Antlers, We have upgraded our infrastructure regarding IRC and have moved it to the primary domain of our sister site, nebulance.io. All users are advised to update their bouncers/clients to the new address: irc.nebulance.io. Ports remain 6667 and 6697 for SSL. NickServ/Sauron have been migrated, and your existing registrations with NickServ should be retained. IRC keys and NickServ passwords also remain the same. The old server will be decommissioned within a few days. // So say we all Discuss this post here

ANNOUNCEMENT: We will close our activities on 03/10/2024, due to this all torrents are freeleech and we will open registration to everyone on 02/20/2024. Download and save everything you need. Global Freeleech mode activated

Non-private torrents Dear users, There has been an old issue with jpopsuki torrents which has recently reared its head again. A significant number of early torrent files uploaded to jpopsuki lack the private flag. Currently, the upload procedure automatically adds this flag and other details if they are missing. In the past, however, this was not automatic. We do not have a way of ameliorating this issue in an automated fashion due to a lack of access to the torrent database on part of staff. Absent the private flag, a torrent client with DHT feature supported and enabled will publish the torrent's infohash to the DHT network. In this manner the torrent becomes effectively a public one which can allow participation of clients not registered with jpopsuki tracker. Since jpopsuki is a ratio-counting private tracker the participation of unregistered clients in its swarms will cause at least the following problems: 1. it skews the tracker's statistics in unexpected ways; 2. it engages the upload bandwidth of registered clients in an unpredictable manner; 3. it adds potential security and privacy risks to torrent file sharing. Considering these, and issues we probably have not thought of yet, we ask of you to take the following actions at your own convenience: 1. check your loaded torrents from jpopsuki for cases you can find where the private flag on a torrent is missing; 2. explicitly disable DHT in your client, or disable DHT per-torrent only for jpopsuki torrents if your client allows this; 3. report torrents based on torrent files that you notice miss the private flag, whether or not you have them loaded in your client; 4. if you notice such report on any given torrent and you have the files for that torrent locally, re-create that torrent file with private flag set, upload it using Add Format feature in the same group as the reported torrent, and report the old torrent again for it to be removed. As you can tell from (4), this is an opportunity for you to increase your upload volume and uploaded torrent count using files that are already provided by other users to you. It is also a helpful service to jpopsuki's general health as a private tracker. Thank you!

PTP user limit raised by 2000 Just a quick note to note that the user cap has been raised, to make room for our increased recruitment (together with some updated criteria and further tweaks). You're likely going to see a lot of new faces around the site.... so please give them a warm welcome. Source: Reddit.com

Free Leeching continues, enjoy We have marked approximately 300 films that everyone should see once in their lives as freeleech. Because they are marked freeleech you can download without using any credits. All torrents are still marked "Special Freeleech" based on user account type that were given out to people who read the rules and faq..... and followed the instructions during the beta period. Betatesters will have access to special freeleech until Valentine's day. SuperBetas will have access to special freeleech until Steak And Blowjob day

STT UPGRADE hey everyone, hope your having a great week! We have now upgraded to UNIT3D v7 We will be moving to a new server tomorrow as long as no bugs appear and all is running fine Please let us know if you see something not quite right or buggy Thank you for your patience

Tracker's Name: CarPT Genre: General Sign-up Link: https://carpt.net/signup.php Closing date: 2024.02.09~~2024.02.17 Open and free registration! Seed2XFREE Additional information: CarPT is a Chinese Private Torrent Tracker for Movies, TV shows and general releases. site data Number of users visiting today 6,144 Number of users visiting this week 8,699 Registered users / upper limit 20,288/30,000 Unverified user 0 VIP 34 donorDonor 50 Users are warnedwarned 1 Banned userdisabled 9,454 boys 19,269 girl 927 seed 51,476 Cut off seeds 11,271 Number of seeds to make 534,517 Number of downloads 2,171 companion 536,688 Ratio of number of seeds produced/number of downloads 24621% Current number of visiting users 471 Current number of Tracker users 6,399 total seed size 1.117PB Total upload volume 19.118PB total downloads 2.111PB Total data volume 21.229PB Peasantsleechwarned 750 User 17,548 Power User 1,228 Elite User 449 Crazy User 163 Insane User 63 Veteran User 6 Extreme User 2 Ultimate User 2 Nexus Master 0

