Author: Ernesto Van der Sar

The Supreme Court case between several major record labels and Internet provider Cox Communications is one of the landmark copyright battles of this decade.

The outcome will determine how Internet providers should deal with pirating subscribers on their networks.

The Supreme Court must decide whether an ISP can be held liable for failing to disconnect repeat copyright infringers. In addition, it must determine if this ‘inaction’ amounts to willful copyright infringement, even if the ISP wasn’t aware that its specific conduct was illegal.

Supreme Court Hearing

Yesterday, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case, grappling with these questions for nearly two hours. The justices critically questioned all sides in their effort to form a final opinion.

Cox’s attorney, E. Joshua Rosenkranz, began by arguing that it would be a dangerous expansion of the law to hold an ISP liable for the actions of its subscribers.

He argued that under the “purpose” standard, liability should only apply if an Internet provider takes “affirmative steps” to facilitate copyright infringement. For example, by advertising piracy services.

Rosenkranz added that, under the record labels’ theory, Cox would be liable for failing to take action against alleged crimes. That would essentially turn ISPs into the “Internet police” with devastating consequences.

“[T]he consequences of Plaintiffs’ position are cataclysmic,” Rosenkranz said, noting that universities, hospitals, and entire towns would risk being disconnected from the Internet.

“Turning Internet providers into Internet police for all torts perpetrated on the Internet will wreak havoc with the essential medium through which [the] modern public engages in commerce and speech,” Rosenkranz added.

The “Gun Dealer” Analogy

At the hearing, several justices seemed skeptical of Cox’s claim that inaction is fine. Justice Sonia Sotomayor was particularly aggressive, stressing that Cox could know exactly which subscriber accounts were infringing but simply opts to do nothing.

To illustrate her point, Justice Sotomayor challenged Rosenkranz with a vivid analogy.

“If I’m a gun dealer and I’m selling to someone who says to me, ‘I’m going to kill my wife with this gun,’ I think the common law would say you knew what he was going to do with the gun; you joined in. Why isn’t your continuing to provide Internet service the same?”

Cox’s attorney responded by noting that, unlike a murder weapon, an internet connection has substantial legal uses. However, the challenges were not over yet.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson continued to test Cox’s theory that “inaction” does not create liability. She presented an even more extreme hypothetical scenario featuring an addicted infringer.

“Suppose I come to you and I want to buy your services. I tell you that I as a customer am addicted to infringing on the Internet. I’ve been sued before. I know what I’m doing is illegal, but I just keep doing it. And not only that, Cox, based on where I live, is my only option.”

Rosenkranz replied that even in that extreme scenario, selling internet access would not create liability for Cox, adding that the music companies or other rightsholders could sue this hypothetical piracy addict instead.

The “Meaningless” Safe Harbor

Representing the record labels, attorney Paul Clement stressed that Cox was not an innocent bystander but a “willfully blind” party that profited from piracy. He pointed to Cox’s internal communication, in which employees expressed contempt for the law, including a now-infamous “f*** the DMCA” email.

The attorney, backed by Justice Kagan, argued that Cox’s legal theory is fatally flawed. If an ISP can never be liable without taking affirmative steps to encourage piracy, then the DMCA’s “safe harbor” would be unnecessary.

“Why would anybody care about getting into the safe harbor if there’s no liability in the first place?” Justice Kagan asked. And after follow-up questioning, Cox’s attorney agreed that the safe harbor is not doing anything under their suggested liability rule.

“Mass Evictions” & “BitTorrent Throttling”

While Cox was grilled on the ‘inaction’ vs. ‘intent’ issue, the record labels faced tough questions over the requested Internet disconnections. Justices Alito and Gorsuch appeared concerned that the record labels’ liability standard would force ISPs to disconnect thousands of innocent people.

Justice Alito specifically asked attorney Clement how an ISP is supposed to respond to repeated piracy notices if their customer is a university with 50,000 students.

Clement argued that ISPs and rights holders could simply “have a conversation” to resolve such issues, a suggestion Cox’s attorney later dismissed as a “terrible answer” for a company facing “crushing liabilities”.

