The real Pirate Bay website operates from ThePiratebay.org, but the site always had many backup domains in place, just in case.

This included Piratebay.org (without the) as well as ThePiratebay.com. The former was sold for $50,000 at auction earlier this week after the previous owner seemingly forgot to extend the registration. The .com domain also lapsed and will be auctioned off this weekend.

The high price tag is quite unusual for a Pirate Bay domain. Many domain brokers buy these types of domains to monetize them through advertising feeds, but at this price, it isn’t really a good deal.

This made us wonder what the buyer was up to. Could he or she be planning to start a Pirate Bay copy, hoping to take over part of the torrent site’s traffic? Could it become a malware invested ‘pirate trap’, or even a honeypot?

PirateBay Pictures Announces ‘The Torrent Man’

A few hours ago the plan became more became clear but it’s not what anyone expected. People who visit Piratebay.org today will see a message from “PirateBay Pictures,” in collaboration with “I’m Feeling Lucky Studios,” announcing their film project; The Torrent Man.

“Yes, it’s official, the PirateBay Pictures is starting to film The Torrent Man, an indie feature movie about the darknet, torrenting world, crypto, and the real people behind them,” they announce.

 

 

While that sounds intriguing, it appears that thus far, the aspiring filmmakers don’t have much else. After spending $50,000 on the Piratebay.org domain they now hope to sell the domain for nearly $2 million to raise funds for their project.

Crowdsourcing Everything

In addition, they also need a film script, and pretty much the entire film crew, which they hope to crowdsource.

“We need actors, crew members, and authors (!) as we are crowdsourcing the movie script. Any unusual twists you can think of, any characters you want to see, crazy storylines?”

This is all highly unusual, to say the least. Based on the information that’s presented in public it seems that the people behind the site basically have nothing, except for a title. While that could be an ‘artsy peer-to-peer’ way of creating content, caution is warranted.

Skeptical Notes

The domain experts we’ve spoken with say that asking $2 million for the domain isn’t realistic at all. That makes sense, as the brokers who were previously interested already bid in this week’s auction and bailed out when the price went too high.

That said, ‘The Torrent Man’ idea will get plenty of attention for the Piratebay.org domain, which makes it more valuable with an increased number of backlinks. We’re not saying that this is the true goal but without more information, we’re a bit skeptical.

Perhaps we’re being too cautious, but without more information, the entire plan seems quite confusing. For example, the site mentions that the “original shoot got pushed back due to Covid,” which is odd as there was no script or crew yet.

We have reached out to “PirateBay Pictures” for more details and are looking forward to hearing more. We will update this article when their answers come in.

As the popularity of pirate IPTV suppliers, sellers, and resellers continues to grow, entertainment industry companies – which were initially quite slow to combat the threat – are now piling on the pressure.

The momentum arrives via the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE), the huge anti-piracy coalition featuring the combined power of Hollywood, Netflix, Amazon, plus a broad array of global entertainment industry names.

While ACE’s press office sits quietly by, knowing all but saying pretty much nothing, news of fresh ACE activity hits TF’s newsdesk several times every month and regularly features action against IPTV providers. This week offers no let-up in that trend.

‘Streams For Us’ Shuts Down Under ACE Pressure

There are hundreds of IPTV brands on offer today and Streams For Us was one of the better-known providers. Until this week, that is, when it suddenly shut down.

As always, rumors varied from the operators “doing a runner” with the cash to being forced out of business due to actual or potential legal action. From the information received by TF thus far on the matter, it appears that the latter applies in this case.

It is extremely common for ACE pressure to begin with a cease-and-desist notice. At this point it’s up to the IPTV entity to decide on the direction – ignore it and carry on or comply with its terms. Streams for Us was placed under pressure by ACE and subsequently shut down.

That will almost certainly not be the end of the matter though, as ACE also likes to tie up loose ends, including taking over domains and perhaps reaching a settlement offer. The terms of any settlement are almost always confidential but depending on how quickly an agreement can be reached, it’s likely that Streams For Us domains will be transferred to the MPA shortly after.

Precisely when this pressure to close began isn’t clear but according to reports, the Streams For Us 24/7 VOD channels were removed a few days ago. So-called 24/7 channels specialize in a particular TV series, showing episodes constantly.

While popular with customers, these channels require copies of the episodes to be stored on – and distributed from – a server, a breach of copyright law and a clear head above the parapet for those seeking to exploit the ‘streaming loophole‘.

At the time of writing, streamsforus.net and forushosting.com are both down along with the service’s social media accounts.

Other IPTV Brands Go Down, Potentially Due to the Above

After Streams For Us went down, other IPTV brands – some of which appear to have connections to the targeted provider – also disappeared according to users.

Thunder IPTV, Commando IPTV, Nue Media, Net Streams are all reportedly down at the time of writing, with reports suggesting that some acted as resellers or rebrandings of the Streams For Us service. TheHeroTV also appears to have gone down during the past few days too but we were unable to establish if connections exist to the above.

