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ACE Shuts Down Another 'Cuevana' But the Whac-a-Mole PersistsErnesto Van der Sar, 11 Jul 10:56 AM If we didn't know better, we might conclude that '

ACE Shuts Down Another 'Cuevana' But the Whac-a-Mole Persists Ernesto Van der Sar, 11 Jul 10:56 AM If we didn't know better, we might conclude that 'Cuevana' is Spanish for 'mole'. The popular streaming piracy brand first appeared on the radar in 2009 and anti-piracy forces have been trying to 'whack' it ever since. The original Cuevana site was founded by Tomas Escobar, at the time an engineering student in Cordoba, Argentina. By offering a Netflix-type streaming experience, with a bigger catalog and without any subscription fees, the pirate service quickly took off. Taking Down Cuevana It didn't take long before rightsholders started to take notice of the millions of users flocking to the site. That marked the start of a series of enforcement campaigns that continues to this day. Rightsholders and their anti-piracy representatives are no longer battling Escobar. The original founder moved on many years ago, and with an unrelated innovator accolade from MIT Technology Review, he now builds a career as an entrepreneur. Escobar's change of plans opened the doors for aspiring pirate tycoons, of which there were many. Over the past decade, many dozens of new Cuevana variants have launched, using creative domain name variations such as Cuevanahd, Cuevana2, and Cuevana3. It is not always clear if and how these new variations are linked, but Cuevana remained a thorn in the site of Hollywood and was repeatedly featured on the U.S. Trade Representative's list of notorious pirate sites. "Cuevana is the most popular piracy site in the Spanish-speaking part of Latin America, offering more than 7,000 unlicensed television and movie titles," the USTR wrote in its most recent overview. ACE's 2021 Breakthrough Two years ago, the Alliance of Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) appeared to have made a breakthrough. The coalition announced that it had sent a cease and desist letter to the streaming portal's Chilean operators, who decided to throw the towel. This shutdown was legitimate and notable as it affected millions of users, but it didn't shut down the Cuevana brand. In fact, Cuevana3.io, the leading domain at the time, remained online. Earlier this year, we reported how Hollywood's relentless pursuit of several Cuevana3 domains had failed to shut down the site. Cuevana3.io switched domains to Cuevana3.me and then Cuevana3.be. More recently, it was serving millions of monthly visits from Cuevana3.ai. ACE Shuts Down 'Another' Cuevana In an announcement yesterday, ACE said that this seemingly endless battle had come to an end. After tracking down the operator of Cuevana3.ai in the Piura District of Peru, the site was effectively pulled offline. People who visit Cuevana3.ai, Cuevana3.me, Cuevana3.be, or any of the other domains run by this operator, are now directed to ACE's "Watch Legally" page. ACE informs TorrentFreak that it took control of 22 domain names in total, which were good for more than 100 million visits between March and May of this year. Some of these domains didn't get any traffic but were kept as a backup, just in case. "The largest Spanish-language piracy streamer in Latin America is no more, thanks to a tireless, global effort involving law enforcement and judicial authorities in several LATAM countries and ACE's global teams in LATAM and other parts of the world," says ACE boss Jan van Voorn. Whac-a-Mole An ACE spokesperson says that, according to their knowledge, no criminal charges will be filed against the operator. As long as the site stays offline, the main objective has been fulfilled. There is indeed no doubt that this is a big score for ACE. However, history appears to be repeating itself once again. When the group reported that it took Cuevana offline two years ago, Cuevana3.io remained online. Now that this Cuevana3.io threat has finally been dealt with, another Cuevana is filling the void. With over 110 million visits over the past three months, Cuevana3.ch is now in pole position, meaning that the whac-a-mole continues. From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more. Global Anti-Piracy Coalition Eyes Polish, Hungarian & Bulgarian Targets Andy Maxwell, 10 Jul 08:04 PM The Signal Association (Stowarzyszenie Sygnał) is Poland's leading audiovisual sector anti-piracy group. Among the group's stated objectives are protecting film and musical works from piracy and promoting intellectual property standards found in Europe and the United States. Many Signal members are well known outside Poland, with the majority also members of other anti-piracy groups, including the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) and the Audiovisual Anti-Piracy Alliance (AAPA). Coinciding with the publication of a Deloitte report on how to tackle piracy more effectively in the region, Signal representatives have appeared in Polish news reports and given several interviews in recent days. Anti-Piracy Groups Follow Same Playbook Given the international movement to align piracy with malware, identity theft and fraud, driven by Signal's international members Disney, Columbia Pictures, Warner Bros. Discovery, NBCUniversal, and Viacom/Paramount, the Polish approach in the media is predictably identical. "First, it's a safety issue. Piracy is often associated with fraud and extortion," says Teresa