Chip giant NVIDIA has been one of the main financial beneficiaries in the artificial intelligence boom.

Revenue surged due to high demand for its AI-learning chips and data center services, and the end doesn’t appear to be in sight.

Besides selling the most sought-after hardware, NVIDIA is also developing its own models, including NeMo, Retro-48B, InstructRetro, and Megatron. These are trained using their own hardware and with help from large text libraries, much like other tech giants do.

Authors Sue NVIDIA for Copyright Infringement

Like other tech companies, NVIDIA has also seen significant legal pushback from copyright holders in response to its training methods. This includes authors, who, in various lawsuits, accused tech companies of training their models on pirated books.

In early 2024, for example, several authors sued NVIDIA over alleged copyright infringement.

Through the class action lawsuit, they claimed that the company’s AI models were trained on the Books3 dataset that included copyrighted works taken from the ‘pirate’ site Bibliotik. Since this happened without permission, the authors demanded compensation.

In response, NVIDIA defended its actions as fair use, noting that books are nothing more than statistical correlations to its AI models. However, the allegations didn’t go away. On the contrary, the plaintiffs found more evidence during discovery.

‘NVIDIA Contacted Anna’s Archive’

Last Friday, the authors filed an amended complaint that significantly expands the scope of the lawsuit. In addition to adding more books, authors, and AI models, it also includes broader “shadow library” claims and allegations.

The authors, including Abdi Nazemian, now cite various internal Nvidia emails and documents, suggesting that the company willingly downloaded millions of copyrighted books.

The new complaint alleges that “competitive pressures drove NVIDIA to piracy”, which allegedly included collaborating with the controversial Anna’s Archive library.

According to the amended complaint, a member of Nvidia’s data strategy team reached out to Anna’s Archive to find out what the pirate library could offer the trillion-dollar company

“Desperate for books, NVIDIA contacted Anna’s Archive—the largest and most brazen of the remaining shadow libraries—about acquiring its millions of pirated materials and ‘including Anna’s Archive in pre-training data for our LLMs’,” the complaint notes.

“Because Anna’s Archive charged tens of thousands of dollars for ‘high-speed access’ to its pirated collections […] NVIDIA sought to find out what “high-speed access” to the data would look like.”

Anna’s Archive Points Out Legal ‘Concern’

According to the complaint, Anna’s Archive then warned Nvidia that its library was illegally acquired and maintained. Because the site previously wasted time on other AI companies, the pirate library asked NVIDIA executives if they had internal permission to move forward.

This permission was allegedly granted within a week, after which Anna’s Archive provided the chip giant with access to its pirated books.

“Within a week of contacting Anna’s Archive, and days after being warned by Anna’s Archive of the illegal nature of their collections, NVIDIA management gave ‘the green light’ to proceed with the piracy. Anna’s Archive offered NVIDIA millions of pirated copyrighted books.”

The complaint states that Anna’s Archive promised to provide NVIDIA with access to roughly 500 terabytes of data. This included millions of books that are usually only accessible through Internet Archive’s digital lending system, which itself has been targeted in court.

The complaint does not explicitly mention whether NVIDIA ended up paying Anna’s Archive for access to the data.

Additionally, it’s worth mentioning that NVIDIA also stands accused of using other pirated sources. In addition to the previously included Books3 database, the new complaint also alleges that the company downloaded books from LibGen, Sci-Hub, and Z-Library.

Direct and Vicarious Copyright Infringement

In addition to downloading and using pirated books for its own AI training, the authors allege NVIDIA distributed scripts and tools that allowed its corporate customers to automatically download “The Pile“, which contains the Books3 pirated dataset.

These allegations lead to new claims of vicarious and contributory infringement, alleging that NVIDIA generated revenue from customers by facilitating access to these pirated datasets.

Based on these and other claims, the authors request to be compensated for the damages they suffered. This applies to the named authors, but also to potentially hundreds of others who may later join the class action lawsuit.

As far as we know, this is the first time that correspondence between a major U.S. tech company and Anna’s Archive was revealed in public. This will only raise the profile of the pirate library, which just lost several domain names, even further.

—

A copy of the first consolidated and amended complaint, filed at the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, is available here (pdf). The named authors include Abdi Nazemian, Brian Keene, Stewart O’Nan, Andre Dubus III, and Susan Orlean.

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

It is rare for a “legal threat” made in a news article to actually materialize into a class-action lawsuit years later, but that is precisely what has happened with Brandon Clement and his fellow storm chasers.

Back in 2022, we reported on the “never-ending stream of infringements” these independent videographers were facing on Facebook and Instagram.

At the time, Clement was deeply frustrated with a system where billions of views were being siphoned off by “copyright hijackers”. He warned them that legal action might be needed to force a breakthrough, asking copyright lawyers to reach out.

Fast-forward to January 2026, and that early warning has escalated into a class-action complaint filed in a Texas federal court. The lawsuit accuses Facebook and Instagram’s parent company, Meta Platforms, of various types of copyright infringement.

Meta Fails to Take Down Infringing Videos

Filed by a group of extreme weather videographers, whose content often spreads virally, the complaint alleges that Meta often fails to enforce its own terms, which prohibit copyright infringement.

In this case, the plaintiffs are not referring to an occasional takedown notice that was ignored. The plaintiffs claim to have sent ‘hundreds of thousands’ of notices over the years, and the lawsuit identifies hundreds of specific DMCA requests that Meta allegedly ignored or improperly handled.

“Despite submitting compliant DMCA take-down requests, Meta, for various improper reasons, failed to take-down the unauthorized uses of Plaintiffs’ various works by the Infringing Users,” the complaint reads.

Allegedly, the content that was not removed by Meta could often be linked to popular accounts that presumably earned the social media giant significant revenues.

“Meta, without providing any reasoning, has numerous times incorrectly determined that a conflicting party with millions of followers has ‘won’ a video ownership conflict as to certain videos, which then precludes Plaintiffs from using Rights Manager to locate infringing uses for their copyrighted videos,” the complaint notes.

According to the complaint, Meta temporarily blocked one of the videographers from using its “Rights Manager” takedown tool because they were “misusing this feature by going too fast.

In addition, Meta also allegedly acted as the ‘judge and jury’ by making fair use determinations, often without providing any legal reasoning or an opportunity for the creators to appeal.

One of the videos referenced in the evidence list was shot and copyrighted by Max Olson, covering a 2022 storm surge. A watermarked clip featuring more than two minutes of this footage was posted on Facebook by Ariana News. It remains online today, after Facebook effectively brushed aside the infringement claim by citing fair use.

Information shared with TorrentFreak shows Facebook’s full response below. Despite the length of the clip and the original creator’s watermark, the company claims it is not clear whether the video infringes any copyrights.

Leaked Documents as a Smoking Gun

The complaint lists more than 200 specific instances where Meta allegedly failed to act. In doing so, it also mentions various popular accounts by name, some of which the videographers see as persistent infringers with millions of followers.

To further bolster the allegation that Meta willingly ignores abuse, the complaint cites leaked documents that were reported by Reuters last November. These documents showed that fraudulent advertising was a multi-billion-dollar revenue stream for Meta.

While this is not directly linked to copyright infringement, it reportedly revealed that scams of small advertisers would be shut down after eight warnings, while so-called ‘High Value Accounts’ could accrue more than 500 strikes before Meta would take action.

This allegedly shows that Meta can sometimes prioritize its own profits over protecting the legitimate interests of others. The plaintiffs believe that this also applies to their case.

Infringements and Damages Claims

The plaintiffs accuse Meta of failing to properly respond to DMCA takedown notices, which means that it no longer should be able to claim Safe Harbor protection. In addition, the company’s alleged arbitrary fair use determinations make it liable for direct copyright infringement too.

“Meta has failed to comply with the take-down requirements under the DMCA and its own intellectual property policies regarding repeat infringers, indicating gross negligence in its legal compliance which is essential for a company with Meta’s reach, capabilities, and level of sophistication.”

“Meta’s failure to effectively enforce its own copyright policies indicates de facto willful infringement,” the complaint adds.

The lawsuit includes various claims, including direct copyright infringement, contributory infringement, vicarious infringement, and inducement. The videographers don’t ask for a specific damages amount, but with potential damages of $150,000 per work, this can easily run into the millions of dollars.

Meta has yet to respond formally to the complaint, but it is expected to contest these allegations to the best of its abilities.

—

A copy of the class action complaint, filed this week at the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, is available here (pdf).

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

Anna’s Archive has had its fair share of domain troubles over the past two weeks.

First, the site lost control over its original annas-archive.org domain after the U.S.-based Public Interest Registry (PIR) placed it on serverHold.

