They obtained DMCA subpoenas at a California federal court, requiring Discord and Cloudflare to share all personal information they have on customers associated with domains such as hdfull.org, sflix.fi, and pstream.mov.

ACE has used these subpoenas as an intelligence-gathering tool for years. While these efforts are often fruitless, as many site owners use fake data, they occasionally have some effect. That’s also true for the latest round, which has motivated P-Stream to shut down permanently.

P-Stream Shuts Down

A few hours ago, P-stream’s operator, Pas, informed TorrentFreak that they decided to shut down the website effective immediately. This decision is a direct result of the DMCA subpoena and the added legal pressure, which previously resulted in the loss of the Discord server as well.

People who try to access the site’s official domain are now redirected to a shutdown message. Pas stresses that P-Stream never hosted any infringing material, but the operator can’t afford to mount a legal defense if it came to that.

“Although P-Stream does NOT host, control, or guarantee any media or content, I can’t afford to fight that in court. So to be safe, P-Stream will no longer host a public instance,” the operator writes.

While the operator regrets the shutdown, Pas also mentions that the project was life-consuming and took its toll, so the decision to throw in the towel could be a healthy one on that front too.

Code Remains Public

P-Stream was launched in April 2024, when movie-web was shut down by legal pressure from Hollywood. It eventually grew into a popular project of its own with close to an estimated ten million visits last month.

However, two years after its predecessor’s demise, history is repeating, perhaps in more ways than we now know.

The P-Stream project was largely based on sudo-flix, which itself was a successor to the original movie-web code. Today, the (alleged) P-Stream code remains available as well, through publicly available GitHub repositories. Whether these repos are controlled by the site’s operator is unknown.

As always, there will likely be people who try to keep the project going, and once they become popular enough, these projects will come on Hollywood’s radar, repeating the same process.

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

Drawing on input from copyright holders, the report includes a non-exclusive overview of sites and services that are believed to be involved in piracy or counterfeiting.

For more than a decade we have covered the online section of the report. Traditionally, that includes prominent torrent sites, download portals, cyberlockers, and streaming services that offer copyrighted content without obtaining permission from rightsholders.

In recent years, the scope of the report has broadened significantly. For example, we have seen hosting companies, advertisers, and social media platforms being added. These don’t have piracy as their core business, but they allegedly facilitate infringing activity.

Issue Focus: Sports Streaming Piracy

Yesterday, the USTR published its 2025 Review of Notorious Markets for Counterfeiting and Piracy. Every year, the Office selects an ‘Issue Focus’; for 2025, the target is live sports broadcast piracy. This choice is in part triggered by the upcoming FIFA World Cup that’s hosted by the United States, Canada, and Mexico.

“With the United States co-hosting the FIFA World Cup, we are particularly attuned to sales of counterfeit merchandise and illicit streaming of sports broadcasts,” Ambassador Jamieson Greer said, commenting on the release.

The USTR report notes that the stakes are high. Pirate sites and services directly threaten the global sports broadcast rights market, which was reportedly valued at approximately $62.6 billion in 2024. Meanwhile, pirate site operators continue to get more sophisticated and evasive.

“When authorities shut down a pirate streaming website, operators can simply register new domain names, rebrand under different names, or migrate to alternative hosting providers,” the Notorious Markets report reads.

“This whack-a-mole dynamic frustrates enforcement efforts and requires sustained, resource-intensive campaigns that often exceed the capabilities of right holders and enforcement agencies.”

New Legal Frameworks

What further complicates the challenge is the fact that live broadcasts typically only have a small takedown window. This means that content removals and enforcement have to be swift and global. In some countries, this may require legislative updates.

“Current legal frameworks, while providing important protections, have not kept pace with the technological realities of modern piracy operations,” the USTR writes in its report.

These legislative measures may include expedited site-blocking powers, as we have seen in Italy and Spain recently, although these could introduce overblocking risks. The USTR does not mention these examples but notes that “traditional notice-and-takedown” frameworks are often “inadequate for live sports broadcasts.”

Interestingly, United States law does not support no-fault site-blocking measures yet. Nor are there broadly used legal tools to take livestreams down instantly. That said, USTR notes that preliminary injunctions and temporary restraining orders could help.

“For example, the United States has expedited provisions for copyright protection, primarily through temporary restraining orders (TROs) and preliminary injunctions, which a court can grant to immediately stop infringing activity,” USTR writes.

The Notorious Pirate Sites

USTR’s strong focus on sports streaming piracy is not immediately reflected in the list of notorious markets. While there are plenty of dedicated sports piracy networks, none is mentioned in the latest notorious markets report. Instead, it mostly highlights familiar targets.

Much of the list will look familiar to anyone who followed last year’s edition. ThePirateBay, 1337X, RuTracker, and YTS.mx return in the torrent category. Filehosting platforms Krakenfiles, Rapidgator, and 1fichier are also back, while Sci-Hub and LibGen remain listed in the publishing category (full list below).

The removals compared to last year’s list also make sense. These include the prominent torrent site TorrentGalaxy, which went offline last year, as well as NSW2U, the Nintendo Switch piracy site that had its domain names seized by the FBI and Dutch authorities last year.

Meanwhile, there are some notable newcomers too. MegaCloud, for example, which is the rebranded successor to 2embed, offers a piracy video library backend system that reportedly serves over 260 streaming sites and 600 million monthly visitors. MyFlixerz, which runs on that same ‘piracy as a service’ (PaaS) infrastructure, is also listed as a newcomer.

Another newcomer is MIGFlash, which offers piracy-enabling Nintendo Switch devices, and Fire Video Player, which offers video player software that’s linked to a video library, so people can easily start their own pirate sites.

Pirate Sports Streaming?

As mentioned earlier, dedicated sports streaming sites are not mentioned. The notorious markets list does include IPTV services that support streaming, including MagisTV, but does not list dedicated sites, which is odd considering this year’s sports focus.

In the positive developments section, the USTR report does reference the takedown of Streameast, one of the largest online sports streaming networks with 1.6 billion annual visits, of which 80 domain names were seized last year. However, the original Streameast operation or other surviving sports streaming brands remain unmentioned.

The USTR’s mention of the FIFA World Cup is notable, however. In the past, the U.S. Government has launched several domain seizure campaigns close to the start of major sporting events, such as the Super Bowl, so it’s possible that we will see similar action this summer.

—

A copy of the USTR’s 2025 Review of Notorious Markets is available here (pdf). The full overview also includes offline markets.

A list of highlighted sites and online services, including those listed for counterfeiting, is included below. The sites mentioned are categorized by TorrentFreak for clarity purposes and listed below.

Torrent Sites

– 1337X
– RuTracker
– The Pirate Bay
– TorrentGalaxy
– YTS.mx

File-Hosting/Cyberlockers

– 1fichier
– Krakenfiles
– Rapidgator

E-Commerce

– Baidu Wangpan
– Bukalapak
– DHgate
– Douyin Mall (new)
– Indiamart
– Pinduoduo
– Shopee
– Taobao
– Avito

PaaS

– 2embed
– Fire Video Player (new)
– MegaCloud (new)
– Streamtape
– WHMCS Smarters

Streaming/IPTV

– Cuevana
– GenIPTV
– HiAnime
– MagisTV
– MyFlixerz (new)
– VegaMovies

Hosting/Infrastructure

– Amaratu
– DDoS-Guard
– FlokiNET
– Private Layer (new)
– Squitter
– Virtual Systems

Social Media

– VK

Gaming

– FitGirl-Repacks
– MIG Flash (new)
– NSW2U
– UnknownCheats

Music

– Y2Mate
– Savefrom

Publishing

– Libgen
– Sci-Hub

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

The torrent site was not a typical torrent indexer. The community is powered by a dedicated tracker, something that’s quite rare these days.

This thriving community was severely tested last December when its operators introduced a paid ‘Turbo Mode’. This triggered a revolt, with users and uploaders actively looking for alternative French torrent trackers.

Just as the storm appeared to have calmed, YggTorrent’s operation was shaken up by a final blow this week, after unknown people breached the site, stole data and funds, and exposed the entire operation.

YggTorrent Shuts Down Following Hack

Today, YggTorrent decided to close its doors for good. This decision comes after the torrent site was severely compromised through an elaborate hack.

According to a statement published by the site’s operators, a secondary pre-production staging server was the entry point. From there, the attackers used a privilege escalation exploit to delete and then exfiltrate the site’s database.

In addition to large amounts of site data, the hackers also stole cryptocurrency wallets. YggTorrent’s operators note that these wallets were used exclusively to fund server costs.

The hack bears signs of a targeted attack. YggTorrent notes that there was no warning or attempt at a dialogue before all its data was exposed.

According to YggTorrent, all stored user passwords were hashed and salted. However, the leak suggests that millions of legacy accounts were still stored in MD5 without salts, offering significantly weaker protection.