Whether any of these brands were targeted individually by ACE is currently unknown but if the claims of reliance on Streams For Us channels are true, cutting off the head may have achieved the desired result without that being necessary.

On August 25, unofficial reports began to circulate that something big was underway in the top-tier piracy world known as The Scene.

So-called topsites, the servers where masses of copyright-infringing content are stored, began shutting down globally as it became clear that law enforcement action was underway.

Within hours, the US Department of Justice announced that three key members of the piracy groups known as SPARKS, GECKOS, DRONES and SPLiNTERS had been indicted, charged with a range of offenses connected to movie and TV show piracy.

As reports of wider arrests filtered in from law enforcement entities in Europe, the status of the indicted trio was clarified in the United States. George Bridi, 50, a citizen of Great Britain, had been detained in Cyprus on an INTERPOL Red Notice. Norway resident Umar Ahmad (aka ‘Artist’), 39, was still at large. Jonatan Correa (aka ‘Raid’), 36, had been arrested on US soil in Olathe, Kansas, and placed into custody.

Jonatan Correa (aka ‘Raid’)

The USDOJ alleges that Correa was involved in the ‘Sparks Conspiracy’ (the collective name for the prosecution) from around January 2011 through to August 2020. This differs from the charges against Bridi and Ahmad, whose ‘conspiracy’ charges run from January 2011 to January 2020. The reasons for this remain unclear.

All three are charged with causing “tens of millions of dollars” in losses to film production studios. According to a superseding indictment, Correa and the others fraudulently obtained copies of discs containing movies and TV shows in advance of their official release dates.

It is further claimed that Correa remotely accessed a computer belonging to a co-conspirator in Westchester County in order to “illegally record and reproduce” copyrighted TV shows. At this stage, the identity of this alleged co-conspirator is being kept under wraps by the authorities.

While Correa’s co-defendants face additional charges including wire fraud and transporting stolen property, Correa faces a single charge of conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement.

Correa Arrested, Quickly Released, Pleads Not Guilty

After being arrested in Kansas on August 25 at 07:00, court records reveal that Correa was presented before the Kansas district court on August 26 and released the very same day.

Other documents that might offer additional information persistently return a “not found” error on records portal PACER, while access to others is simply denied. However, additional detail is available relating to Correa’s status and plea.

Records indicate that Correa was released on bail with a $75,000 bond, secured by cash or property. His release comes with pre-trial supervision conditions, including that he must surrender all travel documents and submit to a ban on all new travel document applications.

In addition, Correa has agreed to participate in a drug testing and treatment program and is forbidden from possessing firearms, other weapons, or any “destructive devices”. He is further ordered to abstain from contact with co-defendants and witnesses, with conditions.

“Defendant shall have no contact with any co-defendant, witnesses known to Defendant, or any other members of the Sparks Group without the presence of counsel,” a bail document reads, adding that Correa must not engage in any of the conduct alleged in his charging document either.

Perhaps most importantly of all, exactly one week ago on September 1, 2020, Correa appeared remotely before United States Magistrate Judge James L. Cott and was arraigned on the superseding indictment. Correa pleaded not guilty to the charges against him.

Whether that position will change later down the line remains to be seen but right now, his alleged co-conspirators don’t yet appear to be in US custody.

Alleged Co-Conspirators Bridi and Ahmad

According to the most recent official information, Ahmad (Artist) is reportedly still at large, perhaps in Norway, while Bridi is located some 5,500 miles away from New York on the island of Cyprus in the Mediterranean Sea.

Since the unsealing of his indictment and from the filings made available to date, Ahmad hasn’t been mentioned in court documents. In respect of Bridi, however, the US Government has requested and obtained multiple certified copies of his indictment and arrest warrant for the “purposes of extraditing the defendant to the United States.”

When that will take place is unknown but at least as far as Correa’s cases is concerned, Acting United States Attorney Audrey Strauss told the court last week that the parties are currently in discussion over discovery and a pre-trial disposition. A conference has been set for October 26, 2020, for these discussions to continue.

As previously reported, the action against SPARKS has negatively affect pirated releases from The Scene, with a steep decline observed in volumes of content being made available.

Source documents here (1,2,3)

Last week the UK Government’s Intellectual Property Office published its annual IP Crime and Enforcement Report.

The report provides an overview of the latest anti-piracy achievements of copyright holders and also signals emerging threats.

Like every year, the general consensus is that piracy and counterfeiting remain a problem. However, specifics and priorities change over time. When the first report was published fifteen years ago P2P file-sharing was the top concern. Today, this is a relatively small part of the piracy landscape.

The 120-page report covers a wide range of “IP crimes” but we will zoom in on some of the top piracy threats and responses as reported by the Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT), the Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit (PIPCU), and PRS for Music.