Since it is impractical for a university to be disconnected from the Internet, or for a university to disconnect thousands of students, the record labels’ attorney suggested that bandwidth throttling could also be a viable anti-piracy measure.

“I don’t think it would be the end of the world if universities provided service at a speed that was sufficient for most other purposes but didn’t allow the students to take full advantage of BitTorrent. I could live in that world,” Clement answered.

U.S. Government Backs Cox

The U.S. Government appeared as an amicus curiae and largely supported Cox’s legal interpretation. Deputy Solicitor General Malcolm Stewart urged the Court to adopt a strict “purpose” requirement, arguing that unless an ISP provides “targeted assistance” specifically to pirates, it shouldn’t be liable for the actions of subscribers.

Stewart warned the Justices that expanding liability beyond this “purpose” test would be dangerous. He argued that forcing ISPs to disconnect allegedly pirating subscribers would clash with the essential role the internet plays in society.

“The approach of terminating all access to the Internet based on infringement… seems extremely overbroad given the centrality of the Internet to modern life and given the First Amendment,” Stewart told the Court.

What’s Next?

The Supreme Court now has to decide whether the $1 billion verdict will stand, or if the case will get a do-over at the lower court.

If the court sides with the record labels, ISPs across the United States will continue to need strict “repeat infringer” termination policies to avoid legal liability. If Cox wins, rightsholders will have a hard time holding ISPs liable for pirating subscribers.

The justices are expected to cast their preliminary votes in a private conference later this week, but a final written opinion is not expected before the summer of 2026.

—

A copy of the oral arguments hearing transcript and the audio is available at the Supreme Court’s website.

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

With an estimated 85 million visits per month, Nhentai is one of the most trafficked websites online today.

The site serves adult-oriented anime and manga, also known as hentai. These spicy Japanese comics are popular worldwide, but not everyone is happy with with the content Nhentai has to offer. Some rightsholders consider the site a deviant pirate operation.

In the summer of 2024, California-based rightsholder PCR Distributing (PCR), which operates under brands including J18 and JAST USA, took legal action against Nhentai, describing the site as a significant threat to its business.

Nhentai Owner Unmasked

PCR initially requested a DMCA subpoena asking Cloudflare to unmask the people behind the site. However, when Nhentai filed an objection, PCR swiftly dropped the subpoena request and launched a full lawsuit against the site’s owner at a California federal court.

In January, Nhentai asked the court to dismiss the lawsuit in its entirety. Among other things, the site’s attorneys argued that a representative of PCR’s brands previously granted written permission for the use of their content while exploring the option to run paid ads on the site.

Besides a dismissal, the site’s operator/owner requested a protective order to proceed in the case anonymously, at least in the early stages. Keeping personal details out of public filings would shield them from potential retribution, they argued.

In April, California District Court Judge Cynthia Valenzuela denied both Nhentai’s motion to dismiss and the motion for a protective order. This meant that the lawsuit would continue, with Delaware company X Separator LLC stepping forward as Nhentai’s owner/operator.

Nhentai Owner Denies Wrongdoing

Last week, X Separator filed a formal answer to PCR’s complaint. The company admits that it owns and operates Nhentai.net with the intention of making it available in the United States while earning revenue there as well.

In the same filing, the company denies that it engages in copyright infringement or piracy activities, and further denies any connections to or involvement with Nhentai.to.

Denials such as these are typical under the circumstances. Together with a list of affirmative defenses, they make up the formal answer that a defendant must submit once a federal lawsuit moves forward.

However, Nhentai’s filing doesn’t stop there. In addition to the mandatory response, X Separator is countersuing PCR for fraud and negligent misrepresentation.

Copyrights And Permission

The countersuit centers on PCR’s copyright registrations and the permission that was allegedly given to Nhentai. It argues that PCR Distributing didn’t just tolerate the site; the rightsholder actively approached Nhentai for promotions, partnerships, and advertisements.

