Month: December 2024

The Epic Games Store has been giving away a different PC game for free for nearly two weeks. As the 12 day promotion draws to a close, Epic is giving away Sifu. Meanwhile rival game platform GOG is running their own PC game giveaway. In other recent tech news from around the web, Radxa has […]

The post Lilbits: More Intel N150 benchmarks, LineageOS 22 released, Radxa launches Orion O6 mini ITX board, and two free PC games available now appeared first on Liliputing.

The Bigme HiBreak Pro is something of a cross between a smartphone and an eBook reader. It has a 6.13 inch, 824 x 1648 pixel black and white E Ink display with 300 pixels per inch, making the device a sort of pocket-sized eReader sort of like the Onyx BOOX Palma series. But unlike the Palma, […]

The post Bigme HiBreak Pro smartphone has a 6.13 inch E Ink display and Dimensity 1080 processor appeared first on Liliputing.

There aren't that many movies specifically set on New Year's Eve, but one of the best is The Hudsucker Proxy (1994), Joel and Ethan Coen's visually striking, affectionate homage to classic Hollywood screwball comedies. The film turned 30 this year, so it's the perfect opportunity for a rewatch.

(WARNING: Spoilers below.)

The Coen brothers started writing the script for The Hudsucker Proxy when Joel was working as an assistant editor on Sam Raimi's The Evil Dead (1981). Raimi ended up co-writing the script, as well as making a cameo appearance as a brainstorming marketing executive.  The Coen brothers took their inspiration from the films of Preston Sturgess and Frank Capra, among others, but the intent was never to satirize or parody those films. "It's the case where, having seen those movies, we say 'They're really fun—let's do one!'; as opposed to "They're really fun—let's comment upon them,'" Ethan Coen has said.

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The LG Gram line of notebooks get their name from LG’s tendency to cram a lot of features into a compact body – once upon a time that meant that the LG Gram Pro series had a starting weight of one kilogram, or about 2.2 pounds. That’s not true for the 2025 lineup: the lightest model starts […]

The post LG Gram 2025 laptops are thin and lights with Intel Arrow Lake and Lunar Lake chips and “hybrid AI” features appeared first on Liliputing.

In 2017, a new global anti-piracy coalition formed under the umbrella of the Motion Picture Association (MPA).

The Alliance for Entertainment and Creativity (ACE) bundled the powers and pockets of dozens of entertainment companies, and were joined by many more in the years that followed.

While skeptics may have dismissed the launch of yet another anti-piracy group, ACE was and is a grand success. The group has industry members and law enforcement contacts all over the globe, allowing it to pool intelligence and take action more effectively than ever before.

2024: A Transformative Year

The past year has been eventful for ACE on many fronts. The Alliance waved goodbye to its main boss, Jan Van Voorn, who left to work on a new IP-protection startup, IP-House. While his expertise will be missed, several key hires aim to fill the gap.

In June, Larissa Knapp was announced as the alliance’s new Global Chief of Content Protection. Knapp brings a wealth of experience from her 27 years at the FBI. As one of the highest-ranking officials, she managed over 2,000 personnel.

Other hires announced this year also bring much to the table, including former Assistant U.S. Attorney Marissa Bostick, who also served as Deputy Director for the Amazon’s Counterfeit Crimes Unit. As the MPA’s new Head of Global Litigation, Bostick will also oversee international litigation related to ACE activity.

Bryan Willett, a former FBI agent, is another key addition to the team. He will serve as the MPA’s VP Content Protection Enforcement for the Americas region, where he will develop and oversee ACE’s internet enforcement strategy, aiming to further curb online piracy.

2024: Landmark Shutdowns

While expanding the team is crucial for the future of ACE, the Alliance’s core objective of shutting down piracy operations remains unchanged. And 2024 saw no shortage of accomplishments on that front.

Looking back, the shutdown of the Fmovies piracy ring, together with Vietnamese authorities, stands out. This impacted many popular pirate brands, including Aniwave, Soap2dayx2, Zoroxtv, Fboxz, Animesuge, Cinezone, and many others.

These sites, which were wiped out overnight, collectively received billions of visits per year. The Vietnamese authorities are prosecuting the alleged mastermind of the Fmovies operation, which may bring more details to the forefront in the coming year.