The Growing IPTV Piracy Problem

To begin, FACT highlights that the number of IPTV piracy complaints increased sharply over the past few years. In 2014 there were just three complaints but by last year this number had grown to 682.

“Over the past 6 years, FACT has seen a steady year-on-year increase in public complaints regarding suppliers of illegal IPTV services,” the group notes, showing that its intel on these IPTV services has grown as well.

 

 

As a result of this development, FACT’s enforcement efforts are prioritized on IPTV piracy. This has resulted in various successes including “Operation Saturn” where several people associated with IPTV services stopped their activities after a visit from FACT investigators.

PIPCU, the dedicated IP-crime department of the City of London Police, also mentioned IPTV as a growing threat. According to the police, this problem may worsen when 5G is rolled out across the UK.

“IPTV services are likely to increase, a reason for this is that 5G is being rolled out across the country allowing broadband to increase in availability,” the police unit forecasts in the report.

Police Keep an eye on Cryptocurrencies

The use of cryptocurrencies by pirate sites and services is far from new. The Pirate Bay, for example, started accepting Bitcoin donations many years ago and various pirate services have a cryptocurrency payment option.

In the most recent IP Crime and Enforcement Report, cryptocurrencies receive several noteworthy mentions nonetheless. The report highlights these financial mechanisms as part of sophisticated business models that are used by copyright infringers.

According to PIPCU, the police are keeping a close eye on these crypto transactions, which they signal as a threat that will get worse over time.

“Payment using cryptocurrencies has now been a feature of PIPCU investigations. It is predicted that payment by cryptocurrency will be an increasing threat due to the level of anonymity cryptocurrency provides,” the report reads.

PRS also mentions cryptocurrencies as a problem. The music group notes that the majority of the stream-ripping sites, which include YouTube rippers, rely on advertising as the prime source of revenue but cryptocurrencies are up and coming.

“Donations by cryptocurrency have been observed for the first time as a revenue source for 3% of stream-ripping services,” PRS reports.

Stream-Ripping is the Music Industry’s Main Piracy Threat

These same stream-ripping sites remain the music industry’s top anti-piracy priority. They were identified as the top threat years ago but the problem has only increased. According to new data shared by PRS, stream-rippers account for more than 80% of all top music pirate sites. This is a significant increase compared to a few years ago.

This dominance is also reflected in the graph below, where other pirate sites follow at a distance. The website y2mate.com is seen as the largest threat of all with the most traffic, according to PRS.

 

 

Aside from dedicated sites, stream-ripping apps and browser add-ons are also viewed as a major threat. However, on this front, the enforcement efforts of PRS’s Rights Protection Unit have been rather effective.

“By using a range of methods, the RPU’s greatest successes have been in tackling stream-ripping plug-ins and stream-ripping download apps where a 100% success rate in both areas was achieved.

“Stream-ripping plug-ins were removed from the Google Chrome browser and stream-ripping download apps were removed or the ripping functionality was disabled from the apps available on the Apple App store,” the report adds.

All in all, the latest IP Crime and Enforcement Report doesn’t include many surprises. It is mostly a summary of past achievements paired with a broad overview of the current piracy landscape. However, it does clearly show where the current priorities lie, and how these have changed over time.

In 2020, people looking for a pirate IPTV supplier are presented with dozens upon dozens of options.

While it’s believed there are relatively few groups supplying high-level sources for much of the content, many smaller providers plus sellers and resellers are saturating the marketplace, each looking for a piece of what has become a massive market.

The Players Klub

During 2017 or thereabouts, a new brand entered the market with a splash. Labeled The Players Klub (TPK), the service attracted a loyal following with pretty cheap plans (including what appears to have been limited free giveaways) offering a wide range of live TV channels plus a comprehensive movie and TV show VOD platform.

Late 2019, The Players Klub reported ‘changes’ to the service, reporting that it had suffered a “hostile takeover within the business” and as a result would be rebranding under a different name. The new name, ‘TopDog’ (or TPKTopDog) didn’t appear to last long, however.

It’s difficult to pinpoint exactly when the change took place but the ‘TopDog’ branding was later changed to ‘Game Masters’ but even that appeared problematic.

According to the service, someone who used to work for the platform (but left under a cloud) was spreading fake information in order to cause trouble. In a tit-for-tat move, the warring parties asked users to report each others’ pages to Facebook for abusive practices.

The Players Klub Declared Dead….

One thing that remained relatively constant (at least through early name changes and disruption which continued until recently) was the ability to acquire TPK/TopDog using various sites under the MintPanel branding.

However, those domains proved themselves to be unreliable, with various options – MintPanel.net, MintPanel.co and MintPanel.digital – all appearing and then dropping out of use, to the apparent frustration of customers.

The sequence of events is muddy, to say the least, but we can confirm without any shadow of a doubt that none of those domains remain in the possession of TPK/TopDog/Game Masters. In fact, they are all under new management at the Motion Picture Association (MPA), which is clearly not a good sign.

Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment

There’s no easy way of knowing when global anti-piracy coalition ACE, with MPA at the helm, started to put pressure on the variously-branded IPTV providers using the MintPanel domains. What we can be sure of, however, is that early this month they changed hands and now sport the ownership details of the MPA.

 

 

While MintPanel.net was transferred on September 1, 2020, MintPanel.co took a little longer and was transferred over to Hollywood control four days later, the same day as Mintpanel.digital.

All now show the familiar Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment seizure banner before redirecting users (including prospective and existing customers) to the ACE anti-piracy portal for an unwelcome surprise.

 

 

Game Masters IPTV Lives On?

Around three months ago, a long thread developed on Reddit after a Game Masters customer alleged that the IPTV supplier wasn’t providing service after taking payment. The problems appear to have raised their heads after the payment portal used at the time (Gmasterpanel.com) suffered difficulties along with a Discord support channel, that also disappeared.

However, Gmasterpanel.com isn’t in the hands of the MPA/ACE, neither is its alleged replacement Gamers.services. It currently doesn’t seem possible to sign up to Game Masters from that domain itself but according to various reports, the underlying service is working, although who is providing that now is anyone’s guess.

The ACE Juggernaut Rolls On

As reported last week, ACE is currently pressuring Android piracy app TVZion to shut down but that action, like this against TPK/TopDog (and potentially Game Masters), has gone completely unreported by the anti-piracy group.

In fact, just a tiny proportion of ACE actions are made public by the coalition itself, possibly due to confidentiality agreements reached with piracy players but, at least in some instances, because ACE isn’t ready to reveal its achievements in public yet.

Part of the problem, at least potentially, is that some services agree to die then morph into something else.

The data for our weekly download chart is estimated by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only.

These torrent download statistics are meant to provide further insight into the piracy trends. All data are gathered from public resources.

This week we have three new entries in the list. Disney’s action drama “Mulan” crushed all competition and is the most downloaded title this week, by far. At the time of writing, tens of thousands of people are actively sharing the film, which is a rare sight.

The film eventually came out on Disney+ last week after the box office release was delayed several times due to the COVOD-19 pandemic.

The most torrented movies for the week ending on September 7 are:

Movie Rank	Rank last week	Movie name	IMDb Rating / Trailer
Most downloaded movies via torrent sites
1	(…)	Mulan	5.7 / trailer
2	(2)	Bill & Ted Face the Music	6.5 / trailer
3	(3)	Project Power	6.1 / trailer
4	(…)	Tenet	7.9 / trailer
5	(1)	Ava	5.4 / trailer
6	(…)	The Owners	4.6 / trailer
7	(7)	The War With Grandpa	5.0 / trailer
8	(4)	Peninsula	5.6 / trailer
9	(5)	Hard Kill	3.0 / trailer
10	(8)	Greyhound	7.1 / trailer

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

When a major blockbuster title leaks online, it sets a series of intruiging processes in motion.

It was no different this week when low-quality CAM versions of Christopher Nolan’s sci-fi thriller ‘Tenet’ surfaced.

Immediately after this happened thousands of seasoned pirates flocked to their favorite download portals, grabbing a copy. At the same time, anti-piracy outfits sprang into action to issue a continuous stream of takedown requests.

The leak was also a heads up to scammers and other dubious actors. While fake Tenet copies were already circulating, a real leak tends to increase the demand. And indeed, over the past days, we’ve seen scammy links being posted on many legitimate sites including Medium.com, Opensource.com, Shopify.com and Schooltube.com.

There were also news outlets who jumped on the story, including the undersigned. In the days after the leak came out, hundreds of sites referenced it. While some reports are better than others, the news articles are certainly not infringing anyone’s copyrights.

Nonetheless, we noticed this week that several takedown requests targeted real leaked copies, scammy links, and also news reports. One notice sent by the Estonian branch of ACME Film stands out as it combines all three.

The screenshot below starts with a link to a Pirate Bay proxy, followed by a list of scammy postings on legitimate sites such as Sourceforge and Openlibrary. At the very bottom, there are two links to ‘news’ reports. In total, there are five URLs of news reports in that takedown notice alone.

 

 

That notice doesn’t come alone, there’s another one that flags a news report as infringing as well. We are pretty sure that these were all reported ‘accidentally’ but still, a quick glance by an actual person could have easily prevented it.

We fully understand that writing this article is not without risk at all. After all, writing about news reports that were targeted because they covered the Tenet leak, may trigger takedown requests as well. However, we’re willing to take a chance.

Also, Google is known to be quite good at spotting these errors. When we checked, most takedown requests for the news articles were being ignored, which means that they are still in the search results.

Last month, entertainment industry-backed group Digital Citizens Alliance and content protection company NAGRA published a new study that estimated the pirate IPTV market to be worth a billion dollars each year in the US alone.