Tracker's Name: HD Fans Genre: General Sign-up Link: https://hdfans.org/signup.php Closing date: Free registration, will be open from February 9, 2024 (New Year's Eve) until 22:00 on February 24 (Lantern Festival). Additional information: HDFans is a small Chinese tracker for HD releases.The torrent database contains good variety of movies, TV shows etc. The seed-bonus system is good and seed-bonus is easy to earn.

Tracker's Name: hdfun(hdzone) Genre: HD Sign-up Link: https://hdzone.me/signup.php Closing date: registration is open from 2024-02-09 12:00:00 to 2024-02-16 18:00:00 Additional information: HDfun is a Chinese private tracker dedicated to movies. site data Number of users visiting today 3,254 Number of users visiting this week 5,042 Registered users / upper limit 19,926/60,000 Unverified user 0 VIP 5 donorDonor 69 Users are warnedwarned 0 Banned userdisabled 748 boys 18,687 girl 1,167 seed 23,523 Cut off seeds 9,803 Number of seeds to make 58,122 Number of downloads 344 companion 58,466 Ratio of number of seeds produced/number of downloads 16896% Current number of visiting users 283 Current number of Tracker users 2,557 total seed size 1.219PB Total upload volume 15,555.609 PB total downloads 1.084PB Total data volume 15,556.693PB (Captive)Peasantleechwarned 743 (Soldier)User 18,011 (Platoon Leader)Power User 494 (Company Commander)Elite User 298 (Battal Commander)Crazy User 142 (Leader)Insane User 93 (Brigadier)Veteran User 75 (Teacher)Extreme User twenty three (Commander)Ultimate User 12 (Commander) Nexus Master 14

Tracker's Name: SoulVoiceClub Genre: General Sign-up Link: https://pt.soulvoice.club/signup.php Closing date: site is open for registration from now until 0:00 on February 18th Additional information: SVC is a small Chienese tracker, which was mainly founded for e-learning releases but you can find lots of other content as well. It has a good collection of movies, TV series, music torrents

Tracker's Name: OKPT Genre: General Sign-up Link: https://www.okpt.net/signup.php Closing date: the site is open for registration from 2024-02-09 to 2024-02-15. 6 days in total. Additional information: OKPT is a CHINESE Private Torrent Tracker for HD / MOVIES / TV / GENERAL site data Number of users visiting today 1,413 Number of users visiting this week 1,874 Registered users / upper limit 3,106/20,000 Unverified user 3 VIP 0 donorDonor 0 Users are warnedwarned 0 Banned userdisabled 654 boys 2,879 girl 168 seed 7,254 Cut off seeds 295 Number of seeds to make 29,905 Number of downloads 221 companion 30,126 Ratio of number of seeds produced/number of downloads 13532% Current number of visiting users 110 Current number of Tracker users 1,254 total seed size 325.310TB Total upload volume 3.223PB total downloads 246.441TB Total data volume 3.464PB Peasantsleechwarned 92 User 2,313 Power User 281 Elite User 260 Crazy User 68 Insane User 62 Veteran User 0 Extreme User 0 Ultimate User 0 Nexus Master 2

Tracker's Name: 1ptba Genre: Movies Sign-up Link: http://pt.1ptba.com/signup.php Closing date: Free time for the entire site starts at 2024-02-09 16:10:00 and ends at 2024-02-19 00:00:00 Additional information: 1ptba is a Chinese Private Torrent Tracker for Movies / TV Releases.

