After years of battling peer-to-peer sharing carried out on networks including BitTorrent, the major record labels now view stream-ripping as the major piracy threat.

Broadly speaking, stream-ripping is carried out in two ways – either by using tools such as youtube-dl (which allow users to rip content from YouTube directly to their machines) or via dedicated websites that simplify the process. Some of these sites have become extremely popular, attracting the attention of the labels on the way.

Application For Injunction – Stream-Ripping

For well over a decade, entertainment industry companies have appeared in the High Court of England and Wales demanding that the UK’s leading ISPs block access to torrent and streaming sites. If the major record labels have their way, the same will soon apply to stream-ripping sites too.

This week a group of record labels under the umbrella of the British Recorded Music Industry Ltd (BPI) and Phonographic Performance Ltd (PPL) appeared at the High Court demanding that six major Internet service providers (including BT, Virgin, Sky, TalkTalk, EE and Plusnet) should block access to eight stream-ripping sites.

“On 3 February 2021, the High Court in London held an online hearing for a new set of website blocking cases, brought by the BPI to help reduce music piracy in the UK,” BPI General Counsel, Kiaron Whitehead informs TorrentFreak.

“The judge, Mr Justice Miles, has reserved his judgment and so we await receiving his ruling, and his written reasons for it, in due course.”

As the Judge is yet to render his decision, the BPI doesn’t want to go into too much detail at this legally sensitive stage, including by naming the plaintiffs and the sites being targeted. Nevertheless, we have been able to independently confirm some of the action’s key details.

According to the labels – which include Warner, Sony, and Capitol Records – 2conv.com, flvto.biz, 2Convert.net, H2Converter.com, H2Download.org, Flv2mp3.by, Flvtool.com and Ytbapi.com are sites that help users to rip music from sites like YouTube, in breach of the labels’ copyrights.

2conv and flvto.biz are already being sued by major labels in the United States and H2Converter has appeared on the EU’s ‘Counterfeit and Piracy Watch List’.

Notably, several of the targeted ripping sites are already blocked by ISPs in Australia following successful legal action by Sony, Universal, and Warner, with assistance from Music Rights Australia and the Australasian Performing Right Association.

Stream-Rippers ‘Authorize’ Users’ Piracy

TorrentFreak understands that this week’s application was made under Section 97A of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 . This allows the High Court to grant an injunction against a service provider, where that service provider has actual knowledge of another person using their service to infringe copyright.

The labels told the Court that since content uploaded to YouTube is generally licensed to be streamed via the site, people who download the labels’ tracks to their machines are making unlicensed (pirated) copies.

By extension, the labels argued that since the stream-ripping platforms authorize and facilitate the creation of those pirate copies contrary to the Copyright Act, they too can be held liable for users’ infringement.

While these arguments will be assessed on their merits in respect of the labels’ copyrights, the sites in question appear to be general tools that can be used to download content to which none of the labels hold the copyrights. Whether this aspect will be investigated by the Judge remains to be seen. It certainly didn’t prevent the sites from being blocked in Australia.

What we do know is that opposition won’t arrive in the form of objections by the ISPs. The service providers say they won’t oppose the application but do want to provide input should Justice Miles grant the application, presumably so they can protect their interests at the blocking stage.

Second Application For Injunction – Cyberlocker

In a second application for injunction reported by Law360 , the labels want the same ISPs to block access to cyberlocker site Nitroflare.com.

Record company lawyer Edmund Cullen of Maitland Chambers told the Court that Nitroflare could potentially claim safe harbor under the UK’s electronic commerce regulations but in this case, protection from liability isn’t available.

“This is not a provision designed or available to a service like Nitroflare which is essentially structured for infringement and it can’t be a protection for pirates,” Cullen said, alleging that Nitroflare encourages its users to store and share copyrighted content.

At this stage it is not known when Justice Miles will render his decision.