YggLeak

The hacker has shared a detailed summary of their achievements and findings on a dedicated leak site.

This website explains that the hackers entered YggTorrent’s infrastructure through a series of critical configuration errors by the administrator, starting at the search engine service (SphinxQL) that was left exposed on the staging server without a password.

The YggLeak site portrays YGGtorrent as a high-revenue “cash machine” rather than a simple sharing community. It claims that the site made millions of euros in revenues in 2025 alone. This revenue was reportedly converted to cryptocurrency.

According to the leak, this conversion was not straightforward. The site allegedly used a plugin called CardsShield to route payments through dozens of fake e-commerce storefronts to disguise the true nature of transactions from PayPal and Stripe. The proceeds then went through a circuit involving USDT, Monero and Ethereum, with funds passed through Tornado Cash to reach anonymous wallets.

While TorrentFreak can’t immediately verify any of these claims, the author of the YggLeak website suggests that the 11+ GB in data archives may be useful for law enforcement

“[N]ow that this data is public, professionals will be able to examine it, gather additional evidence, and perhaps even take legal action against those responsible for the site, as well as against hosting providers or other identified third parties,” the YggLeak author writes.

Fin.

For YggTorrent, this is the end of the road. The site’s operators note that there is a backup of all data, so it would be possible to put the site back online. However, facing a rather hostile environment, the team has chosen to shut down permanently.

“A platform can shut down. A community, however, leaves a lasting legacy. Thank you for these nine years. Thank you for your trust. Thank you for all these shared moments,” YggTorrent says in a closing note.

—

Update: Yggleak now mentions that the torrents are backed up and available through an alternative tracker.

Update: YggTorrent updated the website to suggest that something new, presumably not torrent-related, is coming in twelve days.

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

The lawsuit was a direct response to Anna’s Archive’s announcement that it had backed up Spotify, with plans to gradually release the data, including the music files.

Spotify and the labels aimed to stop this. They obtained a preliminary injunction targeting domain registrars and registries, which resulted in the suspension of the .org domain as well as several other domains. However, since not all domain registries and registrars comply with U.S. court orders, the .li domain name survived. Until now.

Annas-Archive.li Deleted

A few hours ago, Annas-archive.li became unreachable. The domain wasn’t simply suspended through a clientHold or serverHold ICANN code. Instead, the entire domain name entry was deleted from the record.

As a result of the domain deletion, Anna’s Archive is down to a single domain name, the Greenland-based annas-archive.gl, which was just added last month after it lost the .pm domain. If that pattern repeats itself, the site will likely add another backup domain name soon.

Update: shortly after publication, the Anna’s Archive website lists .vg,.pk, and .gd as new alternative domains.

Given the continued pressure from the music industry through its U.S. lawsuit, as well as a separate injunction from OCLC in another lawsuit, legal pressure on the site has been relentless this year.

The Swiss Connection

At the time of writing, it is not clear who deleted the domain. Technically, domain registrars and registries both have the authority to take this action. However, neither acted when the injunction was first issued, so something must have changed.

The .li domain name was registered through Immaterialism Limited, which is connected to the domain privacy service Njalla. The same company also registered Anna’s Archive’s .gl domain, which remains online. Therefore, it seems unlikely that the registrar took action here.

That leaves the registry, the Switzerland-based Switch Foundation, as a likely candidate. However, Switch told us in January that foreign court orders don’t generally apply to its foundation.

“As a general matter, foreign court orders do not automatically have legal effect on Switch. Switch evaluates such matters solely in accordance with applicable local laws,” a Switch spokesperson said at the time.

It is possible, however, that the music industry’s global trade group, IFPI, has since gotten involved as well. The prominent music group is known for its anti-piracy work and happens to have its legal headquarters in Switzerland.

TorrentFreak reached out to both the Switch Foundation and registrar Immaterialism Limited, hoping to clarify the situation. As of publication, neither has replied to our requests for comment.

For now, the shadow library is down to a single working domain, and the pressure shows no sign of letting up.

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

In the past, we have seen several pirate IPTV businesses being taken to court, with rightsholders almost always on the winning side. These cases can result in million-dollar damages awards or even multi-year prison sentences, if the feds get involved.

Despite this backdrop, some people are still willing to take a gamble. A lawsuit filed by Netflix, Amazon, and several major Hollywood studios at a Texan federal court in March of 2024, identified Dallas resident William Freemon as a prime example.

Hollywood Sues U.S.-Based Pirate IPTV Operation

The complaint accused Freemon and his company, Freemon Technology Industries (FTI), of being involved in widespread copyright infringement.

Freemon’s operation began between 2016 and 2019, when he allegedly sold “illegally modified Fire TV Stick devices” through two websites: firesticksloaded.biz and firesticksloaded.com. He registered these domains in his own name, at the same address where he later incorporated his company, FTI.

The defendant allegedly owned and operated four unauthorized streaming services at one point; Streaming TV Now, TV Nitro, Instant IPTV, and Cash App IPTV. In addition, the complaint linked him to a bulk reseller operation called Live TV Resellers.

‘Streaming TV Now’ was the most popular IPTV service, according to the complaint. It first appeared online in 2020 and offers access to 11,000 live channels, as well as on-demand access to over 27,000 movies and 9,000 TV series.

According to the legal paperwork, the services were clearly connected. For example, three of the four redirected paying subscribers to the same backend, hosted at stncloud.ltd. At one point, all five accused services, along with stncloud.ltd, shared the same IP address 5:183.209.216 (sic).

Freemon’s involvement was clear for multiple reasons, the plaintiffs argued. This includes evidence from a tutorial video connected to the IPTV operation, where the narrator logs into an Amazon account under the name “William Freemon”.

Defendant Responds, Evades, and Fails to Put Up a Defense

Getting Freemon into court wasn’t straightforward. It took seven service attempts, and when he was eventually served, the defendant told counsel he had no intention of filing an answer. In addition, he also failed to get an attorney for the LLC when the court instructed him to do so.

Despite never filing the required answer, Freemon submitted a stream of other motions, many of which failed to comply with local rules and were stricken by the court. This includes a motion with defenses on behalf of Freemon’s company, FTI, which came in after the court explicitly told him he could not to file it.

The movie studios eventually requested a default judgment, summarizing the troublesome legal process. This also revealed that Freemon threatened the rightsholders and demanded money if they wanted him to stop.

“Compounding this misconduct, Mr. Freemon has resorted to issuing threats and making escalating demands for payment from Plaintiffs, simply because Plaintiffs have brought this lawsuit to stop the infringement of their copyrights,” their motion stated.

Last week, Magistrate Judge Renée Harris Toliver issued various recommendations in this case. After reviewing all evidence, she advised denying Freemon’s motion to dismiss for a lack of standing and the motion to set aside the default. At the same time, Judge Toliver recommended granting the rightsholders’ motion for a default judgment.

Judge Recommends $18.75 Million and an Injunction

Without a formal defense, the magistrate judge recommends granting the motion for a default judgment in full.

The court notes that Freemon’s copyright infringement was willful. For example, when the movie companies sent a cease-and-desist letter in February 2023, he didn’t comply, but instead tried to obscure his connection to the services by claiming to have transferred domains.

The studios eventually turned that argument against him: to transfer a domain, the registrant must unlock it and provide an authorization code, meaning the admission itself proves he owned the domain during the infringement period. The services continued operating through at least January 2024, with one remaining active until the lawsuit was filed in March 2024.

As compensation for the widespread infringement, the movie studios requested statutory maximum damages of $150,000 per work for a representative set of 125 works, including prominent titles such as Universal’s Oppenheimer.

Recognizing that many more works could have been added if this case had proceeded to discovery, the court recommends granting the damages award in full, which would make Freemon liable for $18,750,000.

In addition to the damages, the plaintiffs also secured a permanent injunction that allows them to take over the IPTV-operation’s domains.

The recommended permanent injunction covers eight domains: instantiptv.net, streamingtvnow.com, streamingtvnow.net, tvnitro.net, cashappiptv.com, livetvresellers.com, stncloud.ltd, and stnlive.ltd. Once the judgment is approved, registrars have five days to transfer these domains to the movie companies.

If the registrars fail to do so, the TLD registries can be ordered to place the domains on hold. At the time of writing, none of the domains point to a working site. However, the rightsholders can add new domain Freemon-owned names to the list, should these appear online.

While the report and recommendation is a clear win for the movie companies, it is not final yet, as all the paperwork still requires approval from the district judge. Without a proper defense, however, an $18.75 million judgment appears to be the likely outcome for now.

—

The findings and recommendation on the motion for default judgment is available here (pdf). The recommendation denying Freemon’s motion to set aside the default is here (pdf), and the recommendation denying his motion to dismiss for lack of standing is here (pdf).