There were many other key shutdowns in the past year too. In January, ACE shut down a football piracy streaming operation, in May IPTV sellers had their domains seized, Animeflix was pushed offline in July, and in September Egypt’s largest pirate site ‘Laroza’ was toppled.

Toward the end of the year, popular anime site Animefenix shut down ‘voluntarily’ citing legal pressure. The same happened to Braflix a few weeks earlier. Neither site mentioned ACE in their farewell messages but since both domains now redirect to ACE’s “Watch Legally” page, it’s not hard to guess where the pressure came from.

The above is just a selection of ACE’s actions. In total, several hundreds of domains were either seized or shut down by the group over the past twelve months. And there are no signs that enforcement activity will slow down anytime soon.

2025: Fresh & Familiar Targets

Just before Christmas, MPA and ACE went back to court, with Larissa Knapp requesting several DMCA subpoenas at a California federal court. Through the subpoenas, ACE wants Cloudflare and the .to domain registry (Tonic) to share information related to numerous domain names.

“This would include the individuals’ names, physical addresses, IP addresses, telephone numbers, e-mail addresses, payment information, account updates and account history,” Knapp writes.

These targets are all related to pirate streaming sites, services, or apps, some with dozens of millions of monthly visits. Anime site Anitaku is the most prominent target, with more than 158 million visits in November. Other sites like Gimy, Aniworld, and Faselhds also attract significant traffic.

The subpoenas target a total of 39 pirate streaming domains. ACE and the MPA hope that, through their requests for information, they can learn more about the identities and whereabouts of the operators.

Some high traffic targets (full list here)

Domain	Monthly Visits
Anitaku.bz	158 million
Gimy.ai	43 million
Aniworld.to	31 million
Faselhds.care	29 million
Animeunity.to	20 million

This is not the first time that some of these sites have been targeted by ACE. An older Anitaku domain was listed in a subpoena a few months ago. While new uploads to the site were stalled recently, it remains online.

These subpoenas are standard practice by now. In several cases, site operators try to avoid being identified by using false information. However, history has also shown that these efforts can pay off.

In any case, the list of fresh targets shows what MPA and ACE’s priorities are. It’s clear that they are pushing full steam ahead with their enforcement efforts in the new year.

…

—

A full list of all targeted domains is available below. Some of the associated paperwork can be found here (1,2,3).

– vidsrc.to
– aniworld.to
– animeworld.so
– 1tamilblasters.dad
– streamblasters.pm
– chinaq.tv
– dramasq.tw
– dramasq.com
– politicslovers.com
– linkkf.net
– bearbit.co
– tugaflix.best
– cb01.forsale
– altadefinizione01.living
– altadefinizione.democrat
– katmoviehd.fi
– lordhd.mov
– kukaj.me
– faselhds.care
– xalaflix.eu
– gimy.ai
– anitaku.bz
– gogoanime3.cc
– animeunity.to
– hippopotame.site
– kukaj.to
– megacloud.tube
– hanatyury.online
– tv70.icu
– fortv.cc
– tvtap-apk.com
– tvtappro.net
– hdobox.tv
– hdboxstatic.com
– hdo.app
– cinemahdv3.com
– onstream.so
– getmenow.click
– castledownload.com

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

Forscher haben erfolgreich chirurgische Roboter mit OP-Videos trainiert. Bis es zum Einsatz am Menschen kommen kann, sind aber noch viele Hürden zu nehmen. (Medizin, Roboter)

China hat seinen CR450-Hochgeschwindigkeitszug enthüllt, der ab 2025 mit einer Geschwindigkeit von 400 Kilometern pro Stunde fahren soll. (ÖPNV, Mobilität)

Mit der CRW-001-1JR bringt Casio zum 50-jährigen Jubiläum seiner digitalen Armbanduhren die verkleinerte Version als Ring auch nach Europa. (Casio, Technik/Hardware)

SPD und Grüne ändern ihre Haltung zur Vorratsdatenspeicherung. Zuvor hatten Bundesländer und Unionsfraktion deren Einführung gefordert. (Vorratsdatenspeicherung, Datenschutz)

Die ukrainischen Streitkräfte haben mit einer ferngelenkten Seedrohne einen russischen Hubschrauber erfolgreich mit einer Rakete bekämpft. (Ukrainekrieg, Politik)