as charges under the Copyright Act and the Radiocommunication Act,” a police statement adds.

Who Are the Alleged Offenders and What Were They Involved In?

Riad and Kayla Thomeh are a husband and wife team. The information released by police thus far doesn’t include the name of the IPTV service allegedly being offered by the pair but after receiving additional information from a familiar source, it wasn’t hard for us to put together the pieces.

Company information published by Dun and Bradstreet reveals that Riad Thomeh is/was the president of Nova Scotia-based company ‘Nova Scotia Limited’. Employing a total of three people and located in Shore Drive, Bedford, the company is listed as part of the IT sector and at last count generated US$517,503 in sales.

Importantly, the company was given the registration number 3303398 after its founding in 2017, which leads directly to IPTV provider Epic Stream. Indeed, the information published by DNB clearly lists the trading name of Epic Stream located at the address in Bedford occupied by Nova Scotia Limited.

Epic Stream used the domain epicstream.net, a site that remains active today. It clearly and repeatedly lists the Canadian company registration number 3303398 in both its privacy policy and terms and conditions ( pdf ).

Just two weeks after Riad Thomeh was arrested in Bedford, an announcement on the epicstream.net site advised all users having problems with the service to “updated there user information to be able to connected and view….Please take time and Updated your information ASAP[sic].”

The last service update on the site was during October 2019 and according to reports on Reddit around a year ago, the service went down around the same time.

Further Action This Week

Earlier this month, a Restraint Order and Special Search Warrant was issued in respect of the Thomeh’s assets. In response, this week a total of 14 properties were restrained, including two houses and 12 plots of land. Two vehicles were also seized.

If found guilty the RCMP is warning that under the Copyright Act, the pair could each face a five-year prison sentence, a CAD$1m penalty, or even both.

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