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

Following court orders and site blocking regimes worldwide, The Pirate Bay is blocked in dozens of countries.

This is also the case in the Netherlands where the legal process took more than a decade to conclude.

In 2010, Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN first went to court demanding that local ISP Ziggo should block The Pirate Bay. The ISP, which was later joined by XS4ALL, fought tooth and nail and used all options at its disposal to prevent a blocking requirement.

After multiple rulings, appeals, and detours through the Supreme Court and the EU Court of Justice, the Amsterdam Court issued its final verdict this June. The outcome was clear – the ISPs must block subscribers from accessing The Pirate Bay .

While many people assumed that this would end the legal battle once and for all, it didn’t. Soon after the verdict was made public, Ziggo, KPN and XS4All unblocked all Pirate Bay proxies .

These proxies had been blocked for years as part of a preliminary ruling that also required the providers to block The Pirate Bay. However, the final verdict superseded that ruling and, unlike the preliminary injunction, didn’t cover proxies and mirrors.

BREIN initially hoped that the companies would call an end to the fight by simply blocking these additional domains voluntarily. Especially since a separate court order already requires other Dutch ISPs to do the same. However, Ziggo, KPN and XS4All dug their heels in.

The ISPs decided to unblock all Pirate Bay mirrors and proxies and argued that BREIN had to go to court again if they wanted these to be re-blocked. This is exactly what the anti-piracy group – who described the ISPs’ actions as “downright silly” – did a few weeks ago.

In an interim proceeding, the ISPs argued that instead of going after them, BREIN should target the operators directly. Or alternatively, it could go after their domain registries or Cloudflare, which provides services to many of the sites in question.

In a new verdict announced last week, the court doesn’t deny that these intermediaries play a role, but it notes that the same arguments were already considered in a previous case and haven’t changed. As such, it doesn’t have an impact on the request directed at the ISPs.

The court concluded that the proxies and mirrors are directly copying The Pirate Bay. They communicate copyright infringing works to the public and a blockade is therefore warranted.

The ISPs also argued that blocking proxies and mirrors is ineffective. People can easily bypass the blockades with VPNs, for example. In addition, pirate streaming sites have outgrown torrent sites such as The Pirate Bay in recent years, which means that the effect of a blockade will be limited.

Again, the court doesn’t see how that changes things here. Torrent sites still remain widely used. And while site blocking may not be perfect, it has some effect.

“Although it can be assumed that streaming has increased and that the blocks can be avoided using VPNs, this does not mean that it should be assumed, in these interim relief proceedings, that the proposed blockades are ineffective or not effective enough,” the court notes.

“For the normal internet user it can be assumed that a blockade of mirror and proxy sites results in these sites no longer being accessible, or at least harder to access, which makes copyright infringement more difficult. This type of blocking is considered to be effective.”

The court kept European jurisprudence in mind, which holds that blockades have to make it harder to block pirated material but shouldn’t needlessly block legitimate content. While The Pirate Bay does have legitimate content, this is believed to be minimal.

Ziggo also brought up that the high costs of the blocking efforts, which were €62,280 between September 2017 and October 2018, outweigh the potential benefits, especially when these can rise even higher with future blocks. Again, the court disagreed.

All in all, the Lelystad Court ruled that Ziggo, KPN, and XS4ALl must block the TPB proxy and mirror sites. It granted a so-called dynamic blockade, which means that BREIN can frequently request updates to add new domain names if they become available.

The ISPs must implement the blocking measures within 10 days and risk a €10,000 fine for every violation of the order, to a maximum of €100,000. In addition, the companies also have to pay the costs of the proceeding, which are put at €15,000 for each provider.

—

A copy of the court order, courtesy of IE-forum , is available here (pdf)

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

In recent years, many copyright holders have complained that Cloudflare does little to nothing to stop pirate sites from using its services.

The US-based company receives numerous DMCA notices but aside from forwarding these to the affected customers, it takes no action.