Year of the Dragon Spring Festival activities: 1. Free registration, 2*free, lucky wheel, and medal returns will be open from February 9, 2024 (New Year's Eve) until 22:00 on February 24 (Lantern Festival). 2. During the event, the seeding rewards will be increased to 500 each. In the Year of the Dragon, I wish you all good health, a dragon-horse spirit in your family, good luck in everything, a lot of wealth, a lot of kindness when things happen, and a dragon-like energy in the new year.

The time is always here, and it will still be the same next year. Let’s smile at each other in the spring breeze. As the Lunar New Year is approaching, HDF wishes everyone a happy New Year! Happy family! Make money! The event schedule is as follows: The entire site is free and registration is open from 2024-02-09 12:00:00 to 2024-02-16 18:00:00

Do online services that allow users to download content from YouTube break the law? This question is at the center of a legal battle between Yout.com and the RIAA. Last year, the district court dismissed the case in favor of the music group, before getting properly started. The dispute is now at the Court of Appeals where YouTube's absence in this "big stakes" matter was repeatedly mentioned. At the end of 2020, the operator of one of the largest YouTube rippers took the unprecedented step of taking the music industry to court. Yout.com’s Johnathan Nader had grown tired of the bombardment of DMCA takedown requests and allegedly defamatory claims. In response, he sued the RIAA, asking the federal court in Connecticut to declare his service non-infringing. The RIAA and others were asking Google to remove so-called YouTube-rippers from search results. The music industry group believes that these sites should not be allowed to operate and filed a motion to dismiss Yout’s lawsuit. RIAA Wins, Yout Appeals At the end of 2022, the district court handed a win to the RIAA and dismissed the matter at an early stage. Judge Stefan Underhill concluded that Yout had failed to show that it doesn’t circumvent YouTube’s technological protection measures. As such, it could be breaking the law. That wasn’t the end though. Yout operator Johnathan Nader opted to appeal at the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, asking it to reverse the lower court’s decision. The stream-ripper’s arguments are partly supported by amicus briefs from GitHub and the EFF, both of which joined the case. On the other side of the aisle, the RIAA dug in its heels. The music group saw no reason to doubt the lower court’s position and, in its response to the appeal, found the Copyright Alliance at its side. Appeals Court Hearing On the surface, this case largely revolves around a seemingly simple question. The problem, however, is that both parties have a completely different answer. – Does YouTube employ a technological measure that effectively controls access to copyrighted works? This question brings up all sorts of semantic challenges. What is a measure and when is it technological? What does access mean in this context and under which conditions is it controlled? And if there is such a measure, does Yout.com circumvent it? A few days ago Yout and the RIAA had the chance to explain their reasoning to the Court of Appeals. The hearing was presided over by Judge Carney, Judge Leval, and Judge Sullivan, who critically questioned both attorneys on their views. First up was Evan Fray Witzer, who represents Yout LLC. The attorney explained that this case brings up several novel questions, relating to three distinct provisions of the DMCA’s section 1201. At the same time, however, it is crucial to have a full factual record, which is currently missing. The lower court dismissed Yout’s case at the rule 12 stage before all the factual evidence was gathered. No witnesses were heard and it’s not even clear if YouTube intentionally implemented a ‘measure’ to prevent users from downloading videos. “There is a question as to what YouTube intended with these measures. We don’t know because YouTube isn’t here. YouTube has not come in as an amicus. And we have not had the opportunity to question YouTube about that,” Witzer said. Yout’s attorney suggests that it’s possible that YouTube never implemented any technology specifically to prevent people from grabbing video files. It might have, but in that case, it is still easy to circumvent, even without specialized tools such as Yout. Where’s YouTube? Judge Leval responded by saying that preventing downloads is of great commercial significance to YouTube, as it generates its revenue from advertising. Yout’s attorney agreed but had his response ready. “I have two responses to that. The first is; one would expect if that was YouTube’s concern, that you would have an amicus brief from YouTube here, and you don’t. And I think that that is significant and telling. “The second, though, is that is the same concern, Your Honor, that every television broadcast had when the VCR came out. If you can simply record this, you can show it at your movie night. You can show it as many times as you want.” The VCR comparison was brought up a few times but not as often as the role of