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

Downloading content without permission is copyright infringement. These torrent download statistics are only meant to provide further insight into piracy trends. All data are gathered from public resources.

This week we have one newcomer on the list. “Mercy” is the most shared title.

The most torrented movies for the week ending on March 02 are:

Note: We also publish an updating archive of all the list of weekly most torrented movies lists.

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

To better protect its content, including the prestigious Champions League competition, it joined the Alliance of Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) last October.

At the time, it seemed likely that the anti-piracy group could help UEFA with their international site-blocking quests. While the organizations did not confirm this at the time, this is precisely what happened.

UEFA Secures Broad Blocking Order

Earlier this month, UEFA obtained a new injunction at the High Court of Delhi. The order was obtained in cooperation with ACE and targets 79 live sports streaming sites, aiming to protect Champions League broadcasts.

The targets include sites such as livetv.sx, vipbox.lc, and footybite.to, which each had several million monthly visits. According to UEFA, all domain names combined were good for 2 billion annual visits, which makes this one of the most significant anti-piracy injunctions in recent times.

The order mentions 23 “rogue” piracy operations as defendants, with many using multiple domains. Indian ISPs, who are also listed as defendants, must block these domains across their network.

Importantly, the order also includes twenty domain name registrars as defendants. This includes U.S. based and globally operating intermediaries such as GoDaddy, Tucows, Squarespace Domains, and Dynadot. These companies must lock and suspend all 79 listed domains.

In addition to suspending the domain names, the registrars must also share any personal information they store on the operators, including their email addresses, payment details, and mobile numbers.

Global Reach

The new blocking order is valid for the remainder of the Champions League season. UEFA can notify registrars and ISPs directly when it discovers new infringing sites. These intermediaries must then lock or block the newly identified domains immediately, without the need to go back to court.

This so-called “Dynamic+” blocking mechanism, which Indian courts have been refining since at least 2019, aims to make it harder for pirate operators to simply register a new domain and continue as if nothing happened.

The strategy has proven to be effective in India, where ISPs are swift to implement the blocking orders. However, UEFA was quick to highlight that the reach of the order extends beyond Indian borders.

“Implemented in India through Internet Service Providers and also domain level intermediaries with global reach, these measures are expected to significantly disrupt access to the targeted services, including through global domain suspension mechanisms,” UEFA commented.

The phrase “global domain suspension mechanisms” refers to the fact that internationally operating registrars are defendants. This could mean that domain suspensions can take effect worldwide, not just for users in India. After all, a locked or suspended domain is inaccessible everywhere, regardless of which ISPs are blocking it locally.

Mixed Results

These types of orders have been successful in the past, with registrars including NameCheap, NameSilo, and Porkbun taking action in response to Indian court orders. However, site operators are increasingly aware of this and may choose more resilient alternatives.

At the time of writing, only the Namecheap-registered domain livetv819.me appears to have been placed on clienthold. The majority of the 79 listed domains remain active at the registrar level, with some redirecting to new domains.

This includes LiveTV and VIPBox, which had 10 and 13 million monthly visits in January of this year, according to Similarweb data.

While none of the registrars has commented publicly on the order, it seems likely that some refrain from taking action because they don’t fall under the jurisdiction of an Indian court.

UEFA and its commercial arm, UC3, remain optimistic, with Managing Director Guy Laurent Epstein celebrating the win as a step forward.

“These orders represent a clear step forward: dynamic blocking strengthens the protection of our global family of broadcast partners, preserving the value they deliver to fans and enabling continued investment throughout the European football ecosystem.”

UEFA is not alone in this assessment. Earlier this month, the International Intellectual Property Alliance applauded the Indian “lock and suspend” orders in their annual “Special 301” recommendation to the U.S. Trade Representative.

—

The order names 23 piracy operations as defendants, spread across 79 domains. The table below lists each defendant, its domains, and the registrar responsible for suspending them.

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

The company has pursued copyright infringers aggressively for years, including a $1.5 million damages award against a defendant who shared its films on BitTorrent and a high-profile clash with an unnamed television executive that was eventually settled.

Last March, Flava, together with Blatino Media, filed a new lawsuit targeting an alleged Canadian leaker of its videos alongside 47 John Doe defendants. The rightsholders claim the maximum of $150,000 in statutory damages from each defendant, bringing the total damages claim to over $8 million.

This case stands out from the typical torrent lawsuits as the defendants were identified by their usernames on the private torrent tracker GayTorrent.ru, where they allegedly shared the pirated videos.

Today, nearly a year has passed since the case was started, and most of those Doe defendants still haven’t been formally named. According to Flava, that’s largely due to one company: Google.

Google Rejects Broad Subpoena

In a status report filed this week, Flava informs the Illinois federal court of the progress thus far. The company reports that it signed a confidential settlement with one defendant, while several others were named and formally served. However, most defendants are still “John Does.”

According to an affidavit filed by Flava’s president, Phillip Bleicher, they can’t properly name the defendants because Google raised objections and refused to fully comply with the subpoena. This, despite complying with an earlier subpoena in a similar case.

Initially, Google incorrectly claimed the subpoena was issued by a pro se party. After Flava provided documentation that a licensed Illinois attorney had signed it, Google requested a copy of the complaint. That was provided in early December.

Shortly after, Google formally objected, raising “potential First Amendment concerns,” while stating it would only provide data for the “primary user who allegedly distributed the copyrighted works,” not the broader list of “John Doe” defendants.

Google’s objection affects 28 defendants whose primary or sole email addresses are Gmail accounts. Without Google’s subscriber data, Flava says it cannot confirm their identities with sufficient certainty to name them in the lawsuit.

How Flava Identifies Its Targets

It is unclear what Google means exactly by raising First Amendment concerns. The company may believe the John Doe defendants are not necessarily direct infringers, a question that touches on how they were identified in the first place.

The complaint does not explain this. Typically, rightsholders identify torrent pirates by joining a swarm, collecting IP addresses, and subpoenaing ISPs to match those IPs to account holders. In this case, however, Flava already had usernames and email addresses before any court-ordered discovery.

One possible explanation is that some of these defendants were also paid subscribers on Flava’s own platforms. Membership sites log IP addresses at login. So, if the same IP that appeared in the GayTorrent.ru swarm also appeared in Flava’s own server logs, the company could have linked a torrent username to a registered account and its associated email address entirely from its own internal records.

Wrongly Accused Pirates

Critics of BitTorrent lawsuits have long argued that IP addresses do not reliably identify individuals. In this case, Flava makes that same argument in its own favor, using the risk of misidentification as a reason for Google to hand over subscriber data.

The affidavit acknowledges that an email address alone is not sufficient to confirm an identity either. In at least one instance in a related case, a subpoena response pointed to someone who turned out not to be the infringer. The email address had been used by someone else, and the identified individual contacted prior counsel to clarify the error.

To avoid naming the wrong people, Flava needs both Google and Microsoft to comply with their subpoenas, which seek information sufficient to identify the defendants by name and current address.

“Naming the wrong individuals in this Case could embarrass the individuals named or expose Plaintiffs to claims of abuse of process, and waste the Court’s resources,” the affidavit cautions, using the fear of wrongful accusations squarely in its own favor.

What’s Next

The legal paperwork notes that Microsoft, which also holds data for some of the remaining defendants, indicated it is willing to comply with its subpoena if there is an agreement on fees. Flava’s counsel is working to finalize those terms.

For the moment, however, the case for the 28 Gmail-linked defendants is effectively on hold pending Google’s cooperation. Flava says it is prepared to file a motion to compel if Google does not respond, but that hasn’t been filed yet.

If a motion to compel is filed, Google is expected to explain its stated First Amendment rationale in more detail. Then, it will be up to the federal judge to weigh the arguments from both sides.

—

A copy of the status report, filed at the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, is available here (pdf). The supporting affidavit of Phillip Bleicher can be found here (pdf).

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

Over the years, the company has highlighted how automated systems flood platforms with inaccurate or incomplete notices. These errors and mistakes are par for the course now, and Automattic even launched its own Hall of Shame to ‘honor’ the worst offenders.

In recent years, it appeared that takedown issues had stabilized somewhat. However, the latest transparency report, covering July through December 2025, shows that challenges remain.

2,431 Notices, 86% Rejected

This week, the company published its latest WordPress.com transparency report, revealing that it processed 2,431 takedown notices during the second half of last year. That is a 20% increase compared to the same period a year earlier.

This data only applies to the number of DMCA notices that are directed at WordPress.com services. It is also worth noting that these notices can contain multiple URLs, making the number of flagged URLs much higher.

While the takedown volume is substantial, that’s not necessarily indicative of a copyright infringement problem. According to Automattic, 86% of all takedown notices were rejected entirely due to various shortcomings.

