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Premier League Targets Dozens of Illegal Streaming Sites in U.S. CourtAndy Maxwell, 18 Dec 08:58 AM Early December the English Premier League announ

Premier League Targets Dozens of Illegal Streaming Sites in U.S. Court Andy Maxwell, 18 Dec 08:58 AM Early December the English Premier League announced a new broadcasting rights deal worth a staggering £6.7 billion (US$8.5 billion). Running for four seasons from the 2025-26 campaign, the deal will see broadcasters Sky and TNT take the live games and the BBC continue with its popular highlights package. Amazon, which has been licensing Premier League games since 2019, hoping to drive customers towards its Prime service, wasn't awarded a single match. In parallel, UK tabloid Daily Mail has taken a sudden and unusual interest in Amazon Firestick devices during the last two weeks. Published every few days with a similar theme, the goal appears one of piracy deterrence. Unfortunately, regularly associating a legitimate brand with negative imagery is unlikely to have much effect on the pirate market and won't boost sales of legitimate products either. Since piracy rarely responds to negativity but loses market share as legal offers become more attractive, the Premier League's decision to allow transmission of 270 fixtures in the new package instead of the current 200, is a step in the right direction. Still no matches available during the '3pm blackout' or adjustments to pricing in the consumer direction, but the BBC now has a license to show highlights for all 380 matches. Other 'broadcasters' will show all 380 matches in full, with no license at all. All Matches, No Licenses: Premier League Targets Pirate Sites Sky's deal with the Premier League means the broadcaster now pays £5.95 million per match. Pirate streaming sites, meanwhile, pay the Premier League absolutely nothing and since that has a devaluing effect on the matches already sold, enforcement is the inevitable outcome. In a letter dated December 14, 2023, Texas law firm Hagan Noll & Boyle informed Cloudflare that users of its "system or network" are infringing the Premier League's copyrighted works, through dozens of websites, using an even greater number of domain names. Where relevant, the list also includes 'backend URLs' from where actual streams may (or may not) be served. A small sample of the pirate domains The list includes the popular crackstreams.me, which according to SimilarWeb data enjoyed 8.6 million visitors in the three-month period of September, October and November 2023. In common with many other domains in the list, a second domain is listed alongside crackstreams.me, indicating that visitors are redirected after visiting the initial domain. For crackstreams.me, the secondary 'redirect' domain is ronaldo7.io, which had around 750,000 visits during the same three-month period. While that's significantly lower than crackstreams.me, visitors from the UK account for 75% of ronaldo7.io's traffic, versus 25% for its redirection 'partner'. Screenshots similar to those shown below form part of the evidence presented to Cloudflare, 103 pages in total. crackstreams.me (left), ronaldo7.io (right) Judging by the volume of gambling advertising on some domains, coupled with signs that sites are targeting countries including Thailand and China, the Premier League clearly has challenges ahead. Some may even be solvable in the United States, if it gets lucky with Cloudflare. Notification Under 17 U.S.C. § 512 There are two reasons for sending a notification to Cloudflare under 17 U.S.C. § 512. As a first step, the Premier League would like Cloudflare to take the infringing content down. "Cloudflare is asked to remove or disable access to Premier League's copyrighted works, which, based on the infringement that has occurred to date through the websites and domain names identified above, will continue to be infringed in this same manner throughout the Premier League season," the letter reads. Whether Cloudflare can or will comply in some or all cases is unclear. However, until Cloudflare is sent a compliant DMCA takedown notice, Premier League can't follow up with the next step. DMCA Subpoena Application Filed at U.S. Court Through the same Texas law firm, on December 14 the Premier League filed an application for a DMCA subpoena. This allows a copyright owner (or a person authorized to act on their behalf) to request a clerk of any United States district court to issue a subpoena to a service provider (in this case Cloudflare) for the purpose of identifying an alleged infringer. The notification sent to Cloudflare identifying the alleged infringers and locations of the infringing content, a proposed subpoena, and a sworn declaration that the subpoena will only be used to protect Premier League's rights, is usually enough for the clerk to sign off on a request. Kids' presents and turkey or gambling with strangers? When that happens, Cloudflare will be required to hand over the following information for the domains listed below, and/or the 'backend URLs' listed in the notification to Cloudflare (not listed below). Information sufficient to identify the alleged infringers of the matches described in the attached notification, which would include the individuals' names, physical addresses, IP addresses, telephone numbers, email addresses, payment information, account updates, and account history. The deadline in the proposed subpoena is December 29, 2023 The list of domains and redirection domains