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Pirate IPTV Services Disrupted By Dozens of Rightsholders On Multiple FrontsAndy Maxwell, 25 Mar 10:46 AM Pirates and rightsholders alike understand

Pirate IPTV Services Disrupted By Dozens of Rightsholders On Multiple Fronts Andy Maxwell, 25 Mar 10:46 AM Pirates and rightsholders alike understand that eliminating all piracy is an impossible task but if the last 20+ years of mainstream piracy have shown anything, it's that those with content to protect will never give up trying. That can mean aggressive shutdowns through to policy and legislative changes but the overall goal in the face of an impossible task is disruption. And rightsholders are getting increasingly good at it. One of the current hot potatoes is pirate IPTV, subscription-based services that offer more than any legal streaming service can at the fraction of the price. Rightsholders and broadcasters can't shut them all down but they can shut down some and for the remainder, life can be made just a little bit more difficult. In addition to actions we've already reported on this week in the UK and the Netherlands, here are just a few examples of other anti-piracy actions taken in recent days. What Happened to Northern IPTV? After first appearing in the summer of 2019, Northern IPTV grew to become one of the most favored pirate IPTV providers in Canada offering a decent spread of live TV channels and a video-on-demand service. Like many before it, in the closing months of last year Northern IPTV eventually succumbed to copyright issues. Aside from the above, the service gave no indication of who was behind the presumed threats but this week the final piece of the puzzle came into place. The domains from where the IPTV platform used to operate – northerniptv.com and northerniptv.ca – were transferred into the hands of the Motion Picture Association and Motion Picture Association Canada, respectively. This all but confirms that the platform was shut down by the Alliance For Creativity and Entertainment, a massive anti-piracy coalition featuring dozens of the world's largest content creators and broadcasters. Other pirate-IPTV domains falling into the hands of MPA/ACE this week include iptvonline.net, bestiptvonline24.com, iptvonline24.com and iptvonline.ca. Whether the operators of these domains paid a settlement to avoid a lawsuit is unknown but over in the Netherlands, legal action can be the outcome if IPTV sellers put their heads above the parapet. BREIN Targets Trader Behind ExpatsIPTV In an announcement this week, Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN revealed that after identifying the previously anonymous trader behind ExpatsIPTV, the man was taken to court. After initially denying any involvement, at a hearing the man eventually admitted that he had indeed been selling pirate IPTV packages providing access to TV channels, live sports, movies and TV shows. The court imposed a ban on the seller preventing any further sales with a penalty of 5,000 euros per day (to a maximum of 50,000). He was also ordered to provide information on all other parties involved in ExpatsIPTV within 7 days, enforced by a 600 euros per day penalty for non-compliance. On top, the man was also ordered to pay legal costs of 9,759 euros. Of course, direct lawsuits are always an option to deal with pirate IPTV services. In many cases, however, site blocking is preferred. Rightsholders Crack Down on Football Piracy Ligue de Football Professionnel – the governing body in control of the major professional football leagues in France – announced this week that it had obtained an order designed to disrupt pirate IPTV services. Handed down by a Paris court, the order requires several ISPs including Orange, Free, Bouygues and SFR (plus subsidiaries) to block access to a number of pirate IPTV and streaming services that broadcast football games illegally. "The Professional Football League welcomes the decision rendered on March 17 by the President of the Paris Judicial Court ordering, for the first time in France, the blocking by French ISPs of access to pirate IPTV services," the LFP announced. "On the basis of Article L. 333-10 of the Sports Code, the court also ordered the blocking of streaming sites broadcasting without authorization the Ligue 1 Uber Eats and Ligue 2 BKT championships." While LFP suggests that this is the first time that IPTV services have been blocked in France, that's not exactly true. In January it was revealed that French anti-piracy group ALPA, the National Cinema Center, and several major rightsholders had obtained a similar order to block pirate IPTV platforms. Nevertheless, the important thing is the flexibility of these types of orders. The order obtained by LFP is reported to target around 50 locations related to various services but the involvement of new anti-piracy agency Arcom means that should any new domains/IP addresses related to these platforms serve to circumvent blocking, they can be swiftly blocked too. "Faced with the economic stakes for French professional and amateur sport, the public authorities and the judicial authorities have grasped the urgency of providing effective protection for professional football competitions against the serious and repeated attacks to which they are subject," LFP adds. It's certainly been a busy week for action against IPTV and similar streaming services but all the