The rejection rate for WordPress.com takedowns has always been high. Since Automattic began counting in 2014, the platform has processed a total of 123,211 DMCA takedown notices. Of these, only 27% have ever resulted in any removal.

AI-generated DMCA Notices

Over the past half year, however, Automattic saw the rejection rate tick up further due to a new phenomenon: AI-generated DMCA notices.

“We are seeing continued exploitation of the DMCA notice-and-takedown system by third-party monitoring services—in some instances, through the use of AI-generated mass reporting methods,” Automattic’s Trust & Safety team notes.

According to the blogging platform, copyright infringement reporters use AI en masse, presumably to lower costs and maximize revenue.

Automattic specifically calls out the company Enforcity, which was by far the top takedown sender with 838 ‘inactionable’ notices in the second half of last year, which represents 34% of all notices sent in that period.

Speaking with TorrentFreak, Automattic’s Head of Policy and Process, Steve Blythe, says that the first notices from Enforcity started coming in around August of 2025. These claimed to protect OnlyFans creators, but none of the reported links were associated with infringing material.

“The targets included both static pages with no content, and dynamic search query URLs with keywords pre-filled by the complainants that returned no results. This caused a significant amount of work, as our team manually reviews such notices to screen for abuse,” Blythe says.

“As of September 2025, we contacted Enforcity directly a number of times to make them aware of the issue, but despite assurances that the problems would be addressed, the notices continued.”

Automattic believes that this automated activity is largely driven by payment structures that value volume over accuracy. In January 2026, Enforcity was still sending hundreds of notices, but after repeated outreach, no new DMCA notices came in over the past weeks.

$29 / Month

Explicitly naming a sender isn’t a step that’s taken lightly, but Automattic says that it is important to call out abusive behavior, especially when it takes up valuable resources.

TorrentFreak reached out to Enforcity for a comment, but at the time of publication, the company has yet to reply. If a response comes in, we will update our article accordingly.

For now, public information confirms that the company offers AI-Driven DMCA content protection starting at $29 per month. The service indeed targets creators, specifically those on OnlyFans, for which it created a dedicated success hub.

According to Enforcity’s own website, the takedown service helped customers to remove over 350 million ‘infringements,’ with an impressive 99% success rate, while protecting $600 million in revenue in the process.

TorrentFreak was unable to verify any of these numbers independently.

Regardless, Automattic says it will continue to call out abusive or error-prone reporters, including those who use AI tools.

“The DMCA notification and takedown process is a powerful tool that enables creators to have control over the use and dissemination of their work. However, it is also frequently abused,” Blythe tells us.

“We routinely see invalid and inappropriate submissions from third-party agents that charge creators to scour the web and fire off automated notices, seemingly indiscriminately. With the rapid development of AI technology, the flaws in the DMCA are at risk of increasingly resulting in a chilling effect on freedom of expression,” he adds.

For now, it appears that Automattic’s repeated outreach has had some effect, but whether Enforcity and similar services will change their practices in the long run remains to be seen.

—

Update: In a statement provided to TorrentFreak after publication, Enforcity defended its practices, describing itself as an AI-powered service. While not explicitly addressing the “non-existent” content claims, the company framed the rejected notices as a technical hurdle it is currently addressing.

“We are in direct and ongoing communication with Automattic and continue to work cooperatively to ensure alignment with their platform-specific requirements. If certain submissions were deemed inactionable due to technical or URL-structure factors, we are refining our AI validation safeguards accordingly to prevent similar occurrences,” Enforcity said.

“We are also reviewing whether any historical submissions may have been misattributed or submitted without proper authorization, as safeguarding the integrity of our enforcement process is a priority.”

The company also pointed out that it has a 95.6% content removal rate across reported URLs at Google. The company notes that this high removal rate reflects its overall precision and effectiveness.

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

The complaint accused the tech company of using adult films to assist its AI model training. Similar claims have been made by other rightsholders, including many book authors.

This latest case, with over 350 million dollars in potential damages, specifically focuses on Meta’s BitTorrent activity that was recorded in detail through proprietary torrent tracking software. That’s no surprise, as plaintiff Strike 3 is the most active copyright litigant in the United States, known for targeting thousands of alleged BitTorrent pirates based on similar evidence.

Meta responded in October by filing a motion to dismiss, arguing the sporadic downloads were consistent with ordinary ‘personal use’ by employees and visitors on the corporate network. It was certainly not a coordinated AI training effort, Meta countered.

‘Meta Employee Deleted 9TB of Torrented Files’

The motion to dismiss remains pending and, meanwhile, the case is heating up in other areas. Last week, the parties filed their joint discovery plan, which Strike 3 used to raise a rather eye-popping allegation.

Meta said that it prefers to delay written evidence discovery requests in this case until the court ruled on its motion to dismiss. However, Strike 3 would like to start gathering evidence right away, fearing that key data may otherwise disappear.

Strike 3’s legal team points out that, at a February 5 hearing in the unrelated Kadrey v. Meta book-authors case, lawyers revealed that a Meta employee had recently deleted over nine terabytes of torrented files. Fearing more deletions, Strike 3 asks the court to allow discovery in the present case to begin immediately.

“Because of the tangible risk that relevant evidence may be deleted by Meta’s employees, Plaintiffs respectfully request that they be allowed to conduct discovery immediately,” the plaintiffs write.

In the same filing, Meta’s legal team immediately tried to defuse the deletion claim. Meta says that no data was spoiled and clarified that it will preserve all evidence as it is legally obliged to do.

“Plaintiffs mischaracterize the Kadrey record. There was no spoliation in Kadrey, which is an unrelated case, and in any event Meta has an appropriate hold in place and is abiding by its preservation obligations,” Meta writes.

Torrent Evidence

The discovery plan also provides the clearest picture yet of what Strike 3 actually wants to find. Among the targets is Meta’s Machine Learning Hub “ML Hub,” including downloaded digital media files, torrenting-related metadata, and labeling data for content acquired from BitTorrent.

Strike 3 also wants logs of Meta servers communicating over “PySpark or Fairspark protocols,” suggesting it believes these tools were used to coordinate downloads across Meta’s infrastructure. Separately, the company is seeking records tying Meta’s alleged hidden “off-infra” IP addresses to Amazon Web Services instances.

The discovery list is broad by design, and the above are just a few examples. In essence, Strike 3 wants all policies, directives, and algorithms related to torrenting. They hope that this information will help to back up their copyright infringement claims.

Meta’s Defense & Trial Date

While Strike 3 references thousands of downloads, Meta stresses that the complaint only mentions 157 downloads from Meta’s corporate IP addresses over seven years. They note that this is illustrative of personal use, rather than an organized data collection effort.

Meta also explains that the alleged downloads began years before it started researching generative video AI, making a coordinated training effort even more implausible. In addition, Meta says that Strike 3 has “no facts whatsoever” linking it to the thousands of additional third-party IP addresses that are named in the complaint.

While Meta’s motion to dismiss is still unresolved, both parties are also looking ahead. While they differ on the exact timing of various deadlines, both believe that an eventual trial can take place in the first half of 2028, if it gets to that.

—

A copy of the parties’ 26(f) discovery plan, filed at the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, is available here (pdf). We will add a copy of the transcript as soon as we notice that it is publicly posted.

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

The country’s two-step system, where a court issues an injunction and a government department (BAPO) then determines how it is implemented, has resulted in a series of diverse site-blocking orders since the framework launched in 2025.

An Eclectic Site Blocking Push

The first order, obtained by sports broadcaster DAZN in April 2025, started quite aggressively. It required ISPs and third-party DNS resolvers, including Cloudflare, Google, and Cisco’s OpenDNS, to stop resolving over 100 pirate domains. If not, they would risk a fine of €100,000 per day.

Cisco refused to comply with the order and instead pulled OpenDNS out of Belgium entirely. Cloudflare and Google remained in Belgium and cooperated, though each did so in its own way.

A second blocking order followed in July last year, requiring various intermediaries, including ISPs, hosting companies, and payment services, to block shadow libraries. Initially, Internet Archive’s Open Library was also targeted, but this decision was eventually reversed after the U.S. non-profit agreed to geo-block certain content on its service.

Meanwhile, Cisco reportedly appealed the initial site-blocking order and returned to Belgium. While this appeal remains ongoing, the Belgian site-blocking machine didn’t stop.

Last November, an order obtained by Disney, Netflix, Sony, Apple, and others, targeted popular movie piracy sites, including 1337x and Soap2day. Notably, this order only applied to Belgium’s five major ISPs. DNS resolvers were nowhere on the list, likely due to Cisco’s appeal.