The legal paperwork includes the examples above, as well as many others where representatives of PCR brands suggest deals or partnerships while their content remains on the site. These offers run counter to the copyright allegations in the complaint.

In addition, Nhentai’s countersuit points out that these works were not initially registered at the U.S. Copyright Office.

“From at least October 29, 2020 through April 21, 2022 – the timeframe in which the above-referenced emails were sent – Plaintiff/Counter-Defendant knew it had not filed or registered any U.S. copyrights,” X Separator’s filing reads.

In March 2023, PCR Distributing reportedly began registering its works at the Copyright Office but never rescinded the permission previously given to Nhentai. PCR went on to sue Nhentai for copyright infringement in 2024.

Nhentai Countersues for Fraud

The emails where PCR Distributing allegedly approved the use of its works on Nhentai form the basis of the fraud and misrepresentation counterclaims.

For example, the counterclaim notes that PCR CEO Dave Adams submitted a declaration where he, “under penalty of perjury,” claimed to have personal knowledge of “countless instances” where PCR’s works were posted on nHentai.net without authorization.

X Separator argues that these statements are demonstrably false. The company alleges that PCR’s executives knew about the “permission” emails but chose to mislead the court to secure a DMCA subpoena and file the lawsuit.

$500k in Damages

The countersuit formally lists claims for Fraud/Intentional Misrepresentation and Negligent Misrepresentation.

Because of the alleged deception, Nhentai’s parent company claims to have suffered significant harm so is requesting compensatory damages “which currently exceeds $500,000.00”.

In addition, the company seeks punitive damages, arguing that the rightsholder acted “willfully, fraudulently, maliciously, and oppressively” with the specific intent to injure the site’s owner.

PCR Distributing has yet to respond to allegations. Meanwhile, the case will move forward to an eventual trial, if it gets that far. For now, Nhentai remains online.

—

A copy of X Separator LLC’s first amended answer to the amended copyright infringement complaint, including the counterclaims, is available here (pdf)

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

Five years ago, YouTube ripper Yout.com sued the RIAA, asking a Connecticut district court to declare that the site does not violate the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provision.

The music group had previously used DMCA takedown notices to remove many of Yout’s links from Google’s search results. This had a significant impact on Yout’s advertising revenues, according to operator Johnathan Nader, who always believed he wasn’t breaking any laws.

In 2022, the district court concluded that Yout had failed to show that it doesn’t circumvent YouTube’s technological protection measures. That rendered Yout’s defamation and business disparagement claims moot, but the legal battle was far from over.

Yout.com Appeals

Yout’s operator did not give up. In 2023, Nader appealed in the belief that YouTube rippers do not violate the DMCA. The argument received backing from the EFF and GitHub in their supporting amicus briefs.

The RIAA disagreed, countering that Yout is an “illicit stream-ripping service” that effectively allows people to “bypass YouTube’s technological restrictions” that prevent downloading of works streamed through YouTube. As such, the service violates the DMCA, a position supported by the Copyright Alliance.

One of the key issues in this dispute is whether YouTube’s “rolling cipher” is a technological measure designed to control access to or copying of copyrighted works. The difference between access and copying has become a key point of contention in a new AI twist.

AI Relevance: Access Controls vs. Copy Controls

Last month, AI music companies Suno and Udio filed an amicus brief at the Court of Appeals, alerting it to an alleged error the Connecticut district court made in its original ruling against Yout.

Suno and Udio, who were both sued by music companies, argued that the lower court’s ruling failed to recognize the difference between “access controls” and “copy controls”. This is crucial, they noted, as Congress explicitly separated these two copyright controls to enable fair use.

Congress recognized that to claim fair use, people have to copy something first. If the law were to prohibit the circumvention of copying restrictions, fair use would be effectively outlawed as well.

– Circumventing access controls is prohibited under 17 U.S.C. § 1201

– Circumventing copy controls is NOT explicitly prohibited under 17 U.S.C. § 1201.

For AI companies like Suno and Udio, the legal distinction between access controls and copy controls is not just a technicality. It’s the difference between having a viable fair use defense and being automatically liable for massive damages.