Cloudflare sees itself as a neutral intermediary that simply passes on bits. This approach is not welcomed by everyone and, as a result, the company has been placed on the EU piracy watchlist alongside familiar pirate sites such as The Pirate Bay, Seasonvar and Rapidgator.

Despite this callout, Cloudflare maintains its position. The company doesn’t want to intervene based on allegations from copyright holders and requests a court order to take action. These orders are very rare, but a few days ago the Court of Milan, Italy, set a precedent.

Sky and Serie A Sued Cloudflare

The case in question was filed by the TV platform Sky Italy and Lega Serie A , Italy’s top football league. The organizations requested a court order to stop various third-party intermediaries from providing access to “IPTV THE BEST”, a popular IPTV service targeted at an Italian audience.

Since the IPTV service is a Cloudflare customer the US-based CDN provider was also sued. The copyright holders demanded Cloudflare and several other companies including hosting provider OVH, and ISPs such as Vodafone, TIM, Fastweb, Wind and Tiscali, to stop working with the pirate service.

Last September, the Court of Milan sided with Sky and Serie A. It issued a preliminary injunction ordering the companies to stop working with the IPTV provider, regardless of the domain name or IP-address it uses.

Cloudflare objected to the claim. In its defense, the company pointed out that it isn’t hosting any infringing content. As a CDN, it simply caches content and relays traffic, nothing more. In addition, the Italian court would lack jurisdiction as well, the company argued.

Cloudflare’s Defense Falls Flat

Despite the fierce defense from Cloudflare, which extended the case by more than a year, the court didn’t change its position. In a recent order, it explained that it’s irrelevant whether a company hosts files or merely caches the content. In both cases, it helps to facilitate copyright-infringing activity.

This is an important decision because services like Cloudflare are hard to classify under EU law, which makes a general distinction between hosting providers and mere conduit services. The Italian court clarified that such classification is irrelevant in this matter.

“The ruling is unique in its kind because it expressly addresses the issue of the provision of information society services that are difficult to classify in the types outlined by the European eCommerce Directive,” attorney Alessandro La Rosa informs TorrentFreak.

Together with Mr. Bruno Ghirardi, his colleague at the law firm Studio Previti , La Rosa represented the football league in this matter. They worked in tandem with attorney Simona Lavagnini , who represented Sky Italy.

‘Unique and Important Ruling’

Lavagnini tells us that the ruling is important because it’s the first blocking order to be issued against a CDN provider in Italy.

“The order is important because, at least to my knowledge, it is the first issued against a CDN, in which the CDN was ordered to cease the activities carried out in relation to illegal services, also including those activities which cannot qualify as hosting activities,” she says.

“The recent order clearly says that the services of the CDN shall be inhibited because they help to allow third parties to carry out the illegal action which is the subject matter of the urgent proceeding, even if there is no data storage by the CDN,” Lavagnini adds.

TorrentFreak also reached out to Cloudflare for a comment but at the time of writing the company has yet to respond.

Cloudflare Blocking Becomes More Common

While the attorneys we spoke with highlight the uniqueness of the ruling, Cloudflare previously noted in its transparency report that it has already blocked 22 domain names in Italy following a court order. It’s not known what case the company was referring to there, but it affects 15 separate accounts.

The blocking actions will only affect Italians but in theory, they could expand. There are grounds to apply them across Europe or even worldwide, Lavagnini tells us, but that will likely require further clarification from the court.

This isn’t the first time that Cloudflare has been ordered to block a copyright-infringing site in Europe. Earlier this year a German court ordered the company to block access to DDL-Music , or face fines and a potential prison sentence.

In Italy, the CDN provider was also required to terminate the accounts of several pirate sites last year. However, in that case, Cloudflare was seen as a hosting provider due to its “Always Online” feature. Also, that court order didn’t mention geo-blocking or blocking in general.