PIR typically only takes these kinds of measures based on a court order. However, when we asked for more details, the registry informed us that it was “unable to comment on the situation at this time,” only adding to the mystery.

A few days ago, the domain trouble continued when Anna’s Archive’s .SE domain suddenly became unresponsive after being operational for years. For this domain, the registrar took action, as the site was put on clientHold. While we tried to get additional information from the registrar, our requests remained unanswered.

While it is clear that ‘something’ is going on, it’s not clear what. The troubles started not long after Anna’s Archive announced that it had backed up Spotify, but there is no concrete link to a music industry push against the site.

OCLC Seeks Permanent Injunction

What we do know for certain is that Anna’s Archive’s troubles are not over yet. Yesterday, a federal court in Ohio issued a default judgment and permanent injunction against the site’s unidentified operator(s).

This order was requested by OCLC, which owns the proprietary WorldCat database that was scraped and published by Anna’s Archive more than two years ago. OCLC initially demanded millions of dollars in damages but eventually dropped this request, focusing on taking the site down through an injunction that would also apply to intermediaries.

“Anna’s Archive’s flagrantly illegal actions have damaged and continue to irreparably damage OCLC. As such, issuance of a permanent injunction is necessary to stop any further harm to OCLC,” the request read.

This pivot makes sense since Anna’s Archive did not respond to the lawsuit and would likely ignore all payment demands too. However, with the right type of court order, third-party services such as hosting companies and domain registrars might come along.

Court Grants Default Judgment

The permanent injunction, issued by U.S. District Court Judge Michael Watson yesterday, does not mention any third-party services by name. However, it is directed at all parties that are “in active concert and participation with” Anna’s Archive.

Specifically, the site’s operator and these third parties are prohibited from scraping WorldCat data, storing or distributing the data on Anna’s Archive websites, and encouraging others to store, use or share this data.

Additionally, the site has to delete all WorldCat data, which also includes all torrents.

Judge Watson denied the default judgment for ‘unjust enrichment’ and ‘tortious interference.’ However, he granted the order based on the ‘trespass to chattels’ and ‘breach of contract’ claims.

The latter is particularly noteworthy, as the judge ruled that because Anna’s Archive is a ‘sophisticated party’ that scraped the site daily, it had constructive notice of the terms and entered into a ‘browsewrap‘ agreement simply by using the service.

While these nuances are important for legal experts, the result for Anna’s Archive is that it lost. And while there are no monetary damages, the permanent injunction can certainly have an impact.

More Trouble Ahead?

It is expected that OCLC will use the injunction to motivate third-party intermediaries to take action against Anna’s Archive.

Whether intermediaries are considered in “active concert” with Anna’s Archive will differ based on who you ask. However, OCLC previously said that it intends to “take the
judgment to website hosting services to remove WorldCat data from Anna’s Archive’s websites”.

The injunction that was issued yesterday obviously cannot explain the earlier domain name troubles. That said, it’s not unthinkable that OCLC will also send the injunction to domain registrars and registries, to add further pressure.

—

A copy of the opinion and order issued by U.S. District Court Judge Michael Watson is available here (pdf).

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

Since 2024, the Paris Judicial Court has expanded the typical piracy site blocking orders beyond Internet providers.

Initially, rightsholders set their aim at DNS resolvers. This resulted in orders targeted at Cloudflare, Google, and others, requiring them to actively block access to pirate sites through their public DNS resolvers.

These blocking expansions were requested by sports rights holders, covering Formula 1, football Ligue 1, MotoGP, and other major sporting brands. They claimed that public DNS resolvers could help users to bypass existing ISP blockades, and the court agreed.

Last year, rightsholders cast their net even wider by targeting VPN providers with similar blocking demands. Again, the Paris Court acknowledged the threat of circumvention, ordering CyberGhost, ExpressVPN, NordVPN, ProtonVPN, and Surfshark to start blocking access to specific websites in France.

VPN Blocking Expands

The VPN blocking effort was not a one-off. After the first order was granted in May, more followed in June and July. These additional orders target various sports piracy sites as requested by the French entertainment powerhouse Canal Plus (SECP) and beIN Sports.

After this initial barrage, the blocking activity seemed to have quieted down, but it is far from over. On December 18, the Paris Judicial Court issued a new blocking order. This time around, the French top football league (LFP) and its commercial arm are the requesting parties.

As in previous orders, ProtonVPN, Nordvpn, Cyberghost, Surfshark and ExpressVPN are the main targets. These VPN providers have to block access to several domains that provide access to pirated sports streams.

The order covers 13 initial domains, including miztv.top, strikeout.im, and prosmarterstv.com. However, it is a ‘dynamic’ order in the sense that, through the overseeing body ARCOM, LFP can add new domains in case additional mirrors and proxies are launched. These blocks remain active for the entire 2025/2026 football season.

The court concludes that these VPNs help people to bypass existing site-blocking measures, rendering ISP blocking ineffective. While the VPN blockades are no silver bullet, combined with other blocking measures they should make it more difficult to access these pirate sites.

The No-Log Defense

All VPN providers, except ProtonVPN, appeared in court to argue a defense. They raised various arguments, with the “no-log” defense from Surfshark and NordVPN standing out.

Specifically, the VPNs argued that their “no-log” policy means they do not track user IP addresses or geolocate their users. Therefore, a court order to block access only for French users would violate their contractual obligations.

The court was not very receptive to this argument. Instead, it bluntly concluded that “the contractual stipulations binding VPN service providers to their clients cannot be invoked against [the plaintiffs] who have demonstrated an infringement of their rights.”

The court stressed that blocking the domains does not require the service to permanently store information on its users. The VPNs simply have to make sure that the sites are blocked from France.

In addition, the court rejected the notion that the blocking measures would constitute a “general monitoring obligation”, which is not allowed under the EU’s DSA, because the measures are limited to specific domains and end after the 2025-2026 football season.

Court Rejects Other Defenses

The VPNs also argued that their services don’t qualify as “technical intermediaries” under Article L. 333-10 of the Sports Code, but that was denied by the Paris court as well. The same applies to the proportionality and effectiveness arguments, which all failed.

The court’s logic throughout the order is that technical neutrality does not equal legal immunity.

By citing the DSA and the Sports Code, the judge effectively argues that VPN services can be key intermediaries in the piracy ecosystem. Therefore, they are legally obligated to act.

“Contrary to the assertions of Surfshark and NordVPN, the mere act of serving as a bridge to enable access to the pirate sites fulfills the function of transmission. Even if an intermediary acts in a passive, automatic, and neutral manner during the connection between internet domains, it nonetheless remains an essential agent in the transmission of data from one domain to another,” the (translated) order reads.

What Happens Next?

The latest ruling confirms that VPN providers can be obligated to block pirate sites, at least in France. However, the final word hasn’t been said.

Speaking with TorrentFreak this week, a NordVPN spokesperson confirms that their appeal is already underway. The company did not directly explain how it complies with the court order but instead said that site-blocking measures are futile.

“While it may address superficial cases, it fails to tackle the root causes of piracy. Pirates can easily circumvent these blocks by using subdomains: blocking does not eliminate the content itself or reduce the incentives for piracy,” NordVPN notes.

“Effective piracy control should focus on eliminating the source of the content, targeting hosting providers, cutting off financing for illegal operations, and increasing the availability of legitimate content.”

In addition, NordVPN notes that, since the French order targets reputable VPNs, users may choose lower-quality free VPNs that will remain a loophole for pirates.

For now, however, the targeted VPN providers have to find a way to implement the blocking order. The court order doesn’t specify any technical measures, so they are free to do as they please, as long as the targeted sites are unavailable.

If the French VPN blockades are ultimately upheld, some providers may choose to leave the country entirely, but none have made this drastic step yet.

—

1. miztv.top
2. strikeout.im
3. qatarstreams.me
4. iptvfrancai.com
5. vip.kata17.xyz
6. iptv-france4k.fr
7. front-main.4k-drm.com
8. prosmarterstv.com
9. line.line-dino.com
10. iptvninja.fr
11. cdnhome.pro
12. elitetv.fr
13. smatest.xyz

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

The battle against online piracy takes place on many fronts.

In addition to tackling infringing content at the source, copyright holders are increasingly focused on the platforms where these services are advertised and promoted.

These advertisements increase the exposure of illegal services, including pirate IPTV subscriptions. Additionally, advertisements on mainstream sites and platforms can give the impression that these pirate services are legitimate deals.

A Groupon IPTV Deal?

Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN is one of the organizations that scours the web for these types of pirate ads. This includes monitoring the traditional advertising platforms such as Google, but also indirect promotion hubs such as Groupon.