First IPTV Blocking Order

A new order, issued by the Court of Brussels, targets five illegal IPTV services: LEMEILLEURIPTV, BESTIPTVABO, ATLASPRO12, OTT PREMIUM, and MIJNIPTV. The order was obtained by Belgian broadcasters RTL Belgium and RTBF, whose broadcasts were distributed by these services without permission.

The implementation decision, published by Belgium’s Department for Combating Infringements of Copyright and Related Rights Committed Online (BAPO), described the IPTV services as “structurally dedicated to the mass infringement of audiovisual content”.

According to information shared by the rightsholders, the services used cryptocurrency, which they see as a sign of illegality. In addition, the IPTV services showed users how to circumvent blocking measures.

All in all, the implementation order requires Belgium’s five major ISPs, Proximus, Telenet, Orange Belgium, Mobile Vikings, and DIGI Communications, to block domain names associated with these IPTV services. This also applies to mirror sites and redirect domains that can be added to the blocklist in future updates.

Cloudflare and Google Are Back, But Not for DNS

The ISPs will have to use DNS-based blocking measures, as is standard procedure in most countries. However, DNS blocking measures are not requested from Cloudflare and Google, which are also covered by the injunction.

The order names the American tech companies as intermediaries and requires them to help stop the IPTV services through other routes.

Specifically, if Cloudflare acts as a CDN or hosting provider, it must take measures to prevent Belgian users from accessing the named IPTV services. Crucially, Cloudflare’s DNS resolver and WARP service are not covered.

Google is not required to block the domains on its DNS resolver either. Instead, Google must de-index the relevant domains from its search results, deactivate associated Google Ads, and block access through Google Sites and Google Cloud services where applicable.

This omission of any third-party DNS restrictions is almost certainly not accidental. Cisco’s appeal of the April 2025 order resulted in a Brussels court suspending enforcement of the DNS blocking requirement, allowing OpenDNS to resume operations in Belgium pending a final ruling.

With that legal challenge still unresolved, rightsholders appear to have opted for a more defensible scope, targeting Cloudflare and Google in their roles as infrastructure providers rather than as DNS operators.

Exploring the Blocking Limits

The latest blocking order shows how Belgium’s blocking regime continues to calibrate itself in real time. Each new order is seemingly shaped by the legal and practical fallout from the last.

Whether the broader DNS blocking orders will return depends in part on how Cisco’s appeal resolves. A ruling against DNS blocking obligations could permanently reshape the scope of future Belgian orders, and there may be even broader repercussions.

Increasingly, European countries are granting ever more far-reaching pirate site blocking orders, covering a broad range of intermediaries, including DNS resolvers, but also VPN providers.

While these orders have been given the green light in France, Spain, and elsewhere, they are not uncontested. Given what’s at stake, the European Court of Justice will likely be asked to weigh in eventually to lay out the ground rules.

—

A copy of the latest blocking implementation order, published by the Department for Combating Infringements of Copyright and Related Rights Committed Online, is available here (pdf).

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

The VPN providers were not involved in the legal proceedings, and the orders were granted without a defense. In fact, ProtonVPN learned about it from news reports and questioned its legal validity.

While the Spanish order made headlines due to its novelty, France has seen several of these orders already. This includes two new decisions issued in late January, where ProtonVPN fought back tooth and nail but still lost.

ProtonVPN Faces Two New Blocking Orders in France

The Paris Judicial Court issued two separate orders on January 28 and 29, both targeting Proton AG individually as the sole defendant. Both cases involved various rightsholders, including Canal+ companies, who sought to protect their interest in sports broadcasts.

In one case, they want ProtonVPN to block 16 pirate sites (full list here) that streamed Premier League matches, and the other case targets the same number of domain names, focusing on sites that stream the Top 14 Rugby competition.

The Paris Judicial Court ultimately granted both orders, which is in line with previous blocking injunctions. In the Rugby case, one domain was excluded from the blocklist due to an oversight; the court noted that the URL tested during the investigation didn’t match the domain name Canal+ actually requested to be blocked.

ProtonVPN Fought Back Hard

While Proton was excluded from the legal process in Spain, the Swiss company was allowed to defend itself before the Paris court. This is precisely what it did, with the VPN provider raising a wide variety of defenses.

The VPN provider raised jurisdictional questions and also requested to see evidence that Canal+ owned all the rights at play. However, these concerns didn’t convince the court.

The same applies to Proton’s net neutrality defense, which argued that Article 333-10 of the French sports code, which is at the basis of all blocking orders, violates EU Open Internet Regulation. This defense was too vague, the court concluded, noting that Proton cited the regulation without specifying which provisions were actually breached.

“Under these circumstances, the argument is unfounded. There is no basis for granting Proton’s subsidiary claim of non-compliance with European law,” the court concluded.

Additionally, Proton argued that forcing a Swiss company to block content for French users restricts cross-border trade in services under the WTO’s General Agreement on Trade in Services. The court dismissed this argument, as the proposed blocking measures are limited in scope and duration, which should be allowed under the WTO agreement.

Overblocking Concerns Dismissed

Proton’s defense didn’t stop there; the company also argued that the blocking measures are technically unrealizable, costly, and unnecessarily complex.

Crucially, the VPN provider argued that a block cannot be technically restricted to France. Therefore, forcing the company to block these domains in France would effectively force an international, global blockade, which is highly disproportionate to the localized rights Canal+ holds.

The Paris Court was not swayed by these technical and cost-related concerns, including the fears of a global blockade.

“It must be noted that no quantifiable and verifiable technical evidence corroborates the technical difficulties of implementation cited by the defense,” the court concluded.

The Battle Continues

While ProtonVPN was allowed to defend itself, unlike in Spain, the end result is similar. The VPN provider has to block access to the 31 domain names.

That said, the court didn’t grant Canal+ everything it asked for. The broadcaster wanted ProtonVPN to publish the ruling on its website for three months, but the court concluded that this would unfairly put the VPN provider in a bad light, disproportionately associating it with the pirate sites. Canal+’s €30,000 cost claim didn’t survive either.

Both orders are dynamic in nature, meaning that rightsholders can report new pirate domains or mirror sites directly to ARCOM, the French media regulator. After ARCOM verifies these new domains, ProtonVPN has to add them to their blocklist.

The legal battle over VPN blocking is far from over yet. Proton previously said it would take VPN blocking to Europe’s highest court.

Meanwhile, however, French rightsholders show no sign of slowing down. These two Proton orders came alongside a parallel Google DNS blocking order for the same Premier League domains, as well a massive ISP blocking order covering 150+ IPTV domains.

At this point, the question isn’t whether French courts will keep ordering VPN blocks. They will. The question is whether Europe’s highest court will eventually set any limits or not.

—

Note: Meanwhile, Proton VPN’s David Peterson reports that in Spain, LaLiga’s blocking requests are causing widespread collateral damage, including the (now lifted) blockade of the U.S. government’s freedom.gov.

—

(Additionally, here is the simultaneous Google DNS order that targets the same 16 Premier League domains, and the massive ISP order targets roughly 150+ domains tied to seven major IPTV operations).

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

For many years, Ukraine was a regular entry on this list, seen as a safe haven for pirate sites by rightsholders. The IIPA, for one, called for sanctions and the suspension of trade benefits, while the MPAA and RIAA routinely flagged Ukraine-hosted sites in their annual filings.

In previous years, Ukraine has made progress on the anti-piracy front, but, since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, the USTR has suspended its annual review of Ukraine. The country had other, more existential priorities, after all.

However, that hasn’t stopped Ukraine from taking steps forward. In a 25-page submission ahead of the 2026 Special 301 Report, the Ukrainian government details a broad range of IP reforms it has pursued despite the ongoing war.

Paving the Way for Site Blocking

Among the most notable items in Ukraine’s submission is a set of proposed copyright amendments that would implement Article 8(3) of the EU’s Copyright Directive (2001/29/EC). The provision allows rightsholders to seek injunctions against intermediaries whose services are used by third parties to infringe copyright. This essentially is the framework for Europe’s ISP site-blocking efforts.

While Ukraine is not part of the European Union, it informed the U.S. that it will use this EU framework for the planned amendments, which are “intended to strengthen anti-piracy mechanisms, enhance the effectiveness of judicial enforcement, and ensure the prompt cessation of copyright and related rights infringements on the Internet.”

Notably, Ukraine’s submission doesn’t explicitly mention ISP blocking, but cites website owners and/or hosting service providers instead.

The proposals are part of a broader package of copyright amendments, which bring Ukraine’s policies in line with EU directives. Other changes address additional compensation for authors and performers, and an extension of the term of protection for performances and phonograms to 70 years.

A Decade of Broken Promises?

Ukraine has proposed site blocking legislation before. In October 2015, the Cabinet of Ministers approved a draft law that explicitly included provisions for “restriction of access” to infringing content, along with heavy fines for non-compliant services. At the time, officials said that the bill was designed to avoid U.S. economic sanctions and bring Ukraine’s legislation “into line with EU countries.”