If the court rules that YouTube’s “rolling cipher” is an access control, Suno and Udio effectively lose their ability to argue fair use for the data they’ve scraped by accessing YouTube.

Yout Cites New Paywall Defense

Last week, Yout’s legal team told the Court of Appeals that they wholeheartedly agree with Suno and Udio. In a response brief, they note that the AI companies have it precisely right.

Yout’s lawyer, Evan Fray-Witzer, once again stresses that YouTube doesn’t have any access controls, as it is obvious that anyone with a web browser can watch videos on the platform.

“The District Court’s opinion ignores the simple fact […] that the videos displayed on YouTube are freely available to ‘anyone who requests them’ without a paywall, encryption, password, or decryption,” Yout’s response reads.

To back this up, Yout points to a very recent ruling: the July 2025 decision in a lawsuit between Emmerich Newspapers and the news aggregator Particle Media, better known as NewsBreak.

In that case, a court ruled that the news aggregator didn’t violate the DMCA when its bots stripped “paywall code” from the newspaper’s website. The judge concluded that, because the newspaper’s server voluntarily sent the full article text to the bot (including the paywall code), the bot didn’t “break in” to an access-controlled area. Instead, it simply “used” the data it was given in a way the publisher disliked.

Yout stresses that the same logic applies to its interaction with YouTube. Because YouTube sends audio and video data to anyone who visits the site without requiring a password, Yout argues the “gates are up,” making it legally impossible to “circumvent” an access control.

RIAA: You Can Watch, But You Can’t Touch

The RIAA also filed a brief in response to Suno and Udio, urging the Court of Appeals to reject the arguments from these AI companies.

RIAA’s central argument is that YouTube’s “rolling cipher” is designed to distinguish between two different things: access to a performance (the stream) and access to the work (the fixed digital file).

The RIAA agrees that YouTube allows people to view the stream, but they argue that the rolling cipher is designed to control access to the underlying fixed file.

“Amici’s argument conflates access to a ‘performance’ of a work with access to the ‘work’ itself,” the RIAA writes. In bypassing the cipher to download the file, stream-rippers such as Yout can access something YouTube never intended to give: a permanent digital copy.

While YouTube allows the public to view the performances without restriction, it uses the “rolling cipher” to restrict direct access to the underlying file. By modifying this cipher, Yout bypasses a valid access control, the RIAA notes.

The YouTube Whisperers

Both sides clearly have an opinion on how and why YouTube implemented its rolling cipher code. However, YouTube itself is not a party to the lawsuit, nor has it filed an amicus brief to explain its technology.

Yout’s lawyer previously argued that there is a legal vacuum where the court has to guess YouTube’s intentions, instead of moving the case forward so YouTube itself can be heard.

“There is a question as to what YouTube intended with these measures. We don’t know because YouTube isn’t here,” Yout’s lawyer argued in a previous hearing.

The RIAA, however, argues that YouTube’s intent is irrelevant. The music group maintains that the DMCA only cares about whether a measure “effectively controls access” in its ordinary operation, not what the engineers were thinking when they wrote the code.

Suno & Udio Settle: Yout Continues

Interestingly, both Suno and Udio settled their legal disputes with several major music labels recently, opting for licensing deals instead.

Udio settled its copyright dispute with Universal Music Group in October, followed by a similar agreement with Warner Music Group in November. Earlier this week, Suno followed suit, announcing a “landmark” partnership with Warner Music Group.

These settlements were agreed upon after Suno and Udio submitted their amicus brief in the legal battle between Yout and the RIAA. This means that their critique and the responses from both Yout and the RIAA still stand. Whether the Court of Appeals agrees remains to be seen.

—

A copy of Yout’s response to the brief of Suno and Udio is available here (pdf). RIAA’s response can be found here (pdf).

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

Founded 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

—

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.

In October 2019, an international police operation brought an abrupt end to Share-Online.biz, the largest file-hosting platform in Germany at the time.