Groupon offers its users a wide variety of deals, and BREIN recently spotted one for an IPTV service that was too good to be true. BREIN reported its findings to Groupon, which took “almost immediate” action, according to the anti-piracy group.

BREIN does not name the IPTV service, but the only Dutch IPTV-related advertisement we see on Groupon is for OpliTV. This now-removed deal offered a 32% discount on top of an already extremely cheap annual plan.

Needless to say, these types of services have serious drawbacks. They may be linked to criminal activity and can be pulled offline at any minute, for example, which may also make them rather expensive in hindsight.

Trusted Flagger

BREIN is pleased with Groupon’s swift action, noting that this is essential to stop promotions for these types of services.

“It is crucial that online infringements are stopped quickly to prevent irreparable damage. This is especially true for well-known, legal platforms where consumers can be confused about the legality of the offering,” BREIN notes.

Interestingly, BREIN suggests that its status as “trusted flagger” under the EU Digital Services Act helps to get intermediaries to act quickly.

“This swift action underscores the importance of the BREIN Foundation’s status as a ‘Trusted Flagger,’ which requires intermediaries to take action as a matter of priority,” the anti-piracy group writes.

BREIN officially received the trusted flagger status last September which raised its profile. According to BREIN Director Bastiaan van Ramshorst, this immediately made a difference.

Speaking with TorrentFreak, Van Ramshorst says that intermediaries such as Groupon now treat BREIN as a trusted party, which typically means that takedown notices are handled with priority, as the IPTV example shows.

The rapid takedown does not prevent similar deals from showing up at Groupon, however. While writing this article, we spotted a deal for another dirt-cheap IPTV service that offers access to 29,000+ channels. According to Groupon, this ‘hot’ deal has been sold more than 1,000 times already.

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

Formerly known as Mindgeek, Aylo is the driving force behind free ‘tube’ sites such as Pornhub, YouPorn, and RedTube. It also owns many adult brands, including Brazzers and Reality Kings, that charge for subscriptions.

The company controls an impressive library of more than 40,000 registered copyrighted works. When this content appears on third-party sites, it doesn’t hesitate to take legal action.

Last summer, for example, Aylo Premium sued the operators of PornXP, who were initially identified as “John Does.” As the case moved forward, Aylo pinpointed the alleged operator, Alex Abdullaev, in Kyrgyzstan. However, when Aylo sent someone to personally serve their suspect in the Central Asian country, no one answered the door.

Without a formal response from the defendant, Aylo eventually requested a default judgment at the U.S. District Court in Tacoma, Washington. According to Aylo, the pirate site network cost them over $172 million per month in potential lost subscriptions, based on PornXP’s 17 million monthly visitors.

In an attempt to recoup part of the damage, the adult entertainment company requested $15,000 in damages for each of the 2,040 infringing works, totaling more than $30 million.

Court Grants $10m and Domain Seizures

In an order issued last month, U.S. District Court Judge Benjamin Settle issued a default judgment in favor of Aylo. While the Kyrgyzstani operator is held liable, the court reduced the requested damages by a third, to a little over $10 million.

“Aylo has demonstrated Abdullaev willfully infringed its copyrighted works and a statutory damages award is warranted and required. However, the Court in its discretion declines to award Aylo the $30.6 million it requests,” Judge Settle writes.

“The Court finds that only a fraction of the visitors would have paid for Aylo’s services. In its discretion and in the interests of justice, the Court will award $5,000 for each of the 2,040 offending works, totaling $10,200,000,” the order adds.

In these types of cases it is highly unlikely that the defendant will pay anything. More important, perhaps, is the domain seizure order that was also granted by Judge Settle. Specifically, the order specifies that registries have to disable and transfer the PornXP domains.

Porkbun Does Not (Have to) Comply

At first glance, it appeared that the order allowed Aylo to seize control of the PornXP domains. However, Aylo’s enforcement arm immediately ran into trouble when it asked the American domain registrar Porkbun to comply.

On December 19, Aylo’s attorney, Ethan Jacobs, asked Porkbun to transfer a dozen domain names, including pornxp.click, pornxp.club, pornxp.download, pornxp.lat, pornxp.one, and pornxp.pics. However, that didn’t go as planned, as Porkbun refused to comply.

In a response to Aylo, the company argued that the court’s order only commanded “registries” (which manage the domains) to disable and transfer the domains, not “registrars”, which are the companies that sell these domain names.

This distinction is more than just semantics. In the Internet ecosystem, registries and registrars have different technical capabilities and legal obligations. By specifically naming registries in the permanent injunction, registrars such as Porkbun are not required to comply.

Aylo Requests Amended Court Order

For Aylo, it is key that domain registrars are covered. Many of these companies, such as Porkbun, Namesilo, and GoDaddy, are based in the U.S. and directly subject to the court’s jurisdiction. The same doesn’t automatically apply to foreign domain registries, which may not comply with American court orders.

In response to Porkbun’s refusal, Aylo filed an ex parte motion last Friday, asking the court to amend the order to explicitly include the “registrars”. This would compel Porkbun to disable the PornXP domains. Yesterday, this amended order was signed by Judge Settle.

The updated injunction now outlines a specific technical process and names the registrars and registries. For example, it requires registrars like Porkbun, NameSilo, and Spaceship to change the registrar of record to EuroDNS, which will then move the domains into Aylo’s name.

For now, most of the roughly three-dozen PornXP domains listed in the legal paperwork remain active, either directly or through a redirect. That includes the Porkbun-linked domains, which will likely go offline soon after the registrar processes the amended order.

Interestingly, several domains that are linked to foreign domain registries remain online too. For example, PornXP’s .eu domain is managed by EURid which is linked to the European Commission, while the .me domain is sponsored by the Government of Montenegro. This suggests that these foreign entities
have not complied with the original injunction either. Whether that will change now that they are directly named has yet to be seen.

The American registries Verisign (.com) and the Public Interest Registry (.org) did comply with the injunction, however.

This isn’t Aylo’s first legal go-around. The company followed a nearly identical playbook in its previous battles against Goodporn and Daftsex, securing judgments of $2.1 million and $32 million, respectively. These sites also proved to be rather difficult to shut down, and their remnants can still be found online.

—

A copy of the initial court order issued by U.S. District Court Judge Benjamin Settle is available here (pdf). The amended judgment can be found here (pdf).

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

Pirate sites and services can be a real challenge for rightsholders to deal with. In India, however, recent court orders have proven to be quite effective.

Indian courts have issued pirate site blocking orders for over a decade. Initially, these orders were relatively basic, requiring local Internet providers to block specific domain names.

Super Dynamic++ Anti-Hydra Injunctions

These regular injunctions were only partially effective. After the High Court granted a blocking injunction, pirate sites would often switch to new domains, requiring rightsholders to return to court to get these blocked as well.

To deal with this problem, the dynamic injunction was invented. These orders were issued to more effectively deny access to content made available on pirate sites. ISPs were not only required to block original domains but also any clones and mirror sites that surfaced after the order was signed.

When dynamic injunctions were no longer sufficient to slay the piracy hydra, rightsholders suggested upgrading the Indian blocking regime with Dynamic ++ injunctions. These orders also protect copyrighted content that has yet to be registered.

In addition, Dynamic++ orders and their ‘superlative‘ variant also include domain name registrars as defendants. This includes blocking orders targeted at U.S. domain registrars.

Hollywood Targets U.S. Companies Through India

The ability to target domain name registrants proved to be a game changer. Over the past two years, it allowed rightsholders to disable domains of various prominent pirate sites, some with dozens of millions of visitors. While these sites could simply register new domains, the legal efforts certainly affected their operation.

For this reason, it is no surprise to see that several American movie industry players have ramped up their enforcement actions in India, targeting hundreds of domains at a time. And since these orders effectively suspend domains at various domain name registrars, new requests keep coming in.

As reported by Verdictum a few days ago, the High Court in New Delhi issued a new blocking injunction on December 18, targeting more than 150 pirate site domains, including yflix.to, animesuge.bz, bs.to, and many others.

The complaint is filed by Warner Bros., Apple, Crunchyroll, Disney, and Netflix, which are all connected to the MPA’s anti-piracy arm, ACE. The referenced works include some of the most pirated titles, such as Stranger Things, Squid Game, and Silo.

Global Kill Switch Fails

In addition to targeting Indian ISPs, the order also lists various domain name registries and related organizations as defendants. This includes American registrars such as Namecheap and GoDaddy, but also the government of the Kingdom of Tonga, which is linked to .to domains.

By requiring domain name registrars to take action, the Indian court orders have a global impact.

In addition to suspending the domain names within three days days, the domain name registrars are given four weeks to disclose the relevant subscriber information connected to these domains.