YouTube in this lawsuit. The case essentially centers around its purported protection measures, without any direct input from the company itself. When Judge Carney asked what in particular would be developed on a fuller record, if this case was sent back to the lower court, Yout’s attorney said that YouTube could and should be heard. “I think one thing that would be developed on a fuller record, Your Honor, is what precisely is the technological measure employed by YouTube and does it, is it designed to prevent access? Is it designed to prevent copying? Or does it have some other use that YouTube is putting to it?” The attorney said that they would need to subpoena YouTube as a third party. That should clarify what their technology and methods are and how this relates to YouTube’s business. “I’ll simply conclude by saying this is the type of case that calls out for expert witnesses,” Witzer said, noting that the EFF and GitHub had already argued in their favor. Court Questions RIAA The hearing then continued with RIAA attorney Rose Ehler, who started by pointing out that Yout allows the public to download audio and video files. This includes copies of music videos that were only intended to be streamed through YouTube. This introduction triggered a quick tête-à-tête with Judge Sullivan, who tried to get to the bottom of RIAA’s reasoning. Judge: But I could do that without Yout, right? RIAA: There are instructions for how one could do it without Yout. But what Yout does is enable it on an automated basis. Judge: I get that. But […] seriously, what is the technological measure that would be protecting this copying of the material if I can do it myself? RIAA: Well, just because you can do it yourself or you can hack the technological measure, it doesn’t mean…[interrupted] Judge: Well, I’m not hacking anything. I mean, I could do this right now in this courtroom on my computer probably, right? RIAA: Your Honor could. I think it would be hacking. RIAA’s attorney went on to explain what it sees as the “technical measure.” Yout itself has stated that YouTube uses a “signature mechanism” that must be read and interpreted by JavaScript. Yout modifies the signature value. This prompted more questions from Judge Sullivan, who suggested that the signature value is accessible through a regular browser and that he and others could also modify it without using a dedicated tool such as Yout. “You’re saying I would then be violating the statute as well?” the Judge asked. RIAA’s attorney agreed that people could do it on their own which, in individual cases, may qualify as a copyright exemption. However, doing it to download a music video and to seed piracy on the Internet would be classified as circumvention under the DMCA. Reverse Engineered Technological Protection? Moving on to the “protection” element, the RIAA believes that the signature value used by YouTube serves as a technological measure that, in the ordinary course, prevents people from downloading music videos. “The strength is not what we look at. We look at how it operates in the ordinary course and whether in the ordinary course of the operation, it serves the function of limiting or controlling access,” RIAA’s attorney said. This again triggered more questions from the court about how effective this is and whether the signature value was intended as a protection measure. The latter question can only be answered by YouTube, whose views are unknown. The RIAA countered by noting that intent isn’t important, as it’s not part of the DMCA rules. The statute looks at whether a technological measure is being circumvented in the ordinary course of operation, which it believes is the case here. This didn’t convince Judge Sullivan who pointed out that the lower court seems to have “reverse engineered” its way to a conclusion. “But how are we able to know that from the pleadings? How are we able to know how it works in the ordinary course? I mean, it might be people are doing this all the time on their own. There’s no discovery on that. There’s no expert opinion on that. “It seems to me that Judge Underhill sort of inferred that this, because it’s complicated, because there’s no download button, because it’s a contractual provision, there must be a technological measure. He’s sort of backwardly engineered it, it seems to me,” Judge Sullivan added. An Easy Solution As is, the court may not be convinced by the RIAA’s arguments alone. That’s not to say that they’re wrong, but he suggests that this case could benefit from YouTube’s input on the matter. Particularly because there are “some pretty big stakes here.” “This could be easily solved. And my hunch is what it is. It’s going to be clear that there are other technological measures that are here. But right now, YouTube’s staying out of it and we’re kind of guessing, Judge Sullivan noted. Both attorneys were confronted with critical questions during the hearing, as is often the case. This means that it is too early to draw any conclusions. It is clear, however, that YouTube holds the keys to many of the questions that have come up. Whether it will be heard, however, is for the Court of Appeals to decide.