The raids, which targeted data centers in the Netherlands and France as well as residential addresses in Germany, resulted in the seizure of many servers and the shutdown of a platform that served more than a million registered users.

Files stored on Share-Online were typically promoted through third-party sites such as DDL-Warez, Boerse, Movie-Blog, and MyGully. As a host/cyberlocker, Share-Online did not actively promote pirated content to the public.

Suspended Prison Sentence for ‘Neutral’ Host

That seemingly neutral stance did not prevent a criminal investigation or the subsequent prosecution of the site’s operator. This week, the Aachen Regional Court sentenced the defendant to a two-year suspended prison term.

While the suspended sentence means the unnamed defendant will not serve prison time, the legal precedent is significant. Historically, cyberlockers have operated in somewhat of a legal gray area, claiming they are neutral service providers who merely offer storage space.

The Aachen court rejected this defense, FAZ reports, concluding that the operator facilitated copyright infringement with a profit-motive.

Details on the ruling are scarce, and we have yet to see a copy of the verdict. However, according to the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE), which supported the anti-piracy action, it is a key victory.

“This ruling makes clear that operators of ostensibly neutral platforms cannot rely on liability privileges or professed ignorance. For a platform like Share-Online, it is not sufficient to merely acknowledge abuse notifications from rights holders,” says Geerart Bourlon, MPA’s Vice President of Content Protection and Legal Counsel.

“Anyone whose business model promotes or supports copyright-infringing acts is not only liable for injunctive relief and damages but also commits a criminal offense,” Bourlon adds.

What Happened to the €50 Million?

The MPA/ACE press release specifically credits Gregory Skavron, the prosecutor at the Nordrhein-Westfalen Cybercrime Unit (ZAC NRW). However, there is no mention of the now-bankrupt German anti-piracy outfit GVU, which carried out the investigation of Share-Online.

Similarly, while the press release prominently features the €50 million revenue figure to illustrate the scale of the piracy operation, what happened to this money isn’t made clear. Were any of these funds actually recovered? And if so, were rightsholders compensated?

The absence of any mention concerning damages suggests that, while the “revenue” was massive, the actual recoverable assets may have been much lower or hidden from law enforcement.

The “User” Threat Evaporates

Finally, it is worth mentioning that a spokesperson of the cybercrime police previously suggested that Share-Online users were also at risk, with high-volume uploaders as the prime target.

“If identification is possible, subsequent investigations against the uploaders and possibly also against downloaders are realistic scenarios. For reasons of capacity, we will certainly proceed in a layered manner in the investigations and, in due course, may initially focus on the top uploaders,” the spokesperson said in 2020.

This threat never materialized, as far as we know. This may be in part due to the complex investigation that spanned many terabytes of files. If it takes six years to convict the operator, going after uploaders may have turned out to be too much.

Ultimately, the Share-Online outcome is somewhat of a mixed bag for rightsholders. The movie industry secured a major legal victory and defeated the “neutral host” defense. However, the fact that the site’s operator, who presumably earned millions, can avoid a prison sentence must be seen as a disappointment.

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

The long-running legal battle between News-Service Europe (NSE) and anti-piracy group BREIN has quietly come to an end.

NSE was once one of the largest Usenet providers, but its legal troubles started in 2009, when BREIN took legal action on behalf of the movie and music industries.

In an early verdict in 2011, the Court of Amsterdam concluded that NSE willingly facilitated online piracy through its services. As a result, the company was ordered to remove all pirated content and filter future posts for possible copyright infringements.

According to the Usenet provider, this filtering requirement would’ve been too costly to implement, so it shut down its service while it appealed the case.

Supreme Court Win for NSE

After several more years of litigation, the Amsterdam appeals court ruled that NSE wasn’t liable for users’ pirating activities after all, but NSE was required to offer a responsive and effective notice and takedown procedure, possibly with additional measures.

Unhappy with the outcome, BREIN decided to take the matter to the Dutch Supreme Court. While NSE was no longer a threat, the case could prove crucial for many other Usenet providers.