“[The registrars] shall lock and suspend Defendant Nos. 1 to 47 websites within 72 hours of being communicated with a copy of this Order and shall file all the Basic Subscriber Information, including the name, address, contact information, email addresses, bank details, IP logs, and any other relevant information […] within four weeks of being communicated with a copy of this Order,” the High Court wrote.

Not All Domain ‘Registrars’ Comply

While the “Dynamic+” injunction is designed to be a global kill switch, its effectiveness depends entirely on the cooperation of the domain name registrars. Since most of these are based outside of India, their compliance is not guaranteed.

By now, the 72-hour deadline to comply has long passed, so we can effectively see which registrars have taken action and which ones haven’t.

According to our analysis, it appears that most domain names have not been suspended. These pirate sites domains continue to be accessible today. Some continue running from their original domains, while others redirect to new ones, suggesting that they remain controlling their original owners.

This includes domains that are linked to Namecheap, Tucows, GoDaddy, NameSilo, Dynadot, OVH and others. The government of the Kingdom of Tonga did not comply with the Indian court order either.

As far as we can see, domains linked to the American registrar Porkbun, the UK-based WHG Hosting services, and the Lithuanian registrar Hostinger were fully suspended. Registrar.eu also put some domains on clientHold, and the one that remains accessible (animesuge.bz) is linked to Namecheap now.

It’s not unprecedented for foreign companies, including American ones, not to comply with Indian court orders. However, in this case, it is worth noting that Namecheap previously appeared to comply with similar orders from the Delhi High Court.

The non-compliance must come as a disappointment to Netflix, Warner Bros. and the others. However, they will likely be back in court for more blocking and suspension orders soon enough.

All in all, it is clear that India’s High Court has a streamlined process in place that effectively orders local ISPs to block pirate sites. However, the intended global reach seems to be restricted to a few registrars, for now.

—

A copy of the High Court order, issued on December 18, 2025, by Justice Tejas Karia, is available here (pdf). The court order includes 163 unique domain names, some of which are not linked to a registrar. An overview of the 125 domains that are linked to targeted registrars and related entities is provided below. .

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

The legal battle between X Corp. and the music industry has just escalated from a straightforward copyright lawsuit into a full-blown antitrust war.

The dispute started in 2023, with various music publishers accusing X of ‘breeding’ mass copyright infringement, and appeared to steer toward a settlement last summer.

X Sues Music Publishers

That settlement never came. Instead, the legal battle motivated X to gather sufficient evidence for a counterstrike, where many key industry companies and music publishers are accused of a conspiracy to weaponize the DMCA.

In a scathing 53-page complaint filed in the Northern District of Texas today, X Corp. is suing the National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA) and a coalition of major music publishers, including Sony, Universal, and Warner Chappell, for alleged violations of the Sherman Antitrust Act.

The lawsuit essentially argues that the NMPA didn’t send thousands of DMCA takedown notices to protect artist rights. Instead, X claims the notices were used as an “extortionate campaign” to motivate X into paying “supracompetitive” licensing fees.

“As part of this conspiracy, Defendants weaponized the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (the “DMCA”) against X, using the DMCA as a pretext for their extortionate campaign,” the complaint reads.

Weaponize the DMCA

The core of X’s argument is that the NMPA and many its members allegedly agreed not to make individual deals with the platform. Instead of negotiating separate licenses, X alleges the industry colluded to get a much better price.

According to the complaint, NMPA President David Israelite emailed X in October 2021 (when it was still Twitter), threatening a “massive program” of DMCA notices on a scale “larger than any previous effort in DMCA history” if X did not agree to a partnership.

When X refused to sign a deal, the floodgates opened. X claims that starting in December 2021, the NMPA began sending weekly notices identifying thousands of posts. In the first year alone, these notices targeted over 200,000 posts. Since the scheme began, the campaign has resulted in the suspension of more than 50,000 users.

X describes this as a “weaponization” of the DMCA, aimed not at curbing piracy, but at hurting X’s business by targeting its “most popular users”.

Allegations of Hypocrisy

Perhaps the most colorful allegations in the new complaint focus on the NMPA’s supposed hypocrisy. X argues that, while the NMPA was demanding the removal of fan-made content, its own executives were posting the exact same material.

The complaint cites an instance where an NMPA Senior Vice President reposted a “remix” video by a user known as “KylePlantEmoji,” which featured copyrighted songs by Nelly and Papa Roach.

“The NMPA lawyer did not report this post as infringing a copyright. Quite the opposite: the lawyer supported the video by reposting it on her own feed,” the complaint notes.

In another example, X points to a takedown notice issued for a video of a high school sports award ceremony. The video was flagged because of brief background music played while a student walked on stage to accept an award.

“Although there is no reasonable basis for censoring this video focused on a high school athlete’s achievement based on the de minimis, non-commercial use of background music in the video, X had to take it down because of Defendants’ scheme,” the complaint notes.

The Majors Joined the “Conspiracy”

X’s lawsuit also explains how the major music publishers, Universal, Sony, and Warner Chappell, allegedly joined the conspiracy later. Initially, these labels were not part of the NMPA’s takedown blitz.

However, X claims that the publishers eventually joined when their desired licensing deals did not come to fruition.

With this antitrust action, X is seeking damages and a permanent injunction to stop the alleged anticompetitive conduct. With claims for civil conspiracy, unfair competition, and attempted monopolization, among others, this is a high-stakes case.

—-

The full complaint filed today by X Corp. at a federal court in the Northern District of Texas is available here (pdf).

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

Launched in 2024, Italy’s elaborate ‘Piracy Shield‘ blocking scheme was billed as the future of anti-piracy efforts.

To effectively tackle live sports piracy, its broad blocking powers aim to block piracy-related domain names and IP addresses within 30 minutes.

While many pirate sources have indeed been blocked, the Piracy Shield is not without controversy. There have been multiple reports of overblocking, where the anti-piracy system blocked access to legitimate sites and services.

Many of these overblocking instances involved the American Internet infrastructure company Cloudflare, which has been particularly critical of Italy’s Piracy Shield. In addition to protesting the measures in public, Cloudflare allegedly refused to filter pirate sites through its public 1.1.1.1 DNS.

1.1.1.1: Too Big to Block?

This refusal prompted an investigation by AGCOM, which now concluded that Cloudflare openly violated its legal requirements in the country. Following an amendment, the Piracy Shield also requires DNS providers and VPNs to block websites.

The dispute centers specifically on the refusal to comply with AGCOM Order 49/25/CONS, which was issued in February 2025. The order required Cloudflare to block DNS resolution and traffic to a list of domains and IP addresses linked to copyright infringement.

Cloudflare reportedly refused to enforce these blocking requirements through its public DNS resolver. Among other things, Cloudflare countered that filtering its DNS would be unreasonable and disproportionate.

The company warned that doing so would affect billions of daily queries and have an “extremely negative impact on latency,” slowing down the service for legitimate users worldwide.

AGCOM was unmoved by this “too big to block” argument.

The regulator countered that Cloudflare has all the technological expertise and resources to implement the blocking measures. AGCOM argued the company is known for its complex traffic management and rejected the suggestion that complying with the blocking order would break its service.

€14,247,698 Fine

After weighing all arguments, AGCOM imposed a €14,247,698 (USD $16.7m) fine against Cloudflare, concluding that the company failed to comply with the required anti-piracy measures. The fine represents 1% of the company’s global revenue, where the law allows for a maximum of 2%.

According to AGCOM, this is the first fine of this type, both in scope and size. This is fitting, as the regulator argued that Cloudflare plays a central role.

“The measure, in addition to being one of the first financial penalties imposed in the copyright sector, is particularly significant given the role played by Cloudflare” AGCOM notes, adding that Cloudflare is linked to roughly 70% of the pirate sites targeted under its regime.

In its detailed analysis, the regulator further highlighted that Cloudflare’s cooperation is “essential” for the enforcement of Italian anti-piracy laws, as its services allow pirate sites to evade standard blocking measures.

What’s Next?

Cloudflare has strongly contested the accusations throughout AGCOM’s proceedings and previously criticized the Piracy Shield system for lacking transparency and due process.

While the company did not immediately respond to our request for comment, it will almost certainly appeal the fine. This appeal may also draw the interest of other public DNS resolvers, such as Google and OpenDNS.

AGCOM, meanwhile, says that it remains fully committed to enforcing the local piracy law. The regulator notes that since the Piracy Shield started in February 2024, 65,000 domain names and 14,000 IP addresses were blocked.

—

A copy of AGCOM’s detailed analysis and the associated order (N. 333/25/CONS) available here (pdf).

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

The frontline of online piracy liability keeps moving, and core internet infrastructure providers are increasingly finding themselves in the crosshairs.

