MPA Shut Down OnionPlay’s Discord & Tries to Unmask Pirate Site Operator

The Motion Picture Association has its eyes set on the streaming portal OnionPlay. After successfully petitioning Discord to shut down the site’s community server, the Hollywood group has secured a DMCA subpoena requiring Discord to unmask the suspected operator. The targeted admin, known as “TexasHomie,” does not appear to be overly concerned by this looming threat.

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

onionplayFounded in 2019, pirate streaming service aggregator OnionPlay has been around for half a decade already.

While the site had to switch domain names occasionally, OnionPlay maintained its core identity while its user base continued to grow.

Discord Deletes OnionPlay Channel

At a time when pirate streaming sites are under heavy pressure from the MPA and its anti-piracy branch ACE, staying online can be quite a feat. This pressure also affected OnionPlay to some degree, as it suddenly lost its main Discord channel at the end of October.

OnionPlay’s owner and operator, who uses the online handle “TexasHomie,” was told that the channel was shut down after copyright-infringing links were posted in violation of Discord’s rules.

As a result, two years of community-building work disappeared overnight but TexasHomie didn’t throw in the towel. Inside two weeks, a new Discord channel was active.

Back on November 12

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At the same time, OnionPlay traded in its .mx domain name for a new .bz variant. While business seemed to continue as usual, a new filing at federal court in California would soon reveal who was behind the Discord shutdown.

MPA/ACE Demanded the Discord Shutdown

On November 14, the Motion Picture Association (MPA) requested a DMCA subpoena on behalf of its member studio Warner Bros. These subpoenas can be signed off by a court clerk, provided that the requester has sent a DMCA notice to the intermediary involved.

In this case, the MPA seeks information from Discord, and their legal request includes a copy of a DMCA notice in which ACE complains about links that were posted in OnionPlay’s old Discord channel.

From the takedown notice

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The DMCA notice was sent late October, shortly before the OnionPlay channel was taken down by Discord. As shown above, the email came with an exhibit mentioning “OnionPlay” by name and urged Discord to take the channel offline.

“We request Discord’s assistance to (i) remove or otherwise disable access to the channels and servers identified above; and (ii) take steps to address Piracy Contents on the Discord platform,” the takedown notice, signed by MPA’s Larissa Knapp, informed Discord.

Discord complied with the takedown notice, but that was not the end of the matter. With the recent DMCA subpoena, the movie industry group now hopes to unmask the owner and operator of the site.

Discord Subpoenaed to Unmask TexasHomie

The legal paperwork includes two examples of infringing links that were allegedly posted by a Discord user. One links to a pirated copy of the season 2 finale of “Peacemaker” and the other links to a pirated stream of the movie Weapons.

Examples from the subpoena request

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The MPA specifically requests Discord to identify the user behind ID ‘417142124228771850,’ which it had previously linked to “TexasHomie”.

“Warner Bros. (via the Motion Picture Association, Inc.) is requesting issuance of the attached proposed subpoena that would order Discord, Inc. to disclose the identities, including the names, physical addresses, IP addresses, telephone numbers, and e-mail addresses, of the individual(s) that operate the Discord account with the following User ID: 417142124228771850”

The request notes that information obtained through the subpoena will only be used to identify the alleged infringer so that Warner Bros. can protect its rights. This was sufficient for the court clerk, who signed off on the subpoena on November 17.

The DMCA subpoena

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As shown above, Discord has until November 28 (tomorrow) to comply with the subpoena and hand over the information to the MPA.

TexasHomie Remains Calm and Collected

The DMCA subpoena is a useful tool for the MPA, but whether it will result in actionable information has yet to be seen. The MPA and ACE have tried to get information on OnionPlay’s operator before, with subpoenas targeting Cloudflare and the .to registry, presumably without effect.

TexasHomie informs TorrentFreak that he was not aware that the MPA was behind the shutdown of the Discord channel. Nor has he been informed that Discord was asked to disclose his personal information.

OnionPlay’s operator doesn’t appear to be particularly worried either and notes that he keeps his online and offline identities separate.

“I’ve always operated behind VPNs, privacy layers, separate identities—the usual precautions when you spend enough years around the internet and IT infrastructure. It’s not about being shady; it’s about minimizing noise and keeping my real life cleanly separated from my online projects,” TexasHomie notes.

“I’ve dealt with plenty of takedown notices and all the usual headaches, but when you work with the right hosting providers and understand how the infrastructure works, you learn how to manage things calmly and professionally.”

TexasHomie takes pride in the fact that he has managed to keep OnionPlay going in a rather competitive streaming landscape. Community input is taken seriously, he notes, adding that OnionPlay is mainly an old-school “passion project” that requires quite a bit of manual work.

Needless to say, this is a high-stakes passion project that can have criminal repercussions if the operator’s identity is unveiled. These are life-altering risks, making this Discord subpoena all the more important.

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A copy of the subpoena issued by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California on November 17 is available here (pdf)

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