That law never made it through parliament. However, the current proposals arrive in a different context. Ukraine is now an EU candidate country, actively preparing to bring their legislation in line with the EU. Meanwhile, the U.S. interests are also kept in mind. The submission notes that a representative of the American Chamber of Commerce in Ukraine is involved in the process too.

WIPO ALERT and the Ad-Revenue Approach

While ISP blocking is no reality yet, Ukraine already operates an active anti-piracy mechanism by taking part in WIPO ALERT, a program that targets the advertising revenue of pirate sites. In 2025, UANIPIO received 17 applications from rightsholders and included 15 websites in the national advertising blocklist, which is shared with the WIPO database.

Ukraine’s Clear Sky initiative, run by a coalition of local media companies, has been a driving force behind these efforts. The group has also pushed for the blocking of hundreds of pirate and pro-Russian streaming sites under Ukraine’s Media Law, which prohibits the distribution of “aggressor state” media services.

According to recent reports, more than 570 websites have been blocked by Ukrainian ISPs under this framework. That mechanism is rooted in national security and media regulation, not copyright law. The proposed EU Directive-based amendments would create a separate, copyright-specific site-blocking tool.

The American Irony

Ukraine and other countries are gladly reporting their pirate site blocking progress to the USTR, signaling the progress that they make when it comes to copyright protections. Interestingly, however, the United States itself still lacks a pirate site blocking regime.

Over the past year, several site-blocking bills have been proposed by U.S. lawmakers, Rep. Zoe Lofgren’s FADPA bill that was first announced in January 2025. However, these have yet to move forward.

We expect that the American proposals will move forward this year, as lawmakers previously indicated that they would like to see site-blocking legislation implemented during the current Congress session, which ends in a few months.

Meanwhile, Ukraine will continue to fight battles on multiple fronts. The 25-page USTR submission addresses a wide variety of IP enforcement efforts to show that, despite facing existential threats, Ukraine continues to pay attention to its place in the international IP system.

—

A copy of Ukraine’s USTR submission is available here (pdf).

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

The International Broadcaster Coalition Against Piracy (IBCAP) has been particularly active. It’s also the main driver behind a new lawsuit filed yesterday by DISH Network at a New York federal court.

Dish Sues Pirate IPTV Operation

The American pay-TV provider accuses Moroccan resident Idriss Elkasmi and various unnamed defendants of running the IPTV operation, using various brands, including DMTN IPTV, Idriss Premium TV and Manx TV.

These services allegedly offered access to thousands of live channels and up to 100,000 movies and series on demand.

In addition, the complaint names Ali Ezzaary and various John Does as co-defendants. They allegedly promoted and enabled access to the pirate IPTV services as secondary infringers by collecting payments, among other things.

Dish has been aware of the IPTV services for years already and repeatedly issued takedown notices, hoping to stop the infringing activity. However, that didn’t yield the desired result, after which Dish decided to take legal action.

“Even after receiving 68 cease-and-desist notices from DISH between 2021 and 2026, Elkasmi and the other Defendants have defiantly continued to operate the Infringing Service, willfully infringing DISH’s copyrights on a massive scale with actual knowledge that their activities are unlawful,” the complaint reads.

Leather Backpack & Breaking Bad

According to the International Broadcaster Coalition Against Piracy (IBCAP), which coordinates the legal action on behalf of Dish, the operators also used various deceptive tactics to hide the nature of their operation.

When an undercover Dish investigator purchased an IPTV subscription, Elkasmi’s WhatsApp account sent instructions to send the payment to another business called “Genuine Leather”.

When finalized, the investigator received a receipt falsely stating the purchase was for a “Philos Brown Leather BackPack.” Soon after, the same investigator received working credentials to access the pirate IPTV service.

As DISH’s investigative activity intensified ahead of filing, Elkasmi allegedly took additional steps to obscure his identity. He took down his LinkedIn profile and replaced his Facebook profile photo with an image of someone else entirely.

“The new photo used by Defendant Elkasmi is in fact an image of a famous Hollywood director named Vince Gilligan, who gained notoriety as the creator of a popular television show called ‘Breaking Bad,’ as well as its spinoff, ‘Better Call Saul.’ The same image appears on Mr. Gilligan’s IMDB page,” the complaint reads.

“There is no indication that Mr. Gilligan has any connection whatsoever to Defendant Elkasmi or the Infringing Service,” the complaint adds.

$21 Million & a Broad Injunction

The lawsuit mentions that at least 145 registered copyrighted works were infringed, and DISH seeks the maximum of $150,000 in statutory copyright infringement damages for each, totaling over $21 million.

Beyond the multi-million damages figure, DISH requests a permanent injunction and the transfer of domains including dmtn4k.com, dmtn-tv.net, and dmtn8k.com. In addition, it would like the injunction to cover third parties enabling the service. That includes hosting providers, CDNs, ISPs, and payment processors.

IBCAP executive director Chris Kuelling said the organization expects the case to follow the pattern of previous successful actions. In addition to a victory in court, he hopes that intermediaries, ranging from payment providers to CDNs, will help to keep the IPTV services offline.

“In line with past lawsuit wins, we expect a similar outcome in this case, including a broad injunction that can be enforced against third parties, such as hosting providers, CDNs, ISPs, and payment processors, to stop this infringement,” Kuelling said.

The involvement of third-party intermediaries could be key, as the Moroccan defendants have not been very responsive thus far. They allegedly ignored previous takedown requests from rightsholders in the past, so there’s a realistic chance that they will not appear in court either.

As of the filing date, dmtn8k.com and dmtniptv.net remain active, and these services continue to operate.

—-

A copy of the complaint filed by Dish Network at the Southern District of New York is available here (pdf).

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

To address this problem, the Spanish football league has recently gone to court to target the VPNs themselves.

Today, the Commercial Court No. 1 of Córdoba granted LaLiga and its broadcasting partner Telefónica Audiovisual Digital (TAD) an emergency injunction, targeting NordVPN and ProtonVPN. The VPN companies must block IP addresses linked to illegal streaming of LaLiga matches, making these inaccessible from Spain.

The orders offer no immediate appeal option, according to El Economista, and there is one significant caveat. Neither VPN company was present in court when the ruling was handed down.

VPNs Not Heard

The court orders were issued inaudita parte, which is Latin for “without hearing the other side.” Citing urgency, the Córdoba court did not give NordVPN and ProtonVPN the opportunity to contest the measures before they were granted.

Without a defense, the court reportedly concluded that both NordVPN and ProtonVPN actively advertise their ability to bypass geo-restrictions, citing match schedules in their marketing materials. The VPNs are therefore seen as active participants in the piracy chain rather than passive conduits, according to local media reports.

The order is dynamic, which means that LaLiga and Telefónica can update the list of IP addresses the VPNs must block at any time, when new illegal streams are identified. In practice, this would require NordVPN and ProtonVPN to continuously receive and apply new blocklists during live match windows, effectively mirroring the real-time blocking infrastructure already imposed on Spanish ISPs.

In the past, Spanish blocking measures have been heavily criticized, as they also affected innocent parties that shared IP addresses with pirate services.

The court acknowledged this risk. It obligated LaLiga and Telefónica to preserve sufficient digital evidence that the IPs they report are genuinely tied to illegal content, a requirement designed to reduce collateral damage. It is not immediately clear how effectively this will prevent overblocking.

“We Have Not Been Formally Notified”

ProtonVPN apparently learned about the ruling from news reports, the same way everyone else did.

“We have become aware of recent reports concerning legal proceedings in Spain that may affect VPN services, including Proton VPN,” the company wrote on X. “At this stage, we were not aware of any proceedings that may have been underway prior to these reports coming to light and have not been formally notified of any proceedings or judgment.”

The company questions whether the order has any legal validity at all.

“Spanish courts, like all courts operating under the rule of law, are bound by procedural safeguards that ensure parties are given a fair opportunity to present their case before any binding judgment is rendered,” the VPN company noted.

NordVPN, speaking to Spanish tech outlet Bandaancha, called the approach “unacceptable” and also confirmed that it had not been involved in any legal proceedings in Spain.

Outside EU Jurisdiction

While the current orders are a first in Spain, we have seen similar blocking injunctions in France already. In May 2025, the Paris Judicial Court ordered five major VPN providers to block access to more than 200 illegal sports streaming sites, and similar orders followed.

In France, the orders are still under appeal. What options are available in Spain is unclear, however. The providers can comply, but they might also explore indirect options to challenge the injunctions, including jurisdictional concerns.

Enforcing the order is far from straightforward. ProtonVPN is operated by Proton AG, a Swiss company based in Geneva. NordVPN is operated by Nord Security, incorporated in Panama. Neither country is an EU member state.