Since 2024, the Paris Judicial Court has ordered Cloudflare, Google and other intermediaries to actively block access to pirate sites through their DNS resolvers, confirming that third-party intermediaries can be required to take responsibility.

These blockades are requested by sports rights holders, covering Formula 1, football, and MotoGP, among others. They argue that public DNS resolvers help users to bypass existing ISP blockades, so these intermediaries should be ordered to block domains too.

Google DNS Blocks Expand

These blocking efforts didn’t stop. After the first blocking requests were granted, the Paris Court issued various additional blocking orders. Most recently, Google was compelled to take action following a complaint from French broadcaster Canal+ and its subsidiaries regarding Champions League piracy..

Like previous blocking cases, the request is grounded in Article L. 333-10 of the French Sports Code, which enables rightsholders to seek court orders against any entity that can help to stop ‘serious and repeated’ sports piracy.

After reviewing the evidence and hearing arguments from both sides, the Paris Court granted the blocking request, ordering Google to block nineteen domain names, including antenashop.site, daddylive3.com, livetv860.me, streamysport.org and vavoo.to.

The latest blocking order covers the entire 2025/2026 Champions League series, which ends on May 30, 2026. It’s a dynamic order too, which means that if these sites switch to new domains, as verified by ARCOM, these have to be blocked as well.

Cloudflare-First Defense Fails

Google objected to the blocking request. Among other things, it argued that several domains were linked to Cloudflare’s CDN. Therefore, suspending the sites on the CDN level would be more effective, as that would render them inaccessible.

Based on the subsidiarity principle, Google argued that blocking measures should only be ordered if attempts to block the pirate sites through more direct means have failed.

The court dismissed these arguments, noting that intermediaries cannot dictate the enforcement strategy or blocking order. Intermediaries cannot require “prior steps” against other technical intermediaries, especially given the “irremediable” character of live sports piracy.

The judge found the block proportional because Google remains free to choose the technical method, even if the result is mandated. Internet providers, search engines, CDNs, and DNS resolvers can all be required to block, irrespective of what other measures were taken previously.

Proportional

Google further argued that the blocking measures were disproportionate because they were complex, costly, easily bypassed, and had effects beyond the borders of France.

The Paris court rejected these claims. It argued that Google failed to demonstrate that implementing these blocking measures would result in “important costs” or technical impossibilities.

Additionally, the court recognized that there would still be options for people to bypass these blocking measures. However, the blocks are a necessary step to “completely cease” the infringing activities.

The ruling further solidifies France’s position as a pioneer in aggressive, real-time anti-piracy enforcement. Over the past two years, the court has systematically rejected defenses from Google and other DNS resolvers. While further appeals may be underway, the Paris Judicial Court clearly sees an anti-piracy role for all intermediaries.

—

1. antenashop.site
2. antenawest.store
3. daddylive3.com
4. hesgoal-tv.me
5. livetv860.me
6. streamysport.org
7. vavoo.to
8. witv.soccer
9. veplay.top
10. jxoxkplay.xyz
11. andrenalynrushplay.cfd
12. marbleagree.net
13. emb.apl375.me
14. hornpot.net
15. td3wb1bchdvsahp.ngolpdkyoctjcddxshli469r.org
16. ott-premium.com
17. rex43.premium-ott.xyz
18. smartersiptvpro.fr
19. eta.play-cdn.vip:80

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

First released in February 2003, Multi Theft Auto (MTA) is an unofficial multiplayer mod for several popular Grand Theft Auto games, starting with GTA III.

MTA does not rely on copyright-infringing code, the developers stress, as it works by code injection that hooks into an officially purchased copy of GTA.

The GitHub Takedown

With this setup, MTA managed to avoid any serious backlash from the GTA creator Take-Two Interactive. That is, until the game company purportedly sent a DMCA takedown notice to developer platform GitHub, where MTA’s main repository, ‘mtasa-blue‘ is hosted.

The DMCA notice alleged that the MTA repository included leaked source code and requested it to be removed in full.

“We are writing to submit a takedown request regarding a leaked source code hosted on GitHub that infringes on our copyrights. The infringer is sharing the leaked source code, on the [mtasa-blue] repository,” the notice read.

GitHub received the DMCA takedown request in early December, and, soon after, the MTA repository was indeed made inaccessible on the platform.

The notice took MTA’s developers by surprise. In their Discord channel, they suggested that it might be fake, especially since the entire repository was targeted, without pointing out any concrete leaked or infringing code. Additionally, the sender also ‘forgot’ to target the repo’s forks, which is unusual.

GTA Files Counternotice

The MTA developers didn’t sit idly by. On December 22, they filed their formal counter-notice requesting GitHub to reinstate their repository, denying any copyright infringement claims. Instead, they explain that their mod hooks into the official GTA game.

“The repository referenced contains only original, independently developed source code and supporting materials created by contributors to the project. It does not include, reproduce, or distribute any copyrighted assets, source code, or proprietary files from the original game or its publisher.”

“The software operates by interacting at runtime with a lawfully installed, user-supplied copy of the original game. No copyrighted game content is extracted, copied, redistributed, or included within this repository,” the counternotice adds.

Filing a formal counternotice is a serious step. Under the DMCA, this requires GitHub to restore the repository within a window of 10 to 14 business days, unless the takedown sender files a formal court action. In other words, it was an invitation for Take-Two to take legal action if they indeed wanted the repository offline.

MTA Repository Restored

Apparently, Take-Two did not feel the need to follow-up on and earlier this week, the repository was fully restored.

The comeback doesn’t mean that GitHub made a legal determination. Without a court order from Take-Two to keep the content offline, GitHub had to respond as its hands were legally tied by the DMCA.

When we reached out to GitHub, they declined to comment on the specific decision, including the authenticity of the original takedown. Instead, GitHub stated that they “reviewed and processed the notices in accordance with our DMCA Takedown Policy.”

In the hopes of getting additional information and commentary, TorrentFreak also reached out to Take-Two Interactive and a MTA developer. Unfortunately, however, neither responded before our deadline.

What’s Next?

While the restoration can be seen as a ‘win’ for MTA, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the result is final. If Take-Two was indeed behind the DMCA notice, it could still choose to take legal action later. This is also what happened to the ‘re3’ and ‘reVC’ repositories previously.

These reverse-engineered GTA mods were restored following a counternotice. However, they eventually were taken down again a few months later, when Take-Two sued the developers in U.S. court.

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

Anna’s Archive is a meta-search engine for shadow libraries that allows users to find pirated books and other related sources.

The site launched in the fall of 2022, just days after Z-Library was targeted in a U.S. criminal crackdown, to ensure continued availability of ‘free’ books and articles to the broader public.

The site also actively provides assistance to AI researchers who want to use its library for model training. More recently, Anna’s Archive announced it had created a massive 300TB backup of Spotify, which it is slowly releasing to the public at large.

Since its launch, Anna’s Archive has also received pushback from rightsholders. The site has been blocked in various countries, and was sued in the U.S. after it scraped WorldCat.

Despite this legal pressure, the main annas-archive.org domain name remained operational, until it didn’t.

Anna’s .ORG Domain Suspended

A few hours ago, the site’s original domain name suddenly became unreachable globally. The annas-archive.org domain status was changed to “serverHold,” which is typically done by the domain registry. This status effectively means that the domain is suspended and under investigation. Similar action has previously been taken against other pirate sites.

It is rare to see a .org domain involved in domain name suspensions. The American non-profit Public Interest Registry (PIR), which oversees the .org domains, previously refused to suspend domain names voluntarily, including thepiratebay.org. The registry’s cautionary stance suggests that the actions against annas-archive.org are backed by a court order.

TorrentFreak asked PIR for a comment on their supposed involvement in the domain suspension, hoping to find out more about the legal grounds, but the organization did not immediately reply.

Update: PIR’s marketing director, Kendal Rowe, informs TorrentFreak that “unfortunately, PIR is unable to comment on the situation at this time.”

It is possible that, in response to the ‘DRM-circumventing’ Spotify backup, rightsholders requested an injunction targeting the domain name. However, we have seen no evidence of that. In the WorldCat lawsuit, OCLC requested an injunction to force action from intermediaries, including domain registries, but as far as we know, that hasn’t been granted yet.

Anna’s Archive Remains Resilient

This is not the first time Anna’s Archive has lost a domain name. The site previously moved from its .org domain to a .GS domain, anticipating a domain seizure in the WorldCat case.

Ironically, this move resulted in a swift suspension by the .GS registry, after which Anna’s Archive returned to its .org domain.

On Reddit, Anna’s Archive explains that the recent suspension is a mere hiccup too, pointing users to alternative domains.