These types of piracy studies are nothing new but what is interesting about this particular market is that even the biggest ‘pirate’ US players, if they take caution in what type of content they offer and how, are unlikely to find themselves on the wrong end of an aggressive criminal prosecution.

There are caveats and exclusions but in general terms, streaming piracy is not a felony in the United States.

The ‘Streaming Loophole’

That such a loophole exists in the United States under what many believe are some of the most strict copyright laws in the world is a surprise in itself. But exist it does and here’s how it came to be.

Under existing criminal copyright laws, felony penalties are only available for infringements that breach the exclusive rights of reproduction and distribution, i.e the unlawful copying of content and distribution to others. In many cases, however, streaming is viewed as infringing public performance rights, which is considered a misdemeanor.

The end result is that, regardless of the scale of a pirate streaming operation and how much revenue is generated by it, the hands of the authorities are effectively tied in respect of offenses that would otherwise attract years in prison.

Exceptions Exist, It’s Not a Complete Free-For-All

As ongoing cases against Megaupload and Jetflicks demonstrate, streaming offenses can sometimes enter the criminal realm. While some streaming services exploit the loophole cited above, others can face criminal charges when they are deemed to have breached reproduction and distribution rights, by copying infringing content and distributing it to others.

Also, as highlighted by the Department of Justice in a letter to the Senate last year, criminal prosecutions may also follow when unlicensed streaming operations are alleged to have committed other crimes, such as money laundering and racketeering, charges also being faced by Kim Dotcom and his Megaupload co-defendants.

Pressure Building To Close The Loophole

In an opinion piece published in The Hill yesterday, Keith Kupferschmid, chief of powerful industry group Copyright Alliance, again raised the issue of the loophole.

Echoing the sentiments of law enforcement groups, entertainment companies, filmmakers and sports groups that have contributed to the debate thus far, he urged Congress to ensure that “in appropriate large-scale commercial cases”, felony penalties are available to federal prosecutors.

“Virtually every significant form of willful, commercial piracy can be prosecuted as a felony under appropriate circumstances — including copying CDs, illegal file sharing, and even ‘camripping’ movies in the theater,” he wrote.

“But unlike all of these, streaming piracy — no matter how widespread or organized, and regardless of the amount of damage done — can only be prosecuted as a misdemeanor simply because when the laws were drafted streaming video wasn’t an option.”

Indeed, the laws that currently limit felony penalties to infringements involving reproduction and distribution were put in place almost three decades ago. At that time, widespread Internet use wasn’t yet a thing and the possibility of streaming movies or TV shows to the public was a distant dream.

Congress “Working Hard” to Close the Loophole

“Fortunately, Congress is working hard to solve this problem — convening negotiations and developing a simple two-page proposal that would close this ‘streaming loophole’ and ensure that in appropriate large-scale commercial cases, felony penalties are available to federal prosecutors,” Kupferschmid wrote.

“The resulting proposal is a consensus product with broad-based support. It is narrowly tailored to address the serious problem of commercial streaming piracy ensuring ordinary internet users, legitimate businesses, and non-commercial actors have nothing to fear from this proposal.”

The mention of ordinary Internet users remaining unaffected by these proposals is of interest. The last time a bill was presented to amend the relevant sections of the law – 17 U.S.C. § 506 and 18 U.S.C. § 2319 – to render criminal breaches of public performance rights punishable as felonies, things didn’t go well for copyright holders.

The Commercial Felony Streaming Act

Back in 2011, Bill S.978 – labeled the Commercial Streaming Felony Act – was introduced to the Senate in an effort to render unauthorized streaming of copyrighted content for “commercial advantage or personal financial gain” a felony punishable by up to five years in prison.

However, despite assurances that the intent wasn’t to penalize regular Internet users, concern began to build that ‘normal’ people (such as Justin Bieber who launched his career by posting cover versions of songs to YouTube) could be considered felons under the amendments.

Ultimately, however, the contents of the proposed amendments, which later formed part of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), were never passed due to unprecedented public outcry.

Not a Done Deal, But Momentum is Building

While companies that rely on streaming and physical product sales are desperate for the “streaming loophole” to be well and truly closed, this time around they will not have to contend with the scale of the uproar that accompanied the far-reaching SOPA bill.

Indeed, there seems to be optimism that Congress will see fit to accept the proposals which, according to Kupferschmid, are being formed with the assistance of tech companies, not potentially at their expense as per last time around.

“This highly transparent and rigorous process which included participation from groups and organizations of all perspectives — including the creative community and victims of streaming piracy as well as those representing internet users, technology companies, internet service providers and civil society — has been lauded across Capitol Hill as a model way to vet and develop new proposals,” he wrote in The Hill. “It’s time for Congress to close the streaming loophole.”