Wierzbowska, president of the Signal Association. "Secondly, it's a matter of quality. No one likes watching a sports stream that stutters or pops up with unwanted ads. After all, it is also a matter of legal responsibility and moral judgment. By paying pirates, you deprive producers of revenue. Lower income from activities means a lower quality spectacle, lower state budget revenues, damage to the economy and to the development of culture, sport and entertainment." According to Polish Chamber of Information data, Wierzbowska's standing across the entertainment, communications, and anti-piracy sectors is very impressive. In addition to her role as president of Signal, Wierzbowska is chair of the board at the Intellectual Property Protection Section of KIGEiT, the Polish Chamber of Commerce for Electronics and Telecommunications. Wierzbowska is also on the board of Creative Poland Association and the president of Lewiatan, an organization with 4,100 member companies employing over a million employees. Two other positions useful to copyright holders include a position on the board of the Advertising Ethics Committee at the Advertising Council, and a vice-presidency of the Supervisory Board at the Association of Internet Industry Employers. Social Media Advertising Fuels IPTV Piracy Signal colleague Adam Jankowski has also appeared in the media over the last few days, highlighting "a plague" of pirate IPTV adverts appearing on Facebook and pirate apps appearing on official stores including Google Play. "We don't know what is actually going on under the GUI that the user sees. If there are any hidden functionalities, only the author of the application knows about it. It is through such careless installation of programs that users' passwords are stolen," Jankowski told wirtualnemedia.pl. Jankowski acknowledged the game of "cat-and-mouse" associated with attempting to shut down pirate services but said the aim is to wear providers down financially through persistence. "We educate policemen and prosecutors in this area, and soon also judges," he said of the piracy scene generally, adding that Signal can't reveal too many details on enforcement for operational reasons. ACE/MPA Targets Popular Poland-Focused IPTV Service Just days before Signal's representatives began giving interviews, ACE – via the Motion Picture Association – went to court in the United States hoping to compel Cloudflare to hand over the personal details of several piracy platforms. Among them is PlanetaPL, a pirate IPTV service that claims to offer 150 of the most popular Polish channels and a VOD library of 5000+ movies and TV shows. MPA/ACE cited two movies allegedly infringed by the service, one owned by Disney and the other by Paramount, and requested the "identities, including names, physical addresses, IP addresses, telephone numbers, e-mail addresses, payment information, account updates and account histories of the users." PlanetaPL has official apps listed on Google Play and Amazon and its terms and conditions point to Planeta Media, Inc. in Florida as its corporate entity. The website of PlanetaPL states that "We a not a TV Provider. We are not responsible for the content of television programs. We provide equipment rental services." The company's promotional YouTube video below doesn't mention which equipment is available to rent. Whether Cloudflare has anything useful to hand over will remain to be seen, but it seems likely that ACE already knows a little about PlanetaPL's setup due to a series of SSL issues that expose parts of its infrastructure. Somewhat ironically, especially given its warnings to others about security, Signal's SSL broke last week after its certificate expired and it still hasn't been fixed. The DMCA subpoena application (pdf) Major Sites in Hungary Under Investigation While there is less anti-piracy action in Poland when compared to some other EU countries (Poland still has no site-blocking program), until recently both Hungary and Bulgaria had even less. Activity in the United States indicates that domains targeting the Hungarian market and enjoying dozens of millions of monthly visits are firmly on the radar. New Target: online-filmek.me Content: Movies, TV Shows (Hungarian) Recent Traffic: Apr 14.8m / May 14.9m / June 14.1m Most Popular: Hungary (80% of overall traffic) SimilarWeb Rank: #32 most popular site in Hungary New Target: mozinet.me Content: Movies, TV Shows (Hungarian) Recent Traffic: Apr 12.4m / May 13.4m / June 13.1m Most Popular: Hungary (78%) SimilarWeb Rank: #60 most popular site in Hungary New Target: filmvilag.me (used by above) Content: Movies, TV Shows (Hungarian) Recent Traffic: Apr 13.8m / May 14.5m / June 14.5m Most Popular: Hungary (78% of overall traffic) SimilarWeb Rank: #37 most popular site in Hungary Without drawing too many conclusions on the possible relationships between the sites/domains, all three have very similar levels of traffic, despite three distinct designs. As the image above shows, two clearly draw on the same content library. The final site of interest to the studios is nu6i-bg-net.com. Offering TV shows and focused on the Bulgarian market, the platform received an average of 1.6 million visits per month between April and June, with 80% of that traffic attributable to Bulgaria. From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more. Are you looking for a VPN service? TorrentFreak sponsor NordVPN has some excellent offers. ©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