Database apparently leaked, the forum is empty!

HDCity wishes all citizens good luck in the Year of the Dragon! Free throughout the city until the eighth day of the Lunar New Year. City-wide free leech engaged till Feb 17th.

I wish you all a Happy New Year in advance! The Spring Festival is a time for family members. There are no welfare activities during this Spring Festival. They will be added after the festival The Spring Festival medals have been opened. You can buy them as needed. More entertainment games will be opened in the future. Once again, I wish you all a happy New Year and good luck in the Year of the Dragon. The entire management team of zmpt

Reddit is not required to share the IP-address of six users who made piracy-related comments on the website. The company successfully protested the third attempt of a group of filmmakers, which planned to use the requested logs as evidence in their lawsuit against Internet provider Frontier. Instead of focusing on anonymous Redditors, filmmakers can go after the ISP's subscribers directly. Every day, millions of people from all over the world submit posts, comments, and other content to Reddit. In many cases, discussion comments are read and soon forgotten but several old threads were brought back to life recently as part of piracy liability lawsuits. The comments in question were picked up by Kerry Culpepper, a copyright attorney who leads several piracy lawsuits against Internet providers on behalf of independent film companies. While they say they’re not interested in pursuing legal action against these people, their comments could serve as important evidence. Filmmakers Try to Unmask Redditors Early last year, the film companies subpoenaed Reddit for the first time, requesting the personal details of several users. Reddit refused to cooperate, defending their users’ right to anonymous speech, and found a California federal court in agreement. In a second attempt a few weeks later, several film companies sent a similar subpoena to Reddit. This time, the request was more targeted, as all comments specifically referred to the ISP being sued; Grande Communications. Reddit still refused to comply, however, stressing that its users’ First Amendment rights would still be at stake. After hearing both parties, Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler sided with Reddit once again. Reddit III: Targeting IP-addresses While the denial was another setback for the film companies and their attorney, they had no plans to abandon this route to evidence quite so easily. Last month, they were back in court with a similar but tweaked request, this time related to a lawsuit targeting Internet provider Frontier Communications. Broadly speaking, the third case was comparable to the others. The film companies, including Voltage Holdings and Screen Media Ventures, wanted to use comments made by six Redditors to show that the ISP didn’t take proper action against repeat infringers, or that ‘lax’ enforcement acted as a draw to potential pirates. Contrary to the earlier requests, the film companies were no longer looking for any names or email addresses, only the applicable IP address logs. This would allow the commenters to remain anonymous because an ‘IP-address is not a person‘, their attorney argued. Reddit, again, refused to hand over information, arguing it would violate users’ right to anonymous speech. The fact that it would only have to reveal IP-addresses wouldn’t change that, Reddit argued. Court Sides with Reddit, Thrice After both sides had the chance to present their arguments, the matter landed on the desk of U.S. Magistrate Judge Thomas Hixson of the California federal court. After reviewing the paperwork, Judge Hixson denied the motion to compel. Similar to the decisions in Reddit I and Reddit II, the court concluded that the First Amendment rights of individuals to speak anonymously weigh stronger than the interests of rightsholders. This is particularly true because the Redditors are third parties and not defendants in this case. Of importance in this decision is the so-called ‘2TheMart.com’ standard, which was also applied in the earlier two cases. From that perspective, the court sees no reason to reach a different conclusion. This case deals with comments from six Redditors that could serve as evidence in the film companies ‘legal battle with Frontier. However, the court believes that the rightsholders can obtain similar evidence from a more direct source. In the legal proceeding against the ISP, the court previously ruled that the film companies can unmask several alleged pirate subscribers. This could be used to obtain comments directly from Frontier subscribers. “[T]here is information available from another source, as Movants themselves note the underlying bankruptcy court adjudicating the copyright litigation has already ruled they can obtain identifying information from Frontier for IP addresses known to have pirated using Frontier’s network,” Judge Hixson writes. “If Movants sought further information, they need only subpoena the ISP for the subscriber information associated with that IP address, as the ISP does not share Reddit’s interest in protecting the anonymity of that user.” Anonymous IP-addresses? Judge Hixson didn’t elaborate in response to the filmmakers’ novel argument that sharing IP-addresses wouldn’t violate the First Amendment right to anonymous speech (‘not a person’). According to the ruling, current precedents suggest that it’s not common to disregard the First Amendment argument when it comes to IP-address unmasking. “While the Court is unaware of any cases in the Ninth Circuit in which a court has declined to apply a First Amendment unmasking standard for IP addresses, other courts have recognized that IP addresses are essential to unmasking because an ‘IP address cannot be made up in the same way that a poster may provide a false name and address’.” “For this reason, the Court finds no reason to believe provision of an IP address is not unmasking subject to First Amendment scrutiny,” Judge Hixson writes. The court further added that the film companies can still use the Redditor’s comments as evidence, as is. Printouts of webpages have been used at previous trials as well, so that could apply here. Based on these and other arguments, Judge Hixson ultimately reached the same conclusion as the court did in the earlier two cases. “In sum, the Court finds Movants cannot meet the 2TheMart standard because the evidence they seek can be obtained from other sources, including from Frontier in the normal course of discovery.” If the rightsholders are unable to obtain the desired evidence from Frontier, they could always try again, of course. If anything, the film companies have shown that aren’t prepared to give up easily.