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

Website blocking is without a doubt one of the favorite anti-piracy tools of the entertainment industries.

The UK has been a leader on this front. Since 2011, the High Court has ordered ISPs to block access to many popular pirate sites.

While official numbers are lacking, it’s believed that thousands of URLs are currently blocked, targeting sites such as The Pirate Bay, RARBG, Fmovies, NewAlbumReleases, and Team-Xecuter.

UK Site Blocking Set an Example

The UK approach has set an example for many other countries and has been used to argue in favor of site blocking measures in other regions including Australia and Canada. More recently, the UK example was highlighted in a US Senate hearing, with Hollywood’s MPA praising its effectiveness .

“Studies in the UK and Australia have shown that this can lead to statistically significant and meaningful increases in legal online consumption. In that respect, the injunctive remedy in the European Union, the UK, Australia, and elsewhere has been decidedly more effective than the endless cycle of DMCA notice sending,” MPA’s Stan McCoy said.

The comment was made to support a new push for ‘no-fault’ site-blocking injunctions in the US. The MPA speaks from personal experience here, as it was the driving force behind several UK court orders. That said, McCoy’s testimony leaves out some important context.

Pirate Sites Flourish

While the MPA is pushing site blocking in the US, the UK efforts have completely died down. The last blocking request from Hollywood studios dates back roughly years ago. Similarly, there hasn’t been any request from record labels since 2013.

As a result, new pirate sites, and those that haven’t been blocked, were able to grow their audiences without much trouble. And indeed, if we take a look at the 500 most visited sites in the UK, names including Magnetdl, Filmix, Lookmovie, Rutor, and 9anime show up.

For a site such as Magnetdl, roughly a quarter of all traffic comes from the UK, where the site isn’t blocked.

Why No New Requests?

This begs the question; if site blocking is so extremely effective in curbing piracy, why aren’t there any new requests? We reached out to the MPA’s EMEA office, which was kind enough to comment on the matter but didn’t offer any answers.

“The MPA EMEA is continuing with site blocking across Europe. Site blocking is a legitimate and effective way of halting the spread of online piracy. Piracy affects everyone involved in the creative process – from the songwriters to authors and the makeup artists, a spokesperson informed us

“Site blocking builds on years of work, and forms just one pillar of the MPA EMEA’s overall enforcement strategy. Online infringement is complex, and there is no single answer to addressing it.”

Costs Play a Role

Reading between the lines it appears that the MPA prefers to focus on other anti-piracy efforts, at least in the UK. This is likely the result of a cost-benefit analysis. Although it wouldn’t be hard to apply for new pirate site blockades, these anti-piracy measures come at a cost.

Previously, it was estimated that an unopposed application for a section 97A blocking order costs roughly £14,000 per site, while maintaining it costs an additional £3,600 per year. With hundreds of blocked sites, the costs are quite significant, to say the least.

BPI Will Request Stream Ripper Blocks in 2021

The music industry may have similar reasons. In recent years they have complained repeatedly about the copyright-infringing nature of YouTube rippers, but there haven’t been any attempts to have these sites blocked. That will change though.

We reached out to the UK music group BPI which says that it still sees site blocking as a valuable tool. The group hasn’t requested any new blocks in years but it will soon request blocks against stream rippers.

“There are a range of tools that we use to reduce stream ripping and music piracy in all its forms in the UK. We also expect others who are in positions of responsibility within the digital economy to do more.”

“Website blocking is an important and very effective part of our tool kit and is used in a proportionate way. BPI intends to seek the High Court’s judgment in relation to stream rippers in 2021,” a BPI spokesperson added.

While the movie and music industries have other priorities, site-blocking powers are not completely unused. In recent years various sports organizations, including UEFA and the Premier League, have repeatedly requested and renewed IP-address blocks of illegal IPTV services .

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.

ISP blocking has become a prime measure for the entertainment industry to target pirate sites on the Internet.