“The .org domain apparently has been suspended. Our other domains work fine, and we’ve added some more. We recommend checking our Wikipedia page for the latest domains. This unfortunately happens to shadow libraries on a regular basis. ”

“We don’t believe this has to do with our Spotify backup,” AnnaArchivist adds.

At the time of writing, the site is indeed still operational from the older .li and .se domains, as well as the .in and .pm variants that were just added. However, with legal pressure mounting, there are no guarantees that these domains remain operational.

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

In the summer of 2015, the then 29-year-old Priyank Pardeshi was arrested by the police in Pune, a large city in western India.

The authorities and rightsholders saw Priyank as a kingpin in the local piracy scene, and these allegations were widely repeated by many news sites at the time.

Priyank was certainly not a typical pirate site operator. He worked at IBM in California. However, during a work-related visit to his home country, he was suddenly arrested, after investigators found pirated movies on his system while they were collecting evidence in an unrelated matter.

TellyTorrents and Camcording

In addition to Priyank, the authorities also accused two others of being involved in the scheme, which also involved the popular torrent tracker TellyTorrents. This site was a high-profile target, as it was one of the prime locations where the Bollywood blockbuster Bahubali had leaked online.

The case seemed fairly straightforward too. According to the police, the alleged piracy kingpin confessed to running TellyTorrents, earning huge sums in revenue, and storing 1,243 pirated movies. Not just that, he allegedly also revealed that they were involved in camcording films in local theaters for subsequent pirate releases.

These revelations were also shared publicly in the media, to give the case additional weight.

“Priyank revealed that Rahul Mehta of Delhi and Toni of Ghaziabad used to shoot films from cinemas and multiplexes and would prepare their pirated movies. They used to supply it to Jabalpur and many cities across the country and even in Australia and France.”

The Case Collapses (After 10 years…)

Priyank spent 311 days in custody before he was released on bail. While the prosecution seemed convinced that they had a case, it completely fell apart in court a few weeks ago, when a judicial magistrate in Jabalpur fully acquitted the lead defendant and two co-accused due to a lack of evidence.

In a detailed judgment, Magistrate Kishan Dev Singh Patel dismantled the prosecution’s case, revealing that the police investigation was almost entirely devoid of technical evidence.

Despite the serious charges under the Copyright Act and IT Act, the court noted that:

– No Forensics: The police seized computers, laptops, and hard drives but failed to send any items to a forensic lab for analysis. There was no independent verification that the files on the devices were actually pirated movies.

– No Money Trail: Despite claims that “huge profits” were made, the prosecution did not produce a single bank statement or transaction record linking Priyank to the website’s revenue.

– No Domain Link: The police failed to provide any documents to prove that Priyank purchased or owned the TellyTorrents domain name or that he paid for the servers in question.

“There are no documents on record to show that the illegal website TellyTorrents was created/operated by Priyank Pardeshi,” the judgment reads, leaving no other option than to dismiss the claims.

The prosecution relied heavily on testimony from representatives of the Telugu Film Chamber of Commerce in Hyderabad, who acted as expert witnesses. In court, however, these witnesses admitted that there is no hard evidence that Priyank pirated movies or that he operated TellyTorrents.

A Systemic Failure

According to Kartik Sharma, an analyst at the renowned law blog SpicyIP, this acquittal is not an outlier but part of a pattern where Indian law enforcement fails to meet the basic standards of digital evidence.

“The crux of why the acquittal happened is quite evident,” Sharma informs TorrentFreak. “The witnesses from the Telugu Film Chamber acknowledged that they had not seen the accused uploading the pirated movies to the website.”

“Also, there was no testing done by an authorized official agency or lab to establish that the alleged content was pirated.”

Sharma notes that similar lapses have led to acquittals in other high-profile piracy cases, such as State v. Bhushan Kumar in Delhi, where police failed to compare seized VCDs with original copyrighted material.

The weak evidence in these cases, including a lack of digital forensics, is ultimately what leads to a full acquittal of the defendants. However, by then, most of the personal damage is already done.

The Human Cost

While the “kingpin” narrative has been dismantled by the recent court verdict, the decade-long process has taken its toll. Speaking with TorrentFreak, Priyank highlights the human cost.

“I was unable to work for the last 10 years because after I came out of jail, people looked at me like a big criminal,” he says.

“No company would hire me because, during background verification, they could see that a criminal case was pending against me. Other people stopped seeing me as a good person. Even getting married was difficult.”

The other defendants will have similar stories that they will carry with them for the rest of their lives. In this light, it is particularly confronting that one of the co-accused, Dilip Gulwani, passed away while the trial was still ongoing.

A Living Hell

Looking back, the now 40-year-old Priyank feels as if he has been framed, and he’s considering fighting back legally to recoup some of the damages.

Priyank was no stranger to TellyTorrents but notes that his involvement with pirate sites was limited to installing a forum and setting up a website. The earlier-mentioned ‘confession’ was coerced, he alleges.

All in all, the whole experience was traumatizing. While Priyank had no sympathy for the anti-piracy forces that ruined his life, he would caution pirates to reconsider their options. If caught, Bollywood can turn lives into a living hell.

Priyank hopes to continue his life now. He started a family and earns enough to pay the bills. However, he believes that his career would have been much more successful if the criminal piracy prosecution was never started.

iBomma: The New Piracy Kingpin

Interestingly, as the TellyTorrents case concluded, a new alleged Indian piracy ‘kingpin’ was caught. On November 15, the Hyderabad Cyber Crime Police arrested Immadi Ravi as the suspected mastermind behind the popular pirate streaming platform iBomma.

This high-profile takedown occurred shortly after the theatrical release of Baahubali: The Epic (a remastered combination of the film franchise). The original Baahubali film, meanwhile, was at the center of the TellyTorrents case exactly ten years prior.

Notably, the film’s director, S.S. Rajamouli, has also gotten actively involved in the iBomma case and openly thanks the police for their hard work.

As with TellyTorrents at the time, the piracy allegations against Ravi are widely echoed in the press, ranging from a lavish lifestyle financed by millions of dollars in piracy proceeds to forged identity papers. While these could all be true, the TellyTorrents case shows that caution is warranted.

That brings us to the final point of interest, or a lack thereof. While most Indian media is widely reporting on all new allegations in the iBomma case, the acquittal of the criminal defendants in the TellyTorrents case does not get a single mention.

—

A copy of the original TellyTorrents court order, issued by Magistrate Kishan Dev Singh Patel and acquitting all defendants, is available here (pdf).

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

In Belgium, the Department for Combating Online Infringement is responsible for overseeing the local pirate site blocking efforts.

The department reviews injunctions from the Business Court in Brussels and translates these into concrete blockade implementation orders.

The first blockade of this kind was announced in April 2025 and predominantly targeted sports streaming websites. Notably, however, these blocking requirements were not limited to ISPs; they also compelled DNS resolvers to comply.

These DNS resolvers, including Google and Cloudflare, were not pleased, and Cisco’s OpenDNS even went as far as stopping its service in Belgium to avoid having to meddle with DNS. This backlash apparently struck a nerve, as OpenDNS has since resumed its activities in Belgium as the case is under appeal.

U.S. Movie Giants Behind New Blocking Push

Meanwhile, other rightsholders joined in, with various book publishers securing a blocking order against shadow libraries last August. In late November, this was followed by a new blocking order targeting various movie piracy sites, such as 1337x and Soap2day.

Interestingly, this order is rather limited in its scope. Instead of casting a wide net, it strictly targets Belgium’s five major Internet Service Providers: Proximus, Telenet, Orange Belgium, DIGI Communications Belgium, and Mobile Vikings.

While the targeted ISPs and the blocked sites were listed in the implementation order, the requesting rightsholders were not mentioned.

However, after the Belgian government responded to our transparency request just before Christmas, we can now reveal that familiar names are behind the latest site-blocking campaign.

The underlying order from the French-speaking Business Court in Brussels lists a coalition of major studios: Disney, Netflix, Sony, Paramount, Universal, and Warner Bros. These companies, all members of the Motion Picture Association (MPA), are joined by another video entertainment giant: Apple.

The MPA has been a driving force behind site-blocking efforts around the world, so it is no surprise to see this activity in Belgium too. However, that doesn’t make the order any less interesting.

Ten Pirate Brands

While we now have access to the underlying order, the formal list of URLs (Annex 1) will remain confidential. The same is true for Annex 2.b., the official list of the ten pirate names or brands.

“In addition to the list of ‘target sites’ provided in Annex 1 of their application, the applicants also submit an Annex 2.a., classified as confidential, in which the applicants explain the phenomenon of pirate brands, before providing, in Annex 2.b, a list of 10 names,” the translated order reads.

These brands are important because the court order mandates that any future sites using this name or branding are also eligible for a spot on the blocklist.