In 2023, the Supreme Court confirmed that the Usenet provider shouldn’t be held liable for pirating users. The fact that NSE had a decent takedown procedure and no apparent knowledge of infringement weighed in its favor.

The Court also confirmed that NSE didn’t curate any content, nor did it specifically promote copyright infringement.

NSE Seeks Millions in Damages

The Supreme Court ordered BREIN to pay the legal costs. For NSE, however, the victory was bittersweet, as the company had already thrown in the towel well over a decade earlier.

In a final effort to recoup some of its claimed losses, NSE sued BREIN for damages last December. Exact details were not revealed, but the claim could’ve easily reached millions of euros.

While NSE shut down voluntarily, the company says that it saw no other option at the time due to BREIN’s legal pressure. As a result, the entire NSE team lost their jobs.

In its initial response, BREIN looked forward to the new legal battle with confidence. BREIN director Bastiaan van Ramshorst said that NSE willingly decided to shut down its service in 2011, instead of engaging in court-mandated negotiations.

NSE and BREIN Settle

This latest lawsuit could’ve easily added a few more years to the legal battle. However, it won’t come to that, as NSE and BREIN have decided to settle their differences once and for all.

Last Friday, the parties issued the same brief press release. This effectively confirms the end of the 16-year legal battle without adding any further detail.

“Last week the parties reached a settlement, which allowed them to avoid further escalating litigation costs. Both sides are pleased with the outcome and have agreed not to disclose the details of the arrangement,” NSE and BREIN announced.

This type of tight-lipped announcement suggests that the parties reached a compromise. Since NSE is a defunct entity with no operational future, financial compensation seems the only logical incentive for them to drop the multi-million euro claim.

NSE had little to lose at this point, but, for BREIN, the settlement means that it no longer has to face a claim for ‘millions’ in damages. The details of this agreement will remain secret, which underscores that it remains a sensitive issue after all these years.

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

Anna’s Archive is a meta-search engine for shadow libraries that allows users to find pirated books and other related resources.

In late 2023, the search engine expanded its offering by making data from OCLC’s proprietary WorldCat database available online.

Anna’s Archive scraped several terabytes of data and published over a billion unique metadata records. The records contain no copyrighted books or articles, but they help ‘shadow’ archivists track books already in the collection and which ones have yet to be added.

OCLC Sued Anna’s Archive

This ‘metadata’ heist was a massive breakthrough in the site’s quest to archive as much published content as possible. OCLC responded with a lawsuit at an Ohio federal court, accusing the site and its operators of hacking, unjust enrichment, and breach of contract.

The non-profit previously sought $5.3 million in damages against Anna’s Archive, in part to cover significant hardware and staffing costs incurred in response to the alleged hacking.

In the months that followed, no one came forward to represent Anna’s Archive in court. OCLC did name an archivist from the Seattle area as the potential operator, but they denied any involvement with the site and were eventually dropped from the case.

Without any defendants showing up, OCLC requested a default judgment to recoup the millions it believed it deserved. The federal court was initially reserved and referred several questions to the Ohio Supreme Court. After these questions were denied, OCLC returned with a renewed motion.

Million Dollar Retreat

The Ohio federal court previously expressed concern that a ruling on the default judgment would set a precedent beyond what was actually needed. To address this concern, OCLC stripped its demands back to the bare minimum.

OCLC dropped eight of its twelve claims to simplify the court’s decision. In addition, it dropped its claim for $5.3 million in damages, requesting only an injunction and a declaration that Anna’s Archive violates the law.

The remaining claims are breach of contract, unjust enrichment, tortious interference of contract, and trespass to chattels, for which OCLC requests a default judgment.

Enforcement by Proxy

OCLC’s new approach aims to make it easier for the Ohio federal court to approve its request. It also signals that the company already had little hope that it could recoup any damages, let alone millions.

Instead, the WorldCat publisher hopes that an eventual default judgment and an injunction would motivate third-party intermediaries to take the site offline.

“OCLC hopes to take the judgment to website hosting services so that OCLC’s WorldCat data will be removed from Anna’s Archive’s websites,” the motion reads.