The practice has been around for over a decade and has gradually expanded to dozens of countries around the world.

This is also the case in Greece, where the first blockades were issued in 2018 . The Greek blocks are overseen by the IPPC, a special commission at the Greek Ministry of Culture and Sports that acts following complaints from rightsholders.

The Greek system is different from that of many other countries because it doesn’t involve a court. It’s an administrative procedure which allows copyright holders to swiftly request pirate site blockades, without the need for lengthy and costly legal proceedings.

The most recent blocking request was filed by the Society for the Protection of Audiovisual Works (EPOE), a local anti-piracy group that represents the interests of major Greek copyright holders. The company previously obtained a blocking order against The Pirate Bay, 1337x, and YTS, but requested to expand it.

Blocking Pirate Proxies and Alternaitives

While the original order does its job, Greek pirates swiftly moved to alternative proxy sites. The anti-piracy group, therefore, asked more than 200 of these Pirate Bay, 1337x, and YTS proxies to be blocked as well.

Following careful deliberation, the IPPC decided to expand the Greek pirate site blockade. The Government organization concluded that, for the vast majority of the domains, the database, structure, graphics, and user-interface were substantially similar to the sites that were blocked originally.

In addition to The Pirate Bay, 1337x, and YTS, several subtitle domains, and local pirate sites including GamaTV were targeted as well.

One Request Denied

Before issuing a new order, the owners of the domains were given the option to object to the request. This includes the administrator of subtitle site subs4series.com, who claimed that his site was wrongfully targeted.

The blocking application claimed that subs4series.com was similar to the previously blocked subs4free.info, which the site’s administrator denied. The Government organization agreed and rejected the requested blockade.

“After the relevant research, it appears that the site with the domain name subs4series.com does not redirect to the site with the domain name subs4free.info. Therefore, according to the relevant allegation of the applicant, there is no violation, as it concerns the no. 3/2018 decision of the Commission for the Internet Infringement of Intellectual Property,” IPPC writes.

The blocking order is valid for three years and applies to all Greek Internet providers. They’re given 48 hours to add the 264 new domains to their blocklists, including more than 120 Pirate Bay proxies. If the companies fail to comply they risk a fine of €850 per day.

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A copy of the most recent blocking order, issued by IPPC, is available here (pdf) This also includes a list of all targeted domains

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.

Years ago, Australia was often described as a hotbed for piracy. This was a thorn in the side of copyright holders, who repeatedly asked the Government to help out.

On the top of their list was new legislation that would make it possible to compel ISPs to block pirate sites.

In 2015 this wish became reality with the passing of Section 115a of Australia’s Copyright Act. Soon after the amendments became law, the first blocking requests were submitted and since then ISPs have been ordered to block hundreds of sites.

The entertainment industry was happy with this new enforcement tool. However, they also felt that it wasn’t enough. Village Roadshow’s Graham Burke, in particular, took aim at Google and other search engines, which still indexed these pirate sites and many alternatives.

The Proxy and Mirror Loophole

To address these and other loopholes, new legislation was passed in 2018 which made it easier for proxies and mirrors to be blocked. In addition, it also opened the door to a new type of measure that required search engines to block pirate sites.

Initially, Google fiercely opposed the new plans but in a surprise move last year, the search engine voluntarily agreed to remove hundreds of sites from its Australian search results. This agreement was made without a court order. Instead, Google chose to remove sites that the ISPs were already blocking.

This was a step forward in the eyes of the rightsholders, but it was far from perfect. After being blocked, pirate sites would simply switch to new domains which are easy to find through search engines. While these are eventually covered through updated court orders, the process can take weeks.

“The pirates are taking advantage of the lag time between their criminal mirror site going up by changing one letter and us taking three or four weeks to go back through the court system,” Burke, who’s also the Chair of Creative Content Australia, told SMH .