While this list remains confidential, Belgium’s piracy blocklist is transparently published online. This includes the recently blocked URLs, from which it is not difficult to compile the likely list of blocked pirate brands. These include 1337x, Fmovies, Soap2day, Sflix, FlixHQ, Papadustream, French-Stream, Coflix and Wiflix.

American DNS Questions

The underlying court order further confirms that these heavyweight movie studios did not include any third-party DNS providers (like Google or Cloudflare) in their list of intermediaries. Whether this is motivated by the ongoing appeal in other Belgian blocking cases or a strategic shift remains unknown.

It appears that, for now, the movie companies currently prefer a more targeted approach, focusing exclusively on major Internet Service Providers.

Depending on the motivation, this choice can have implications beyond Belgium. In the United States, rightsholders, including these same movie studios, continue to push for site-blocking legislation, which they hope to see implemented this year. Thus far, we have seen proposed site-blocking bills with and without DNS resolvers, so it can go either way.

—

A copy of the order (RR/25/00092) from the French-speaking Business Court of Brussels is available with minor redactions of personal information here (pdf).

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

As the most prolific copyright litigant in the United States for several years in a row, Strike 3 Holdings has a name to keep up.

The porn producer is known for filing lawsuits against alleged pirates who download their ‘Milfy,’ ‘Tushy,’ and ‘Vixen’ videos via BitTorrent sites.

Strike 3 monitors pirate sites, and, when their videos are shared in public, it takes decisive action. After tracking down the pirating IP-addresses, it typically files a federal lawsuit, requesting a subpoena to obtain the subscriber’s details.

Once the target is identified, the case can then move forward. While these cases can technically go to trial, they typically result in out-of-court settlements of a few thousand dollars. It’s unknown how profitable these cases are, but the fact that Strike 3 files thousands a year suggests that the business model remains lucrative.

Record: 4,088 Lawsuits in 2025

Strike 3 kept its “settlement machine” going over the past 12 months. In 2025, the company filed 4,088^(*) new piracy lawsuits in U.S. federal courts, barely surpassing the previous record of 3,932 set just last year.

Almost all these cases were filed against John Does who are initially only identified by their IP-address. Historically, the lawsuits are settled swiftly after the defendant is identified, and that appears to hold true this year as well. Of all cases filed this year, 2,775 (67.9%) are already closed.

Most of these closed cases disappear from the docket within months, typically following a confidential settlement where defendants pay several thousand dollars to resolve the porn piracy lawsuit without further exposure.

The Cumulative 20,000-Case Milestone

Beyond the annual numbers, 2025 saw Strike 3 cross a historic threshold. Since filing its first case in 2017, the company has now initiated over 20,000 federal copyright lawsuits.

The graph below shows that the number of complaints filed per year has risen steadily since 2020, breaking record after record.

To put these numbers in perspective, Strike 3’s cases alone account for more than half of all copyright lawsuits in the United States in recent years.

While critics and judges have occasionally characterized the business model as a “high-tech shakedown” or an “ATM for the courts,” the company shows no signs of slowing down. On the contrary, it appears to expand to a new class of targets.

$359m Lawsuit Against Meta

While the thousands of “John Doe” cases against individuals have likely brought in millions for Strike 3 over the years, the company’s most ambitious move of 2025 was its lawsuit against tech giant Meta.

In July, Strike 3 accused the tech company of using adult films to assist its AI model training. This follows a broader trend of copyright litigation against AI developers, including several high-profile claims brought by book authors.

Strike 3’s cases specifically focus on Meta’s BitTorrent activity, with the porn producer seeking astronomical damages of up to $359 million. The lawsuit alleges that Meta willfully pirated and redistributed 2,396 adult films to train its AI models, including LLaMA and Movie Gen.

Responding to the lawsuit, Meta dismissed all claims of a coordinated download action. Instead of an AI training effort, Meta suggested that the alleged downloads were “personal use” by its own employees, contractors, or visitors using its corporate networks and servers.

Whether the Meta lawsuit ends in a landmark ruling or a quiet settlement, Strike 3’s litigation engine shows no signs of cooling down. Whatever happens on the AI front in 2026, the company’s “John Doe” settlement machine will likely continue to churn out new complaints in the background.

—

(*) Note: the data presented here are based on a PACER search for cases filed between January 1 and December 31, 2025, where ‘Strike 3’ is listed as a party. All known non-copyright cases have been filtered out.

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

For writers and readers, news often comes and goes, with major headlines swiftly fading into the background.

Therefore, it can be a good idea to stop and reflect now and then. After covering piracy news and copyright challenges for more than two decades, we look back at some of the most memorable moments.

This certainly isn’t an exhaustive list, but it surely shows that times have changed. And they continue to do so.

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

As England’s top football competition, the Premier League draws hundreds of millions of viewers from all over the world.

Aside from the sportive stakes, the Premier League also has a vested interest in selling broadcast rights. These rights generate billions of pounds in revenue per year; a staggering amount unmatched by any other football league.

Yet, other leagues are not the main threat to these broadcast revenues. Instead, piracy has emerged as the Premier League’s main nemesis, with many football fans turn to cheaper pirate streaming services to watch ‘the people’s game’.

In recent years, the Premier League has tried several legal avenues to tackle the piracy problem. In addition to obtaining blocking orders in multiple countries, the organization has been a driving force behind several lawsuits, some of which resulted in prison sentences.

Cloudflare & Pirate Sites

While the football league typically finds the law on its side, identifying its ‘opponents’ isn’t always easy. Operators of streaming sites and services are typically aware of the legal risks and do their best to remain anonymous. Presumably as part of this strategy, they use services made available by Cloudflare.

Cloudflare doesn’t make the operators of piracy sites ‘anonymous’ but it does shield their hosting locations from public view. Rightsholders can overcome this barrier through formal complaints, after which Cloudflare identifies the hosting services. To obtain additional information, however, rightsholders have to go to court.

Earlier this month the Premier League took this follow-up step by asking a California federal court to issue a DMCA subpoena. The request, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, identifies dozens of target pirate streaming sites and “Access Points”. Through the court, the Premier League hopes to identify the persons connected to these domains.

Premier League Requests Action

Before going to court, the Premier League’s American law firm, Hagan Noll & Boyle, sent a formal notification to Cloudflare.

“Cloudflare is asked to remove or disable access to Premier League’s copyrighted works, which, based on the infringement that has occurred to date through the websites and domain names identified above, will continue to be infringed in this same manner throughout the Premier League season,” attorney Timothy M. Frank wrote.

The letter identifies specific streaming site domains and includes screenshots of the websites where these are shown.

In addition to public-facing sites, the Premier League pointed to various “backend links” where the pirated football streams are actually being sourced. The legal paperwork shows unauthorized broadcasts of various matches including Brentford v. Leeds United, Crystal Palace v. Manchester City, and Nottingham Forest v. Tottenham Hotspur.

Several of the targeted sites utilize sophisticated redirection chains to reach their audience. For example, dooball345.com was found to redirect through dooball345s.com before landing on dooball345x.com. Similarly, pelotalibrevivo.net redirects users to pirlotvenvivo.club.

The court records also highlight how these sites often use unique CDN links and m3u8 playlists, sometimes involving tokens and session IDs—to serve live content to millions of global viewers.

Cloudflare Must Identify Operators?

The Premier League’s letter to Cloudflare didn’t result in the immediate termination of the accounts, but it is used to request the DMCA subpoena at the the California federal court.

The proposed subpoena, which has yet to be signed off on, would require Cloudflare to hand over information sufficient to identify the alleged infringers, including any names, physical addresses, IP addresses, telephone numbers, email addresses, payment information, account updates, and account histories.

Whether the Premier League will find any of the information usable is another matter. Many pirate site owners use inaccurate data, but the explicit request for payment information and account history aims to provide a clearer financial trail than standard subscriber data.

—

A copy of the requested DMCA subpoena is available here (pdf) and the Premier League’s declaration can be found here (pdf). Below is a list of the targeted “Access Point” domain names identified in the legal filing:

– 247sport.org
– 4k-yalla-shoot.info (redirects to yallashootspro.com and 3arabsports.net)
– antenasport.org
– bingsport.site
– deporte-libre.click
– dooball345.com (redirects to dooball345s.com and dooball345x.com)
– goaldaddyth.com
– hesgoal.watch
– librefutboltv.su
– livesports088.com (redirects to keelalive52.com)
– ovogoaal.com
– pelotalibrevivo.net (redirects to pirlotvenvivo.club)
– rbtvplus17.help (redirects to fctv33.work and nplb6earneyhtycourage.sbs)
– ronaldo7.me (redirects to streameasthd.com)
– t4tv.click
– vachvoi.link
– wearechecking.online (redirects to wac.rip)
– yallalshoot.com
– yalla4shoot.com
– yallla-shoot.com (redirects to yallashoot-4k.com, yallashootlivehd.com, wuyh.online )
– sportshd.app

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

As one of the leading Internet infrastructure companies, Cloudflare finds itself at the center of various copyright disputes.