I wish you all a happy Year of the Dragon in 2024! Dear fans of Rousi~ You also like Rousi, right~ Here I wish you all a happy Year of the Dragon in 2024! 202,429 magic powers will be distributed to all members! In addition, the 2024 Year of the Dragon Medal is online ~ I owe the picture first and there is no artist for the time being ~ Anyway, it is a dragon picture. It is open to the whole site for free 2024/02/09 - 2024/02/19. In addition, it will be randomly distributed in the following days. Some medicine and random magic! ! ! ------------Not very important information---------------------------------- Just do it by the way Click for permanent donation event 2024 CNY/Permanent VIP (give away 30 permanent medicines) (Rainbow ID N years) If you are interested, please contact PM

Users currently using μTorrent client version 3.6.0 are requested to upgrade to another version. Due to malfunctions in this version, you may experience problems with downloads and uploads. We recommend μTorrent 2.2.1 or Qbittorrent 4.5.0 to use this site, but of course other client programs also work properly! Thank you for your understanding and cooperation.

We are looking for Editors who can help us edit and approve newly uploaded torrents. If you are interested, please apply in the forum!(Must login first).

Quick update on the site status. We made some good progress tonight. Nearly all site issues have been resolved. Some of the top items are: Upload details w/ API data. Editing uploads. User profile stats. Hourly points. And more... Sadly, uploading is still offline while we ensure all security configuration are up to pair on the new server. Basically anything that can write to the server outside the database is still being evaluated. More to come soon!

Tracker's Name: eStone Genre: General Sign-up Link: http://estone.cc/regisztracio.php Closing date: N/A Additional information: eStone is a Genral Hungarian tracker since 2005, contains good content of Movies, TV, Apps, Ebooks...