reads as follows: 88zhibo.me 222live.net 720pstream.me 720pstream.nu 7mscorethai.live bestsolaris.com bgibola5.xyz bgibola77.live cakhia51.tv cakhia22.live crackstreams.me ronaldo7.io dooball168-hd.com dooball2you.com dooballx.com duball356.com futebolplayhd.com futemax.app futemax.la livenettvapk.live/android/ livehd7.cc as.livehd72.live mmfootballgroup.com mmfootball.cryptken.com multicanais.fans pawastreams.top pawastreams.info rakhoi4.tv rapidstreamz.tv rojadirectaenvivo.club rojadirectaenvivo.nl soccerlive.app nbastreamlinks.net soccerstreamlinks.com soccertv4k.com socolive.news socolive.fan sportsurge.club streamonsport.ru strims.top tvmob.net tvron.net tvtap-pro.net vertvenvivo.net weakstream.org weakspell.org xn--l3clbuukk5c4d8a3e5d.com crichdplayer.xyz crichd.com hd.cricfree.io From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more. Torrent Site Switched Domains 39 Times This Year to Evade ISP Blocks Ernesto Van der Sar, 17 Dec 08:05 PM Website blocking is the entertainment industry's preferred anti-piracy strategy in dozens of countries. Targeting domain names of pirate sites can be an effective way to deter casual pirates. When a site can no longer be easily located, some users may give up, especially since Google now deindexes blocked domains as well. Popular pirate sites have been familiar with these measures for years now. While some simply ignore the issue, hoping that users will find a way around it, others are actively pushing back. Spanish torrent site DonTorrent falls in the latter category. With millions of monthly visitors, DonTorrent is a force to be reckoned with. The site is particularly popular in Spain and offers links to a curated selection of torrents. Following complaints from rightsholders, the torrent site is blocked by Spanish Internet providers. While this is a nuisance for the site's operator and users, it hasn't exactly decimated DonTorrent's traffic or tempered its attitude. Traffic Unchanged Instead of laying low, DonTorrent typically chooses a more offensive route. The site's operators are openly playing with the likeness of Jan van Voorn, the head of the influential anti-piracy alliance ACE, for example. In addition, the site does all it can to fight back against the blocking efforts. DonTorrent shared several unblocking tips with its users, and also added a .onion domain to make the site accessible on the Tor network. A DonTorrent spokesperson informs us that these efforts paid off as traffic remains stable. There are seasonal variations, but those are not blocking-related. If anything, the torrent site sees traffic boosts when streaming services raise their prices. We can't independently verify these traffic trends but it's clear that the site still has a sizable community. The official Telegram channel currently has nearly 80,000 users, who are regularly updated about domain name changes. Domain Name Whack-a-Mole The communication channel is much needed as the torrent site doesn't exactly have a stable home. Spanish ISPs are regularly instructed to block new DonTorrent domains, which has already happened 39 times this year. Every time a new domain is blocked, DonTorrent quickly registers and launches an alternative, so its users can get around these measures for a while. "We don't have any domain names parked and ready to use, what we do is register it that same day when we see the block," DonTorrent informs us, explaining that this is a conscious strategy. "In the past, we did reserve some domain names and pointed these to our Cloudflare account, but we discovered that [Jan van Voorn] or one of his henchmen were checking the new 'dontorrent' TLD registrations." Whether ACE was checking the domains or another rightsholder representative isn't clear, but someone was keeping a close eye on the backup domains. They were blocked before becoming active, rendering preparations futile. The last domain name change took place earlier this week, typically at a rate of one domain per week. In some cases, there's a slightly longer delay, which often coincides with public holidays. Scammers Galore Besides ISP blockades, the torrent site also has trouble with some anti-virus companies that block its new domains, seemingly without reason. "The funny thing is that they apologize when we complain about these false positives, but they can't explain what happened. They remove the blocks, but only if we notify them," DonTorrent says. It's possible that a sudden surge in traffic for newly registered domains may set off some algorithmic alarm bells. Ironically, however, copycat pirate sites that scam people by requesting their credit card details, can often operate freely. These scam websites typically use the brands of popular pirate sites to exploit the fact that these sites are regularly blocked or shut down. The more effective anti-piracy efforts are, the bigger this problem gets. DonTorrent says it wouldn't be surprised if anti-piracy forces were behind these dodgy schemes. While there is no evidence for that at all, rightsholders certainly use the phenomenon in their messaging. In recent months, various anti-piracy campaigns and lobbying efforts have highlighted the potential for scams and credit card fraud. These campaigns effectively bring things full circle. Scammers or not, DonTorrent doesn't seem intent on stopping anytime soon. The site's deviant actions have turned it into a big anti-piracy trophy, but one that seems out of reach, at least for the time being. 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