Google Steps Up its Anti-Piracy Game, Again

To fix this ‘loophole’ Google has now agreed to a new arrangement that goes even further. In an agreement with copyright holders, Google promises to de-index mirrors and proxies as soon as they are reported.

This will happen before a court order is issued, without any judicial oversight. That said, it only applies to (presumed) alternative locations of domains that have previously been targeted by a blocking injunction.

This effectively addresses the mirror and proxy problem while the rightsholders are still in the process of getting an updated court order. By doing so, it will be harder for pirates to find alternative domain names.

“This is shutting down that loophole and it’s massive,” Burke said.

Did Google Have a Change of Heart?

Google’s cooperative stance runs counter to comments that were made earlier by the search engine. The company repeatedly argued that removing full domains from its search results is dangerous . In addition, it actively protested Australia’s blocking plans when they were announced.

TorrentFreak asked Google for a comment on the new voluntary agreement and how it differs from its previous statements, but the company didn’t immediately respond. Speaking with SMH, the search engine said that it hopes this measure will help address the piracy problem.

“We are hopeful these measures will be a welcome step towards protecting copyright and will provide a faster solution for rightsholders,” Lucinda Longcroft, director of public policy at Google Australia said.

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

The Pirate Bay is blocked in dozens of countries around the world. In most cases, ISPs are ordered to take action after a relatively short court proceeding.

In the Netherlands, however, the process took more than a decade , and it’s still not completely over yet.

ISPs Have to Block The Pirate Bay

A few weeks ago the Amsterdam Court ruled in favor of anti-piracy group BREIN , ordering local ISPs Ziggo and XS4ALL to block The Pirate Bay. This order confirmed an earlier verdict, which made detours all the way to the European Court of Justice and the Dutch Supreme Court.

In recent years The Pirate Bay has been blocked by ISPs due to a preliminary injunction. This injunction also required the companies to add new domains along the way, including proxy and mirror sites. According to BREIN, the measures significantly reduced traffic to the popular pirate site.

With the victory at the Amsterdam Court in June, the blocking measures became final. That’s important, as it opens the door for blocking requests against other sites. However, BREIN didn’t get everything it wanted.

Proxies Are Not Mentioned in the Ruling

The court reinstated the original verdict from the lower court, which was issued in 2012. While that indeed requires the ISPs to block The Pirate Bay, it doesn’t mention any proxies and mirrors. BREIN requested these to be added, but the court viewed this as a separate matter.

In theory, this means that Ziggo and XS4ALL were free to unblock dozens of domains again and face another legal fight over the proxies. Initially, it wasn’t clear if that would happen, but we can now confirm that this is indeed the case.

ISPs Unblock Pirate Bay Proxies

In the weeks following the court’s judgment, the ISPs started to unblock dozens of Pirate Bay proxy domains. This is also apparent from XS4ALL’s blocking page , which shows that only thepiratebay.org remains inaccessible.

The ISPs are completely within their rights to unblock these domains. After all, the standing order doesn’t mention any proxies.

However, this also means that they will be back in court soon. In fact, BREIN has already taken action to have Pirate Bay proxies and mirrors blocked by launching a new proceeding.

We reached out to Ziggo and XS4All to ask why they chose to lift the blocks, but the companies refrained from commenting while the new legal proceeding is underway.

Shenanigans

BREIN director Tim Kuik, meanwhile, characterizes the ISPs’ decision to unblock the sites as “shenanigans” and “downright silly.” A decision that he believes will only cost the companies more money.

The court previously ordered other Dutch ISPs to block proxy sites as well and BREIN believes that it will obtain a similar order against Ziggo and XS4ALL in the near future.

“It is clear effective blocking must include proxies and mirrors, the appeal court said so, and the refusal of Ziggo and KPN/XS4ALL to conform to the standing order against the other ISPs is downright silly,” Kuik tells TorrentFreak.

“We are getting a separate order now and are claiming full costs because of these shenanigans that cause harm to injured right holders,” he adds.

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