The American company says it powers nearly 20% of the web. This includes several Fortune 500 companies, but also many pirate sites and services.

For years, rightsholders have urged Cloudflare to do something about these pirate sites. However, the company typically doesn’t take action against customers that use its CDN services. Instead, it simply forwarded takedown notices to their respective hosting services.

If customers do use hosting-related Cloudflare services, they will have their content removed. These types of customers have increased significantly over time, and this year, Cloudflare reports a significant spike in takedown activity.

3,800% Increase in Takedowns

Cloudflare’s latest Transparency Report, published last week, shows that the company received 124,872 hosting-related copyright complaints in the first half of 2025. Of these reports, 54,357 resulted in Cloudflare taking action, presumably by disabling or removing the content in question.

These figures represent a dramatic year-over-year increase, as Cloudflare reported ‘only’ 1,394 copyright-related takedown actions in the six months prior. That’s an impressive 3,800% increase.

If we zoom out further, we see that the hosting-related reports and takedowns have grown steadily over the years.

The most recent spike is not merely the result of increased hosting activity, however. Cloudflare notes that it started to actively engage with rightsholders in the first half of the year to tackle unlicensed sports streaming.

Rightsholders Get API Access

Justin Paine, Cloudflare’s Vice President of Trust & Safety, notes that this increase is partly the result of a shift toward more automated processes. Specifically, the company offered rightsholders access to a dedicated API, designed to streamline the submission of copyright complaints.

Through the API, rightsholders were able to automate takedown requests. This resulted in a higher takedown volume and a lower median reaction time, which is key when dealing with time-sensitive content such as live sports streams.

“This engagement resulted in a significant increase in both reports of streaming and corresponding DMCA takedown actions on hosted content, which jumped from 1,394 to 54,357,” Cloudflare’s transparency report reads.

This collaboration and the newly gained insights further boosted the enforcement efforts and resulted in actions against thousands of Cloudflare R2 storage accounts. In the first half of 2025, Cloudflare terminated 21,218 accounts, of which 19,817 were processed automatically.

Increased Blocking & DNS at Risk

Site blocking also remained a hot topic. In response to various court orders or regulatory authorities, Cloudflare has also geo-blocked access to several domains that use its CDN pass-through services. It is clear that the blocking pressure is mounting, with most requests coming from France.

Cloudflare typically does not meddle with its DNS resolver. Instead, it geo-blocks requests for these domains. The transparency report doesn’t mention any data regarding DNS blocking orders and notes that DNS-based blocking will be avoided at all costs.

“Cloudflare has pursued legal remedies before complying with requests to block access to domains or content through the 1.1.1.1 Public DNS Resolver or identified alternate mechanisms to comply with relevant court orders.”

“To date, Cloudflare has not blocked content through the 1.1.1.1 Public DNS Resolver,” the transparency report adds.

Clunky Blocks & UK Cooperation

In addition to being subject to direct orders, Cloudflare services are also blocked by third parties. For example, ISPs in Spain and Italy were required to block Cloudflare infrastructure to comply with IP-address blocking actions targeted at illegal sports streams.

Commenting on these efforts, Justin Paine specifically calls out the Spanish football league LaLiga for its “clunky” blocking approach and its “unapologetic” stance.

“The disproportionate effect of IP address blocking is well known. LaLiga has nonetheless been unapologetic about causing the blocking of countless unrelated websites, suggesting that their commercial interests should trump the rights of Spanish Internet users to access the broader Internet during match times,” Paine notes.

While Cloudflare remains vehemently against aggressive blocking demands, it is slowly but steadily increasing its cooperation with rightsholders. In addition to the earlier mentioned streaming takedown efforts, Cloudflare also started to voluntarily block pirate sites in the UK.

As previously unveiled here, Cloudflare started blocking domain names based on older site-blocking orders where it wasn’t a party. This is similar to the approach Google takes in various countries.

According to Paine, this blocking action in the UK is part of a voluntary agreement with rightsholders, affecting Cloudflare’s pass-through CDN and security services.

“When we take action on domains pursuant to these orders, we post an interstitial page that returns a 451 status code that directs the visitor to the specific order, which includes a process for affected parties to contest the blocking action.”

According to Paine, Cloudflare’s voluntary blocking gesture shows that the company is willing to take action as long as the requests are reasonable.

“Our efforts in the UK to block content based on a finding of infringement in an order directed to a third party reflect our desire to experiment with more targeted approaches than the overblocking we have seen in other countries in Europe,” Paine notes.

Combined with the increased automated reporting and API-driven takedowns, it seems likely that the copyright enforcement volume will continue to increase in the years to come.

At the same time, however, Cloudflare will continue to resist egregious piracy-blocking efforts that break the foundations of the Internet, including DNS-based blocking.

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

In October, several Reddit posts appeared online that supposedly linked to a leaked copy of the Minions 3 audio.

These postings were swiftly removed by Reddit, presumably after they were targeted by DMCA takedown notices, but the user kept submitting new posts.

The leaker, known as DrChoclateBob on Reddit, also relied on YouTube to share the audio using the “CHOCOLATE BOB” and “ChoclateBob” handles. These uploads were also spotted by rightsholders and were eventually removed.

Despite multiple warnings and strikes, the leaker continued sharing copies on YouTube, Google Drive, and elsewhere.

Eventually, this resulted in account terminations on Reddit and YouTube, after which the calm returned.

NBCUniversal Goes After DrChoclateBob

The leaked audio was reportedly recorded during a test screening. With more than half a year to go before the official premiere, it’s understandable that distributor Universal Pictures would like to know who leaked it.

To find out more, NBCUniversal requested two DMCA subpoenas at a California federal court this week, targeting Reddit and Google.

The subpoenas, which were swiftly signed off on by a court clerk, require both companies to share all identifying information that’s linked to the leaker’s accounts, including names, physical addresses, IP addresses, phone numbers, and e-mail addresses.

Plugging Leaks

It’s worth noting legal paperwork also mentions a potentially unrelated YouTube user, mightyvortex5973, who allegedly uploaded a pirated copy of The Lorax. That said, the primary focus of the subpoenas is clearly on protecting the “pre-release film content”.

Whether this DrChoclateBob recorded the audio or if they received it from someone else is something Universal would like to know.

While requesting the subpoena, NBCUniversal said that it would use the requested information to protect its rights. Whether this means that it will take follow-up legal action is unknown, but it is certainly determined to stop future leaks.

—

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

At the end of every year, we take a look at the most-downloaded TV shows among torrenting pirates.

When we started our annual list in the late 2000s, it was headed by network TV shows such as Heroes and Lost, but the TV landscape has changed dramatically.

Today, streaming services dominate the TV landscape. While most households have at least one subscription, keeping up with all popular TV shows requires a handful of paid plans, at minimum.

This fragmentation has made piracy relevant again. Many pirates have legitimate paid subscriptions, but they turn to unauthorized sources to complement what they can’t or don’t want to pay for.

This year, two popular Netflix shows are in the lead, with Stranger Things as the number one. That said, all popular streaming services have at least one show in the list.

Apple TV+ has maintained a consistent footprint on the charts. For the second year in a row, the service secured three spots in the top ten with Severance, Silo, and the breakout hit Pluribus.

At the same time, we are seeing a significant retreat for Disney+. While the platform was a dominant force last year with four entries, 2025 sees only Andor representing the service in the top ten.

In closing, we should note that the chart is based on BitTorrent traffic, which represents a small portion of the piracy landscape. Most people use streaming sites and services nowadays, which generally do not report viewing stats.

—

Below we have compiled a non-scientific list of the most-torrented TV shows worldwide released in 2025 (estimated per single episode). The ranking is estimated based on sample data from several sources, including I Know. Anime series are not included.

The full list of all ‘most pirated’ shows is as follows:

– 2025: Stranger Things
– 2024: House of the Dragon
– 2023: The Last of Us
– 2022: House of The Dragon
– 2021: Wandavision
– 2020: The Mandalorian
– 2019: Game of Thrones
– 2018: The Walking Dead
– 2017: Game of Thrones
– 2016: Game of Thrones
– 2015: Game of Thrones
– 2014: Game of Thrones
– 2013: Game of Thrones
– 2012: Game of Thrones
– 2011: Dexter
– 2010: Lost
– 2009: Heroes
– 2008: Lost
– 2007: Heroes

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