Given all of the circumstances and developments of the last decade, particularly considering the rise of legal and illegal streaming, the environment today is literally and figuratively years apart from SOPA. As a result, it arguably presents the perfect opportunity for Congress to deliver.

Last year, several major record labels, helped by the RIAA, filed a lawsuit against Internet provider RCN accusing it of turning a blind eye to pirating subscribers.

The lawsuit is in many regards similar to the ones filed against other ISPs, such as Cox, Grande, and Charter, which were all accused of failing to terminate the accounts of repeat infringers.

According to the labels, RCN knew that some of its subscribers were frequently distributing copyrighted material, but failed to take any meaningful action in response. To compensate for this alleged inaction the music companies demand damages, which have the potential to run to hundreds of millions of dollars.

RCN didn’t recognize itself in this description. The company countered the accusations and filed a motion to dismiss the case. Among other things, the company argued that it can’t stop infringement and that it has no direct financial benefit from pirating customers.

This week US District Court Judge Michael A. Shipp ruled on the request. After hearing the arguments from both sides, he chose to deny the motion to dismiss. This means the case will continue.

At this stage of the case, the court has to review the evidence ‘in the light most favorable’ to the plaintiffs, which are the music companies. In this view, the music companies’ contributory and vicarious copyright infringement claims both survive.

For example, there’s enough evidence to allege that RCN knew of the copyright-infringing activities of its customers and that it contributed to them by providing Internet access. Those are two key elements of contributory copyright infringement.

Vicarious copyright infringement is generally harder to prove. That requires evidence that the ISP has the ability to control or supervise the activity and that it enjoyed a direct financial benefit. In other words, did the ISP profit from piracy it could have stopped or limited?

In his order, Judge Shipp notes that other courts have been divided on this issue in similar cases. While RCN cited a case where similar allegations were dismissed, the uncertainty on this matter is not enough to throw the claim out at this point.

“Here, construing the allegations of the Amended Complaint in Plaintiffs’ favor, and considering the lack of binding or persuasive authority on the issue of direct financial benefit, the Court finds RCN has failed to meet its burden at this stage of the litigation,” Judge Shipp writes.

As such, the contributory and vicarious copyright infringement claims against RCN are not dismissed and the case will continue.

This is a victory for the music companies, but Judge Shipp’s order also brings some bad news for them. The complaint also lodged the same copyright infringement claims against RCN’s management company Patriot. These were dismissed.

The music companies argued that Patriot effectively makes all policy decisions for RCN, including the repeat infringer policy. However, according to Judge Shipp, the complaint lacks evidence to back up these and other claims.

—

A copy of US District Court Judge Shipp’s order on RCN’s motion to dismiss is available here (pdf)

This Tuesday, TorrentFreak received more rapid-fire anonymous tips than we have done in recent memory.

Demanding confidentiality is nothing new but tipsters and sources using anonymous mailers, obscured IP addresses, alongside repeat requests that identities aren’t revealed, usually point to something particularly unusual.

And indeed, something unusual was definitely underway. Late Tuesday, documents filed under seal in the United States as early as January 2020 were suddenly unsealed, revealing one of the most important piracy-related cases of the past decade.

As detailed in our report yesterday, a case brought by the US Government resulted in a Grand Jury charging at least three members of several and related top-tier ‘Scene’ release groups – SPARKS, GECKOS, DRONES, ROVERS and SPLiNTERS – with conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement and other crimes.

The US case has been ongoing for many months and the investigation certainly longer. Exactly how long was unknown until yesterday when a Swedish prosecutor revealed that it had been underway “for years”. However, What took us by surprise was the volume of reports on Tuesday, the claims of panic and fear in ‘The Scene’ globally, and what now appears to be a significant reduction of releases of all kinds from what is usually a prolific and cascading ‘Piracy Pyramid’ system.

Initial Information Proved Correct

People closely involved in The Scene are naturally secretive, or at least that’s the mandate. The truth is that some are prepared to talk but everyone is so scared of being caught by the authorities or labeled by fellow members as insecure, that truly verifiable sources are extremely hard to come by. As a result, reporting the finer details becomes a product of overlapping independent sources, none of whom want to be identified, which isn’t ideal.

Nevertheless, during Tuesday we were told by multiple sources that topsites and warez-affiliated members and resources were being targeted by law enforcement, anti-piracy groups, or a combination of both in many regions. What they all had in common was that the entities were affiliated with SPARKS and various topsites.

Another recurring theme was the focus on Nordic countries as being at the heart of action. Many countries were mentioned, including the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland and Poland but, again and again, the reports cited both Norway and Sweden as potentially the main ‘problem’ areas.

US Department of Justice Began Talking Yesterday

In an official announcement Wednesday, following the initial yet unofficial reports of raids 24 hours earlier and after the unsealing of the indictments, the USDOJ revealed the global scale of the operation against SPARKS and its affiliates.