While the motion’s text refers to ‘hosting services,’ the filing’s service list is more specific. OCLC is serving the legal paperwork directly on domain registrar Tucows, hinting that the registrar is a potential target for follow-up enforcement.

OCLC is asking the Ohio federal court to grant a broad permanent injunction that would:

• Ban future harvesting: Prohibit any further scraping of WorldCat.org or OCLC’s servers.
• Block distribution: Forbid the use, storage, or sharing of the data on Anna’s Archive.
• Stop incitement: Prevent the site from encouraging others to scrape or distribute the material.
• Force deletion: Require the destruction of all existing copies of the data, including torrents.

Footnote & Future Action

Relying on help from third-party intermediaries to take action against rogue sites is not unique, OCLC notes. In a footnote it links to a recent TorrentFreak article, revealing that Google has removed hundreds of millions of Anna’s Archive URLs from its search index.

“Enforcing a judgment in this manner would not be uncommon or unexpected as far as Anna’s Archive is concerned. Recently, Google removed over 749 million Anna’s Archive URLs from its search results to stem Anna’s Archive’s large-scale copyright infringement,” the footnote reads.

Of course, there was no court order in Google’s case, it was legally obliged to take action in response to DMCA takedown notices. These typically address copyright complaints, which don’t automatically apply to the metadata that’s at stake here.

With most of the complex state law questions sidelined, and the monetary demands off the table, Judge Watson has several issues to consider before arriving at a decision concerning a potential judgment and injunction.

Crucially, OCLC attempts to sidestep the court’s previous concerns about its ‘browsewrap’ contract by arguing that the operators of Anna’s Archive are ‘professional hackers.’

The motion argues that it is ‘implausible’ that such sophisticated hackers were unaware of the site’s terms of service, regardless of whether they explicitly clicked on an ‘I agree’ button.

If the court sides with OCLC, the eventual order is expected to trigger a game of infrastructure whack-a-mole, presumably starting with Anna’s Archive’s hosting company.

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A copy of OCLC’s renewed motion for a default judgment against Anna’s Archive is available here (pdf).

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

Pirate sites have proven to be quite a headache for Cloudflare and have landed the San Francisco-based tech company in court on several occasions.

These legal battles include a case in Germany, where the local branch of Universal Music sued Cloudflare for offering its services to pirate site DDL-Music.

The origins of this case date back to June 2019, when the German branch of Universal Music sent a copyright infringement notice to Cloudflare, listing DDL-Music links, which in turn linked to third-party sites that hosted tracks from Sarah Connor.

The lawsuit didn’t make any headlines, at least not initially. But when Cloudflare displayed an ‘Error 451’ to DDL-Music users in early 2020, it was clear that something was up. Error 451 is still relatively rare and typically reserved for cases where content has been made inaccessible for legal reasons.

In this case, Universal had obtained a preliminary injunction against Cloudflare that required the company to stop providing its CDN services to the pirate site. Failure to comply could’ve invoked a fine of up to 250,000 euros or even a six-month prison sentence for Cloudflare’s managing director.

Cloudflare was disappointed with the outcome and decided to appeal. The case eventually made its way to the Cologne Higher Regional Court, which largely confirmed the liability finding in 2023. That was another setback for Cloudflare which appealed to Germany’s highest court.

High Stakes, Highest Courts

The Federal Court of Justice (Bundesgerichtshof) took on the appeal in what has become a landmark case. The Court’s ruling is expected to be leading when it comes to the liability of CDN services for the copyright-infringing actions of customers.

Realizing the potential for broad repercussions, Germany’s highest court is actively seeking advice from the EU’s highest judicial body: the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU).

Specifically, it asks the EU’s top court to provide guidance on two key questions that affect the potential liability of linking sites and CDN providers.

The questions were formally submitted earlier this year and were posted in the Official Journal of the European Union this week.

Q1: Storing vs. Linking?

The German questions were translated into English and other languages, but not in a way that they are easy to grasp for the public.