This jurisdiction issue raises significant questions about enforcement. While the court has ordered the rulings to be translated and sent to the companies’ headquarters, it remains unclear what leverage a Spanish commercial court has over entities in Panama or Switzerland.

For now, the orders are in effect, and the companies are officially on notice. Whether any football match in Spain will actually become harder to pirate as a result remains to be seen, but LaLiga is pleased with the outcome and called it a landmark victory.

—

—

Update 22 February: Proton VPN’s David Peterson reported that in Spain, LaLiga’s blocking requests are causing widespread collateral damage, including the (now lifted) blockade of the U.S. government’s freedom.gov.

—

The original court filing from Juzgado Mercantil No. 1 de Córdoba was not immediately available to us.

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

Despite being the target of court-ordered ISP blocks in Spain going back to 2018, the site has proven remarkably resilient, hopping from domain to domain to stay accessible.

The site also maintained an active Discord community, “HDFull Oficial,” with roughly 33,000 members. However, while the main site remained operating, the Discord server abruptly disappeared last week.

On February 11, HDFull’s official X account posted a message informing users that there was an ‘issue’ with the original Discord community, directing them to a newly created replacement server.

The admins and moderators of the site and Discord server didn’t go into detail on this apparent ‘issue,’ but it didn’t take long before the culprit was identified. As it turns out, anti-piracy group ACE requested Discord to take action.

DMCA Subpoena Targets Discord

On February 13, the MPA filed a request for a DMCA subpoena at the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, targeting Discord. On behalf of ACE members Warner Bros. and Universal, MPA asked the company to identify two key users who operated the HDFull Oficial server.

The targeted accounts belong to the Discord user “hdfull”, who appears to be the server owner and primary moderator, and “xenus9999”, a moderator with “Mod” and “Uploaders” roles.

The filing includes a DMCA notice sent to Discord on February 9, two days before the server went dark. This notice explicitly asks Discord to disable the HDFull server, which is precisely what happened.

The notice came with a 23-page exhibit documenting the server’s activities in detail. Screenshots show the “hdfull” account sharing direct links to infringing streams of Warner Bros.’ The Batman and It Chapter Two on the HDFull website. The “xenus9999” account allegedly posted links to The Batman and Universal’s Furious 7.

Through the DMCA subpoena, ACE asks Discord to hand over names, physical addresses, IP addresses, telephone numbers, and email addresses for the individuals behind both accounts.

Cloudflare Subpoena Targets 19 Domains

The Discord subpoena was not the only filing submitted by MPA and ACE last Friday. They filed a separate DMCA subpoena at the Central District of California Court, targeting Cloudflare. This subpoena seeks to unmask the operators of 19 pirate streaming domains, including HDFull.org.

Cloudflare is asked to identify the customers connected to the pirate site accounts, with the MPA citing various copyright-infringing links that appear on these platforms.

The 19 targeted domains are noticeably diverse, covering multiple languages and regions. For example, in addition to English portals, they include the German streaming veteran kinox.to, mirrors of Spanish-language site Pelisflix, Turkish streaming sites, and an Arabic anime portal, among others.

The pirated titles range from recent blockbusters like Moana 2, Gladiator 2, Nobody 2, and Venom: The Last Dance, to older catalog titles including Tenet, Frozen II, The Lion King, and Tangled.

For all 19 domains, Cloudflare is asked to provide names, physical addresses, IP addresses, telephone numbers, email addresses, payment information, account updates, and account histories. While many pirate sites are known to share false data, ACE hopes to find sufficient information to expose some of the operations.

HDFull’s Long and Resilient History

HDFull has been a thorn in Hollywood’s side for the better part of a decade. In 2018, following complaints from Disney, Fox, Paramount, Sony, Universal, and Warner, a court in Barcelona ordered Spanish ISPs including Telefónica, Vodafone, and Orange to block the site along with fellow pirate portal Repelis.tv.

The site responded by doing what many pirate sites do: going on a domain hopping spree.

The court filing’s exhibit documents this in vivid detail. Screenshots from the Discord server show the “hdfull” account periodically posting updated lists of working domains for its users. An October 2025 screenshot shows at least 13 active mirror domains, from hdfull.org and hdfull.one to hdfull.love, hdfull.monster, and hdfull.buzz.

The Discord server, in other words, helped to evade the very ISP blocks that courts had ordered. Other messages also recommend Spanish users install Cloudflare’s WARP VPN to circumvent blocks imposed by their internet providers.
This dual role, as both a community hub and an anti-blocking tool, likely made the Discord server a key target for ACE.

What Happens Next?

Both subpoenas have yet to be signed off on by a court clerk. Interestingly, the Discord subpoena requires a response by February 27, “2025” rather than 2026. The request for subpoena and the declaration were also signed and dated February 13, 2025, suggesting that the MPA is struggling to adapt to the new year. These errors will have to be corrected.

Whether Cloudflare and Discord will comply without resistance remains to be seen, but both companies are usually responsive to valid subpoenas issued by a U.S. court.

ACE has used this playbook before. Late last year, the MPA filed a similar DMCA subpoena targeting Discord over pirate streaming site OnionPlay, successfully getting the server shut down while seeking to unmask its operator.

For HDFull’s operators, being targeted from multiple directions at once likely puts them on high alert. For now, however, the site remains online, with over a dozen operational backup domains in place. In addition, the team has set up a new Discord server to replace the one that was taken down.

—

A copy of the Discord DMCA subpoena request, filed at the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, is available here (pdf). The Cloudflare DMCA subpoena request, filed at the Central District of California, is available here (pdf).

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

In recent years, Amazon has increased its anti-piracy efforts, both individually and as a member of the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE).

The company does all it can to protect popular titles such as Fallout, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, and The Boys, which are typically pirated shortly after their release.

Amazon Sues Pirate DVD Operation

The main focus of these anti-piracy efforts is on pirate streaming and download portals, but it doesn’t end there. In 2023, Amazon sued several websites that sold pirated DVDs disguised as official releases.

While pirated discs are no longer as popular as they were 20 years ago, they remain a problem, especially when illicit copies are sold as the real deal.

The piracy operation consisted of at least eight websites, including dvdshelf.com.au, dvds.trade, dvd-wholesale.com, and dvdwholesale.co.uk. These sites were all linked to the same group of defendants: DVD Trade Int. Ltd, Media Wholesale UK, and an individual named Yangchun Zhang, who reportedly resides in China.

Since Amazon has never released some of these Prime Video series on DVD, there was no doubt the discs were created from illicit sources. Amazon’s investigators conducted more than twenty test purchases, and the Motion Picture Association confirmed that every single sample was pirated.

Defendants Don’t Appear in Court

The defendants were served with the complaint in April 2024 but never appeared in court. According to Amazon’s attorneys, however, the defendants shut some domains down, trading them in for new ones, suggesting that they were aware of the legal pressure.

When Amazon eventually filed its motion for default judgment in March 2025, at least two of the piracy websites were still active. That still holds true at the time of writing, as dvd-wholesale.com and dvdshelf.com.au remain online.

Amazon argued that the defendants were willingly ignoring the lawsuit and simply refused to show up in court. The company requested millions of dollars in damages as well as domain transfers to shut the sites down. After reviewing all the evidence, the court agreed.

$6 Million in Damages

This week, Judge Fernando Aenlle-Rocha of the Central District of California granted Amazon’s motion for default judgment in full, awarding a total of $6,075,000 in statutory damages for copyright and trademark infringement.

Amazon Content Services was awarded $3,075,000 for copyright infringement covering 78 copyrighted episodes across seven television series, including The Rings of Power, The Boys, Clarkson’s Farm, and The Legend of Vox Machina.

The court awarded $75,000 per infringed work for titles Amazon exclusively owns, and proportionally lower amounts for co-owned titles. This is in line with what Amazon proposed itself.

The court also awarded Amazon Technologies an additional $3,000,000 for willful trademark infringement, at $1 million per infringed mark for three of its registered trademarks. This is also in line with what Amazon proposed.

All three defendants, DVD Trade, Media Wholesale UK, and Zhang, are jointly and severally liable for the full damages amount. However, enforcing this type of order against evasive foreign defendants might prove difficult. Therefore, Amazon also requested an injunction targeting the hosting companies and domain names.

Broad Injunction and Domain Transfers

In the order, Judge Fernando Aenlle-Rocha agrees a permanent injunction that extends well beyond the named defendants is indeed warranted.

Specifically, the order prohibits defendants from reproducing, distributing, advertising, or selling any copies of Amazon’s copyrighted works, and also targets the infrastructure behind the piracy operation.

The court directed domain registrars GoDaddy and Drop.com.au to transfer ownership of all eight piracy domains to Amazon. Meanwhile, top-level domain registries, including Verisign, auDA, Elite Registry Limited, and Nominet UK, are also ordered to assist with the transfers.