Today's symbiotic relationship between content providers and ISPs, often includes the latter selling access to partners' entertainment products. That's a far cry from the situation two decades ago when very little content was made available online and ISPs' customers were viewed as the enemy. In a recent interview, an ISP that fought for seven years to prevent the imposition of piracy filtering and blocking said it's ready to cut pirate IPTV streams as quickly as the law allows. In the early 2000s, powerful entertainment industry groups were demanding action to prevent “wholesale theft” of their content online, much of it at the hands of regular customers of the world’s ISPs. That very little content was available to buy legally online not only helped to fuel the crisis, in this underdeveloped market many ISPs still had just one key product to sell; internet access and the bandwidth it consumed. Broadly speaking, ISPs were concerned by the threats; on balance, however, putting customer interests last wouldn’t have been an ideal strategy in a rapidly growing market. Epic Battle For The Internet In 2004, Belgian music rights group SABAM made an extraordinary move designed to force ISPs into compliance. Targeting local ISP Scarlet, SABAM sought a declaration that the ISP’s subscribers infringed its members’ rights, demanding that the ISP should be compelled to filter and block all piracy traffic. For the next seven years, through local courts and the European Court of Justice, Scarlet fought SABAM and the notion that an ISP could be forced to proactively monitor, block and filter to protect SABAM’s members’ rights, but at the expense of internet users’ fundamental rights. Scarlet’s landmark victory in 2011 remains one of the most important of its kind but in the 13 years that followed, entertainment companies changed and consumption of pirated content changed. While the legal principles underlying Scarlet’s victory did not, attitudes towards acceptable filtering and blocking were on the move. ISPs Develop Tools to Block IPTV, Can’t Wait to Use Them In 2008, Scarlet was acquired by telecoms giant Belgacom Group, which later rebranded as Proximus. Today the Scarlet brand is associated with the cheapest prices available in Belgium but, for owner Proximus, the availability of cheap bandwidth shouldn’t be seen as a green light to consume cheap pirate IPTV services. Indeed, the company not only disapproves of pirate IPTV services, but it’s also eager to play a more active role to ensure that its customers can’t consume them. Right now, only paperwork is holding that back. “We are just waiting for the legal framework to be able to cut the streams. We don’t have the right to do that today. But we have the capacity,” CEO Guillaume Boutin revealed in a recent interview. “The cycle between when the link is spotted and when we receive permission to cut it takes too long. Afterwards it abounds in all directions. More links are coming. This procedure is of no use today.” Boutin says that if he spots an illegal stream, under the current framework he can’t simply decide to block it. “However, it is critical to be able to stem the phenomenon. Honestly, this IPTV situation is intolerable, for the rights holders, for the distributors, and for Proximus too. This is an enormous evaporation of value for the sector. This is unacceptable.” Hearing an ISP use language and reasoning typically associated with rightsholders is rare; in some regions, it’s completely unheard of. It suggests that these former rivals not only have much more in common, but may also stand to benefit from common policy in specific areas of business. Elsewhere in Belgium, another ISP appears to be singing from exactly the same sheet. CEO of Orange Completely Agrees Telecoms company Orange Belgium is a Proximus competitor albeit a little more expensive according to online comparisons. Yet in an interview with La Libre (paywall) published early February, comments by CEO Xavier Pichon are so closely aligned with those of Proximus chief Guillaume Boutin, there’s little to set them apart. “We have the technological means to massively block these streams, and the content publishers who lose money are just asking for that, but for the moment, it is blocked because of administrative and judicial consistency. But that will change,” Pichon said. “Illegal IPTV seriously threatens the entire economic model of publishers, copyrights and media. Telecommunications companies invest considerable resources in acquiring the rights to content and, at the same time, in the sizing and quality of the network necessary to carry content traffic over the network. “On the contrary, illegal service providers do not contribute to copyright and threaten the entire economic model of the media,” Orange’s CEO added. New Law in Place But Awaiting Royal Decree Both Proximus and Orange say that they’re waiting (impatiently, in the case of the former) for implementation through a royal decree of a draft law published in 2022. The ISPs believe that the law will authorize the type of immediate blocking needed to properly tackle pirate IPTV providers. Pichon also believes that today’s ‘pirate IPTV’ platforms will eventually find themselves usurped; the term IPTV will live on, though, at least after work to polish its image. “But let’s remember that IPTV, which is a product of piracy, will be a product of the future,” he said, alluding to success for a legal alternative. “We will have to ‘unbrand’ the term IPTV.”