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Extreme-Down: ACE Shuts Down Major Pirate Site After 15 Years of ResilienceAndy Maxwell, 15 Feb 09:09 AM When Extreme Download (Extreme-Down.com) fi

Extreme-Down: ACE Shuts Down Major Pirate Site After 15 Years of Resilience Andy Maxwell, 15 Feb 09:09 AM When Extreme Download (Extreme-Down.com) first appeared on the internet around 15 years ago, it linked to movies hosted on sites like Megaupload. The site was a little basic in the beginning, but people expected a lot less back then. Four years later, Megaupload went down in spectacular fashion, but Extreme-Down and similar sites chose to ride out the storm. With increasing traffic and rising popularity, the eventual appearance of dark clouds was almost inevitable, it was only a matter of when. Millions of Visits, Against The Odds Focused on French-language content, Extreme-Down was predictably popular in France. Over three-quarters of Extreme-Down's visitors hailed from the region in December 2022, with Belgium, Canada and Switzerland accounting for most of the remainder. Extreme-Down received around 15 million visits per month last year, an impressive feat considering the circumstances. In common with other successful sites, Extreme-Down regularly switched to new domains. While the reasons were not always made clear, legal action by rightsholders was rarely far behind. ISP blocking orders in Belgium (pdf) presented some obstacles but when rightsholders joined forces to target Extreme-Down in France, many of the site's domains were blocked by ISPs in the region that mattered most (pdf). More Domains, More Confusion, More Copycats To mitigate blocking, Extreme-Down began deploying new domains, which also helped the platform retain visibility in search engines. ISP blocking in France was supported by court-ordered 'dereferencing' instructions, meaning that Google was required to completely deindex Extreme-Down domains. Deindexing was supposed to have a devastating effect on the site but, as some had predicted, it ended up making things worse. Spotting a gap in the market for sites with the same design and a similar name, copycat sites appeared one after another in a race to dominate search results. Some even exploited the confusion to separate people from their money. Meanwhile, Extreme-Down remained determined to stay up, and did so well into December 2022. Then suddenly, without warning or suggestion of renewed blocking, the platform disappeared. From fairly early on, the chances of yet another return seemed less likely than before. Early this Monday, it became clear that Extreme-Down is unlikely to make a return. One by one, domains previously controlled by the site – extreme-down.lol, extreme-down.video, extreme-down.tv, extreme-down.pro, and extreme-down.live – were transferred to a brand new owner. Alliance For Creativity Shuts Down Extreme-Down As additional domains were transferred to the Motion Picture Association, including extreme-down.in, extreme-down.io and extreme-down.info, all that remained was for the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment to officially announce Extreme-Down's demise. "The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE), the world's leading anti-piracy coalition, today announced it has shut down France's second most popular illegal streaming site, Extreme-down," the ACE announcement reads. "Thanks to ACE's rapidly expanding global network, we are in a better position than ever to act decisively against illegal piracy operators in all markets across the world," said Jan van Voorn, Executive Vice President and Global Content Protection Chief of the Motion Picture Association and Head of ACE. "Extreme-down offered a large library of TV series and movies in French and original versions; we counted more than 40,000 movies and TV series episodes affecting ACE members. That library is now closed." ACE Traced Operator to Tunisia The ACE investigation received support from French premium television channel providers, ACE members CANAL+ and France Televisions, and local authorities. Extreme-Down's operator was traced to Houmt Souk, Tunisia. ACE made an approach and obtained an agreement for the site to shut down. Surrendering domains to the MPA was part of the package. "CANAL+ Group has fought content piracy for years and, as a member of ACE, we are particularly pleased with the takedown of this notorious illegal website," said Celine Boyer, Global Head of Content Protection at CANAL+ Group. "The elimination of this website is a massive success for the protection of rights holders in French-speaking countries." From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more. Bungie Requests $12 Million in Damages from Veterancheats Ernesto Van der Sar, 14 Feb 08:30 PM Over the past several years, a wave of copyright infringement lawsuits has targeted alleged cheaters and cheat makers. Several game companies including Take-Two Interactive and Epic Games have taken cheaters to court in the United States. More recently, American video game developer Bungie has been rather active as well. Bungie is known for the Halo and Destiny series, which have millions of fans around the world. The popularity of these games also attracts cheaters and cheat sellers, including "Elite Boss Tech" and "AimJunkies.com." How these sellers have responded to legal pressure varies considerably. Earlier this year Elite Boss Tech accepted a loss by signing a consent judgment, agreeing to pay $13.5 million in copyright damages. AimJunkies, on the other hand, is doing everything in its power to fight back. Bungie vs. Veterancheats Bungie's case against Veterancheats has gone in another direction. After the lawsuit was filed against the cheat seller in 2021, not much has happened. The site's alleged operator, Romanian resident Mihai Claudiu-Florentin, didn't answer the complaint in court. A few days ago, this lack of action prompted Bungie to request a default judgment totaling roughly $12 million in damages for copyright infringement and circumventing Bungie's technological protection measures. According to Bungie, the defendant sold several Destiny 2 cheats, including "Razor", "HLBOT", and "Render." These allowed "unskilled" and "unethical" players to gain an unfair advantage, effectively ruining the fun for everyone else. "Cheat software negatively impacts the gaming experience of Bungie's community of honest players who enjoy playing and winning fairly using skill and developed through practice," Bungie writes. It's a sentiment shared by many affected gamers, and Bungie lists several instances of people publicly complaining about Destiny 2 cheaters. Reddit reference provided by Bungie Serious Money Veterancheats remains online and is aware of the lawsuit. The cheat seller previously removed the Destiny 2 cheats from its site in the hope that would settle the matter. However, Bungie is pressing on. The game company obtained subpoenas to request financial information from Coinbase, PayPal, and Stripe. The Stripe information was particularly useful as it revealed thousands of cheat sales, including 5,848 separate subscription transactions that could be linked to Destiny 2 cheats. These transactions brought in roughly $146,000 in revenue, which Bungie demands as actual damages for copyright infringement. In addition, the game maker seeks $2,000 for each of the 5,848 sales for circumventing the DMCA's anti-circumvention provision – $11,696,000 in damages overall. Adding attorneys fees to these two figures pushes total compensation above $12 million. Serious Money The damages are warranted for a variety of reasons, according to Bungie. The company has spent more than $2,000,000 on cheat mitigation while Veterancheats and Claudiu-Florentin willingly broke the law and then failed to respond to Bungie's complaint. Interestingly, Claudiu-Florentin did briefly communicate with the game maker's legal team. When Bungie tried to get the transaction data from Stripe, Veterancheat's operator offered to stop selling cheats going forward, if Bungie would stop pursuing the case. Claudiu-Florentin instead pointed a finger at competing cheat sellers, who continued to offer similar software. In addition, he drew Bungie's attention to the developer of the cheat. "The one who should be sued is the developer of the product, not a small seller like me. Why they dont try to identify the developer of the product instead? ring-1," Veterancheat's operator wrote. "I request a withdrawal of information request and if you accept, i will stop distributing the destiny 2 software (Skycheats,Battlelog,Privatecheatz has sold Destiny 2 software for more than 1 year and they did not got sued by Destiny 2," he added. Part of the cited email This diversion attempt didn't help, it appears, as Bungie continued with the case and now demands millions of dollars in compensation. The court has yet to rule on the default judgment and damages request but without an official defense from Veterancheats, little stands in the way of a successful outcome for the game vendor. — A copy of the motion for a default judgment against Veterancheats/Claudiu-Florentin and the associated memorandum is available here (pdf) From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more. ©2023 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