“Thanks to the efforts of HSI, the Postal Inspection Service, Eurojust, Europol, and our law enforcement partners in 18 countries on three continents, key members of this group are in custody, and the servers that were the pipeline for wholesale theft of intellectual property are now out of service,” the announcement read.

The US revealed that law enforcement authorities in many countries assisted in the investigation against SPARKS including those in Canada, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Republic of Korea, Latvia, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.

 

 

SPARKS member George Bridi, 50, was reportedly arrested on Sunday in Cyprus on an INTERPOL Red Notice. Correa (aka ‘Raid’), 36, was arrested Tuesday in Olathe, Kansas, where he will appear in federal court. Umar Ahmad (aka ‘Artist’), 39, was not arrested and as of Wednesday was reportedly still at large, according to the US Government.

The Nordic Connection

Several pieces of information received by TF during Tuesday indeed placed someone known as ‘Artist’ as a central and important figure in the action taking place.

Umar Ahmad is now officially named as that key person but according to his indictment, the US Government is not seeking to prosecute him for SPARKS-related offenses beyond January 2020. That’s also the case for George Bridi, an indicted co-defendant whose alias is currently unknown. The only SPARKS defendant charged with offenses up to August 2020 is Jonatan Correa, aka ‘Raid’.

While there is room for speculation as to what may have happened here, it seems somewhat reasonable to conclude (at least given the charges) that Ahmad and Bridi stopped their alleged offending months ago. However, according to records kept by Scene-watching sites (known as pre-databases), SPARKS-related groups continued releasing content online until fairly recently.

That aside, what we can confirm today is that Norway’s National Criminal Investigation Service, commonly known as Kripos, carried out raids at several premises this week and seized computer equipment on what is being described as a “large scale”.

In addition, three men – who are yet to be named but are in their 30s and 40s – were arrested and charged for breaches of Norway’s Copyright Act. It is not currently known whether 39-year-old Oslo-resident Umar Ahmad is among them.

Danish authorities have also confirmed that four men, aged between 35 and 48, had their homes searched and were subsequently charged with copyright infringement offenses. Servers and other pieces of IT equipment were seized.

Source: Some Warning Signs Were Spotted a While Ago

It’s certainly possible that SPARKS members were absolutely oblivious to the US Government’s investigation but according to one difficult-to-verify source, who insisted on anonymity but spoke with us at length and in considerable detail, this year and “before COVID”, some Scene members were questioning why a particular SPARKS member had suddenly “retired”.

We are not publishing that member’s name here (which we believe was provided to us in advance of the unsealing of the US indictment) but according to the same source, another possibly-connected mystery was still lingering.

The source alleges that some months earlier an individual connected to a separate yet prominent release group also “went afk” and suddenly stopped providing content. Again, we aren’t publishing the name of that group or the nickname of the person involved but we can confirm that the alleged group stopped releasing several months before the end of 2019.

This led to rumors that one or both may have been compromised and hadn’t just taken a break. The relevance is that, according to the same insider, the pair (coincidentally or not) are believed to have shared the same content sources. Again, this is unconfirmed information but the first group has never returned to action and the second has the US Government on the attack after uncovering where it was obtaining its DVD and Blu-Ray discs from.

Significant Legal Action in Sweden

After receiving initial information, which was later confirmed by the USDOJ, that significant action had taken place in Sweden. On Tuesday, we spoke with Jon Karlung, the owner of ISP Bahnhof, which we were informed may have been visited by the authorities investigating SPARKS. That turned out not to be the case.

Karlung told us that nobody had visited the company nor requested information. However, he said that with 400,000 households and 10,000 companies as clients, plus the company’s sale of bandwidth capacity to other ISPs, he couldn’t rule out that someone way down the chain, even a client of someone else, may have been visited.

Whether connected to this specific ISP or not, multiple sources informed us that at least one topsite affiliated with multiple groups utilized a high-bandwidth home link in Sweden, with another topsite connected to multiple groups also seized in the country.

What we know from official sources is that there were 14 house searches carried out in Sweden on Tuesday, including in Umeå, Malmö, Gothenburg and Stockholm. No one was arrested during the raids but according to prosecutor Johanna Kolga, more servers were seized in Sweden than anywhere else.

Netherlands Action and the Existence of MLATs

Finding information about what happened in the Netherlands led us to Tim Kuik of anti-piracy group BREIN. We put it to him that if anyone in the country knows anything about the case, it must be him. Like most other people, Kuik wasn’t budging on detail. But he did offer a plausible explanation for the silence.

“It is an interesting case indeed. It is entirely possible for so-called MLATs to be carried out on the request of say US law enforcement and the Dutch authorities carrying it out without informing any private stakeholders,” Kuik told us.

“In such cases it may be so that stakeholders abroad, who may have filed a criminal complaint for example, have been made aware and would not be at liberty to say anything about it. So nobody is likely to comment I think. But you can always try. I have no comment.”