Finally, hosting providers that receive notice of the order must suspend services to the piracy websites and place administrative locks on them to prevent the sites from simply moving elsewhere.

To be Continued?

Importantly, the court also left open the option to extend the injunction to additional domains and websites in the future, if Amazon can demonstrate they are operated by the same defendants and infringe its copyrights or trademarks.

This extension might be much-needed, as the defendants have shown no signs of engaging with the legal process, and it remains to be seen whether a single penny in damages will ever be collected.

Ultimately, the broad injunction is the real prize, however, as this should make it significantly harder for them to continue operating their piracy network, at least under these domain names.

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A copy of the court’s order granting default judgment and permanent injunction, filed at the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, is available here (pdf).

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

While several large piracy platforms such as Noonoo and TVWIKI have been shut down, new threats continue to emerge.

To deal with this problem, Korean rightsholders use advanced OSINT tools to track down offenders and hold them responsible. In addition, dedicated anti-piracy groups deployed advanced AI monitoring systems.

While anti-piracy efforts increasingly turn into an AI-assisted arms race, human involvement remains valuable too. In fact, the Korea Copyright Protection Agency (KCOPA) is actively recruiting more people to help monitor foreign language pirate sites.

In the current application round, KCOPA is hoping to add 25 people. These ‘K-Copyright Monitors,’ as they are called, will be paired with the agency’s automated detection systems to track down pirated Korean content overseas. The initiative, now in its fourth year, helps to flag foreign pirate sites early.

The full recruitment notice, published by the Korea Software Copyright Association on behalf of the KCOPA, notes that ten languages are targeted: Chinese, English, Thai, Vietnamese, Spanish, Indonesian, Arabic, Russian, Portuguese, and French.

Malware, Viruses & Minimum Wage

While foreign applicants are welcome, the job application is in Korean and targeted locally, which isn’t likely to invite many outsiders. The job starts next month and runs until November 27, and applicants are required to work from a registered home address.

Prospective applicants must currently be unemployed and should not expect a high salary. The hourly rate is 10,320 won, or roughly $7.50, which is South Korea’s minimum wage.

The day-to-day work involves scanning overseas websites for pirated copies of Korean films, dramas, web novels, webtoons, music, and published works, then collecting infringement data and evidence. The KCOPA shares this data with rights holders and also uses it for enforcement purposes.

One detail that stands out is that applicants must be prepared to deal with “viruses and ransomware” that can occasionally be found on pirate sites. For this reason, they may want to set up a virtual machine for the piracy monitoring job.

Why Humans Still Matter

In response to questions from TorrentFreak, KCOPA explained why it continues to rely on human monitors alongside its automated systems. The agency said that while AI-based detection is effective at identifying large volumes of infringing content, the techniques used to distribute pirated material are also evolving rapidly.

Human monitors can identify new patterns of infringement that automated systems struggle to detect, and can make more flexible judgments about whether content actually constitutes a violation, the agency said.

The experience of human monitors with analyzing pirate sites across different language regions helps to improve the automated system’s accuracy over time.

“For repetitive and standardized types of infringement, we actively utilize automated systems,” KCOPA senior official Park So-yeon told TorrentFreak, translated from Korean. “At the same time, we use human monitoring to compensate for the limitations of automated systems and to verify the accuracy of detection results.”

240,000 Links Deleted

The ten languages are picked based on survey data, identifying the foreign languages where Korean Wave content is most prevalent. According to KCOPA, the K-Copyright Monitors have been quite effective over the years.

Since the program started, link deletions have increased every year. In 2025 alone, approximately 240,000 pirated links were removed, KCOPA notes in a press release this week.

“To recognize the fair value of K-content in the global market, an immediate and systematic response to illegal distribution is essential,” KCOPA Director Park Jung-ryeol said, translated from Korean. “Through the operation of K-Copyright Monitors, we will closely analyze overseas infringement situations and respond immediately.”

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https://cm.asiae.co.kr/en/article/2026020909455719985

https://www.kcopa.or.kr/eng/index.do

https://www.kcopa.or.kr/eng/lay1/S120T436C508/contents.do

https://m.blog.naver.com/kcopastory/221883080121

https://m.blog.naver.com/PostView.naver?blogId=kcopastory&logNo=224156143734&navType=by

https://www.asiae.co.kr/article/life-general/2026020909455719985

https://www.spc.or.kr/ko/notification/noti/sw_sub411?no=1420

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

Judge Esteban Rossignoli required local ISPs to block 69 domains linked to the pirate IPTV service Magis TV. More controversially, the judge also ordered Google to remotely uninstall sideloaded Magis TV apps from all Android devices with Argentine IP addresses.

“What was achieved is an unprecedented court order, which is in the process of being analyzed by Google – we understand that they cannot deny it – which is to uninstall, through the Android operating system update, the application on all devices that have an IP address in Argentina,” prosecutor Alejandro Musso said at the time.

While the Magis TV crackdown has some effect, the brand wasn’t gone. New IPTV services continued to pop up, including an apparent rebrand: XuperTV. This week, these two services are both targeted in a new high-profile court order.

70+ Domains Blocked, Apps Go Dark

On February 10 and 11, thousands of Argentine users discovered that Magis TV and its successor Xuper TV had stopped working entirely. Channel lists wouldn’t load, connections timed out, and in some cases, the apps completely vanished from smart TVs and mobile devices.

This is the result of Judge Rossignoli’s new court order, which covers more than 70 domains. The order requires ISPs to block domains and IP-addresses and, similar to the earlier version, orders Google to disable the applications on Android devices connecting from Argentina.

Users attempting to open the apps are greeted with a blunt message:

“Due to policy limitations, the account cannot be used in your area. Contact your retailer.”

The court order is part of a broader enforcement action, led by Argentina’s Specialized Unit on Cybercrime (UFEIC) under prosecutor Musso. According to La Nación and Cadena 3, the investigation included raids and the seizure of hundreds of TV Boxes. Those identified as responsible face up to six years in prison.

Before the full block hit, the platforms reportedly tried to limit their exposure by deleting all Argentine channels. However, that clearly didn’t work.

Operación 404

The Argentinian enforcement is part of Operación 404, an international anti-piracy operation led by Brazil’s Ministry of Justice that has previously coordinated raids and domain seizures across Latin America.

Coinciding with the Argentinian actions, Chile’s Department of Telecommunications ordered ISPs to block all sites using the brands Magis Tv, Flujo TV, Xuper TV or their variants. That includes “any domain, subdomain, IP address, link, redirect or mirror” that reproduces the content. The dynamic blocking order gives ISPs five days to comply.

The Chilean action was triggered by a complaint from Warner Bros. Discovery. ISPs must display a notice stating the sites were blocked for intellectual property infringement.

The Milei/Trump IP Agreement

The timing of the anti-piracy actions might not be coincidental. On February 5, Argentina and the United States signed a trade and investment agreement that includes explicit commitments on intellectual property enforcement.

Argentina committed to “establish a robust standard of protection for intellectual property” and to create “effective systems for enforcement in civil, criminal, and border areas” that “combat and deter the infringement or misappropriation of intellectual property, including in the digital environment.”

The United States reportedly lodged more than 100 copyright-related demands in the negotiations. Article 1.10 specifically commits Argentina to “investigate and bring criminal proceedings against operators of Argentina-based websites that engage in commercial-scale copyright piracy.”

That language goes well beyond Magis TV. It also targets sites like Fútbol Libre and Pelota Libre, which stream Argentine football without authorization.

VPN Interest Spikes

In addition to blocking pirate sites, the actions had an immediate side effect: a surge in VPN usage.

On February 10, Proton VPN’s account on X posted a graph showing a sharp spike in Argentine connections, asking: “Is everything okay in Argentina?”

Apparently, pirates quickly began sharing workarounds on social media. A common one involves installing ProtonVPN, connecting to a Mexican server, then reopening Magis TV or Xuper TV. In some cases, the apps work again via the VPN.

Others are changing DNS settings on their smart TVs manually, though this is reportedly becoming less effective. According to FayerWayer, rights protection systems are now using AI to identify pirate IPTV traffic in real time, leaving users who reconnect with constant interruptions and degraded quality.

What’s Next

The search for workarounds in response to blocking efforts is not new. We have seen this countless times already, dating back more than a decade ago. It doesn’t only apply to users either; the operators of pirate services and apps also have to get creative.

Whether Google actually complied with the removal order and, if so, what actions it took precisely remains an open question. Magis TV apps were distributed mostly as sideloaded APK files from third-party websites. For Google to remotely disable such an app, it would need to intervene on the users’ devices directly.

App developers could likely find ways to work around it by rebranding again, simply continuing the game of whack-a-mole. But that’s nothing new, of course.

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