signs suggest that this is becoming the new normal. Rightsholders can't shut every platform down but they can disrupt them, time and time again, using any combination of tools. From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more. Google Removes Popular File-Sharing App from Play Store Over Piracy Concerns Ernesto Van der Sar, 24 Mar 08:57 PM To the global audience, Ulož.to may not be a household name, but in the Czech Republic it is huge. The file-sharing and hosting service is listed among the 35 most-visited websites in the country, while its mobile apps are frequently used as well. Like many other file storage platforms, Ulož can be used to share a wide variety of files but according to copyright holders, many people abuse the platform to share pirated music, movies, and TV shows. Repeated Complaints This criticism isn't new. Over the years, Ulož has been reported to the US Trade Representative as a notorious pirate site several times. In addition, the platform was taken to court by the Czech movie distributor CinemArt, which demanded the implementation of an upload filter. Ulož won its 'filter' battle with the movie company on appeal but that certainly didn't end the piracy complaints. Every day, new takedown notices are coming in. While the file-sharing platform removes these infringing files, copyright holders want it to do more. Czech anti-piracy company Weemazz is one of the outfits that has complained repeatedly. Working on behalf of clients such as HBO Europe, Czech Television, and TV Nova, it has sent hundreds of thousands of takedown notices to the platform. While Ulož responds to these requests, infringing content continues to be uploaded. Google Takes Action This prompted Weemazz to report the file-sharing platform to Google, asking the company to remove the app from the Play Store. After an independent investigation, this is precisely what Google did. "Google has complied with our request to delete the Uloz.to application, Weemazz boss Radim Horák says. "Based on its own inspection, Google confirmed our findings and removed the application from the Google Store." Since last week, the Ulož app is no longer available in the Play Store. Interestingly, Apple users can still find it in the App Store. In addition, the site remains available through regular web browsers as well. The Ulož Android app can also be installed through another route. Right around the time that the app was removed from Google's Play Store, the service sent out a tweet, pointing to a page where users can find the APK, to install it directly on their Android devices. The Tweet (translated) Uloz.to Filed a Counternotice Speaking with TorrentFreak, an Uloz.to spokesperson said that the company doesn't agree with the complaints. It filed a counternotice with Google, hoping to have the app restored in the near future. "We are still in the middle of the counternotice process. We believe that the app will become available again because the claims of rightsholder representatives are more FUD than solid legal argumentation," Uloz.to informed us. "But it is hard to guess how Google decides in the end because there are no fixed rules. We all can only hope that new regulations will enforce some transparency on gatekeeper platforms like Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon and so on." There are indeed new regulations being discussed in the EU and the US that challenge the power of major tech platforms. On the other side, however, there are "upload filter" proposals and regulations planned as well, which could negatively impact Ulož. In addition to disagreeing with the app's removal, the filesharing platform is also disappointed in the local Czech media. According to Ulož, these only repeated what copyright holders and their representatives wrote in a press release. "All news articles are based on one press release sent by rightsholder representatives. Nobody contacted us for comments and clarification," Ulož tells us Rightsholders are Happy for Now The counternotice could change things but, for now, Weemazz and its clients are pleased to see that Google has removed the app. The anti-piracy company says that it sends out thousands of takedown notices per day without seeing any improvement, so something had to be done. "In January alone, we had illegally shared content on more than 100,000 links removed from Uloz.to. Nevertheless, Uloz.to has not yet taken any measures to prevent illegal sharing in any way or at least better inform its users about the illegality of their activities," the company says. Ideally, rightsholders would like to see some kind of advanced upload filtering on the file-sharing platform. However, as the legal battle with CinemArt has shown, Ulož opposes such strict measures. According to Weemazz, this leaves rightsholders with no other option than to find alternative means to address the piracy problem. In addition to going after the app, this includes going after Uloz.to users directly, demanding that they pay millions of Czech crowns in damages. TorrentFreak reached out to Weemazz to hear more about these reported actions against users, but the company didn't immediately reply. From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more. ©2022 TorrentFreak | Office 21338 PO Box 4336 Manchester, North West M61 0BW United Kingdom Web Version   Preferences   Forward   Unsubscribe     Powered by Mad Mimi®A GoDaddy® company