Later, however, Eurojust – the European Union Agency for Criminal Justice Cooperation – confirmed that it “helped transmit and facilitate the execution of over 30 Mutual Legal Assistance requests and Letters of Request necessary for taking down the servers and executing searches..”

In all, over 60 servers were taken down in North America, Europe and Asia and “several main suspects” were arrested, the agency added.

Interesting Allegations, Few New Releases, and Kevin Bacon

Over the past 48+ hours, TF has been provided with a list of topsites and related infrastructure that has either been raided or taken down as a precautionary measure. The dozen-plus platforms will therefore remain unnamed, as we simply cannot determine which of the platforms are offline voluntarily, or down because they have been seized.

This leads us to why so many sites and other key pieces of infrastructure have disappeared, apparently just because one group was targeted. The reasons, we are told, are complex but can be boiled down to the number of connections SPARKS had in The Scene.

One recurring theme is that one of SPARKS’ members is claimed to have become quite influential and as a result may have “extended his tentacles too far”, as one source framed it. These connections, with many other groups and activities, may go some way to explaining why The Scene all but shut down Tuesday. If we take Bacon’s Law and apply it here, the response makes complete sense.

Nevertheless, the scale of the shutdown is unusual, to say the least, and only time will tell if The Scene will fully recover. For the average torrent or streaming site user, a period of reduced new content availability might be on the horizon but history shows us that rarely lasts for long and that the cycle will probably begin again, once people have figured out who they can trust.

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

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

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

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

The Proxy and Mirror Loophole

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

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

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

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

Google Steps Up its Anti-Piracy Game, Again

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

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

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

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

Did Google Have a Change of Heart?

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

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

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

Nintendo is doing everything in its power to stop the public from playing pirated games on the Switch console.

Earlier this year, the game company launched several lawsuits against websites that sell Team-Xecuter products. These cases are ongoing.

In the meantime, Nintendo has identified other “payload injector” threats as well. This includes the open-source project Dragoninjector, which was developed and sold by MatinatorX.

DragonInjector is a small piece of hardware that fits in the Switch game card slot. It allows users to install and load custom firmware on their console. While it’s not advertised as a pirate tool, with third-party code it can be used to play pirated games on older Switch models.

Nintendo’s Cease and Desist Notice

A few days ago, DragonInjector’s developer formally announced the end of the project. In a message on Discord, a Nintendo cease-and-desist order is cited as the main reason. MatinatorX doesn’t agree with the gaming company’s copyright infringement claims but he doesn’t want to fight them either.

“While I don’t believe the project was or is unlawful in any way, I do not have the resources to go to court to prove that for a hobby, especially considering the project netted a loss of a few thousand dollars overall,” he writes.

The cease-and-desist notice was sent by Nintendo’s Canadian lawyers a few weeks ago. It accuses the developer of copyright infringement by advertising and selling the DragonInjector. According to the notice, this breaks the Switch’s technical protection measures.

“Your unlawful manufacture, advertisement, distribution, offering for sale and sale of the DragonInjector via the Dragon Injector Website infringes our client’s rights,” the lawyers write.

“More specifically, your activities amount to copyright infringement, secondary infringement, and the circumvention of technological protection measures in violation of sections 3, 27, and 41.1 of the Copyright Act, RSC 1985, c. C-42,” they add, referring to Canadian copyright law.

“$12 million CAD in Damages”

The developer was urged to immediately stop any infringing activities. If not, Nintendo reserves the right to take further action, the notice warns, adding that the company previously won $12 million CAD in damages in a ‘similar’ case.

 

 

The threat comes with a list of additional requests. Among other things, MatinatorX must hand over all related accounting, including the number of devices sold as well as any profits that were made.

Down but Not Out

After receiving the cease-and-desist, the developer immediately halted DragonInjector’s sales. In addition, he reached out to Nintendo through his lawyer to settle the matter. That request has not been answered yet, but it’s clear that the DragonInjector project is done.

MatinatorX is aware of the legal uncertainties but says he’s not looking for legal advice from outsiders. He has discussed and explored all options already over the past weeks and shutting things down came out as the best solution.

“I know it sucks, I really do – I’ve poured the better part of two years of my free time into this project – but that’s just how it is. I could let myself be depressed, or I could dive into my other projects and ideas. I’m choosing the latter,” he writes.

The old Dragoninjector.com site is now gone. Instead, the developer registered Draconicmods.com where he will continue to do business. He has set up a legitimate company and is moving forward with DragonMMC, which is a custom Switch kickstand.

Needless to say, DragonMMC won’t have the payload injection capability that was initially planned, but MatinatorX says he can make it something worthwhile nonetheless. And there’s another project in the pipeline as well; DragonDSI, a micro-HDMI port for the Switch Lite.

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A copy of the full cease and desist letter, sent by Nintendo’s Canadian lawyers, is available here (pdf)