The first question touches on the linking vs. hosting argument that’s common in piracy disputes. In this case, DDL-Music did not host the music files itself. Instead, it provided links to third-party cyberlockers like Nitroflare.

The German judges seem conflicted about the definition of copyright infringement when it comes to linking.

Generally speaking, the German Federal Court operates under the assumption that to “make a work available” to the public, the infringer must have control over the file within their own “access sphere” (e.g. their website/server).

However, there are also EU rulings that found linking can sometimes constitute a “communication to the public” and the German court asks the CJEU to clarify: Can a site operator be liable for “making a phonogram available” if they simply hyperlink to it?

Q2: Hosting or Caching?

The second question is arguably even more complex and harder to grasp. Not just due to the legal jargon, but also because of the implications concerning the liability of CDN providers.

With the second question, Germany’s Federal Court seeks clarification on the legal status of Cloudflare’s CDN infrastructure. It effectively asks if it classifies as a hosting provider or a caching service.

Cloudflare sees its CDN mostly as a caching service, which operates as a neutral intermediary that should not be liable for the bits that it passes on. Universal Music, however, disagreed and pointed out that some files are cached by Cloudflare for up to a year.

If Cloudflare is seen as a hosting service, Germany’s Federal Court would like to know if the liability criteria previously determined in the landmark YouTube vs. Cyando case also apply here.

In that matter the CJEU ruled that platforms such as YouTube are not liable for pirated content uploaded to their service. Liability only comes into play if a service actively and deliberately contributes to the infringement.

Finally, if the YouTube standards don’t apply, the German court wants to know exactly what criteria should be used to determine if a CDN is directly liable for the pirated content it delivers.

Going forward

The questions are now in the hands of the CJEU, which is expected to share its view on the matter next year. Given the stakes involved, the matter will be followed closely by Internet infrastructure providers and rightsholders alike.

The final verdict is also expected to provide more insight into a technical debate regarding “Time to Live” (TTL) caching settings.

In its referral order, the German court noted that while Cloudflare’s servers could theoretically cache a file for a year or longer, this doesn’t necessarily mean the company has abandoned its role as a neutral intermediary.

The German judges appear open to the idea that “temporary” storage shouldn’t be measured in time, but by its function. If a file is stored for a long time purely to improve loading times or security, it might still qualify as “caching” rather than “hosting”.

However, if the CJEU decides that long-term storage is indeed active hosting, Cloudflare could lose its liability shield. This would effectively require CDN services to make sure that content hosted (or linked) by customers is rendered inaccessible when rightsholders complain.

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

For many pirate sites and apps, ad revenue is the only viable lifeline. This is why the advertising industry is an important ally in the fight against piracy.

Over the years, several ad-focused anti-piracy initiatives and partnerships have tried to prevent branded ads from appearing on these sites.

This includes a European Union-led Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in which several leading advertising companies, including Google, signed up to play their part. The origins of this agreement date back to 2016, and the EU Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) has monitored progress ever since.

The latest report on the state of the pirate advertising landscape was published this week. As in previous years, the EUIPO commissioned UK-based research firm White Bullet to provide a detailed overview of what types of ads appeared on pirate sites throughout 2024.

The report looked at advertisements on 7,250 websites and 398 mobile applications across 18 EU member states. All ‘pirate’ sites and apps provided access to copyright-infringing content and were classified as either “illegal” or “high-risk”.

White Bullet compiled a similar advertising report for EUIPO in 2021, which makes it possible to measure progress over the past four years.

Major Brand Ads Surge 567% on Pirate Sites

The headline figures reported by EUIPO this week suggest that advertising volume on piracy sites grew rapidly throughout last year. Globally (EU+UK+US), the monitored websites generated 28.3 billion ad impressions over the year, with a 92% increase in impressions from the first to the fourth quarter.

More concerning, perhaps, is that adverts run by major brands are still common on pirate sites. No names are mentioned in the report, but EUIPO notes that advertising impressions from major brands increased 567% between 2021 and 2024.

Overall, branded advertising accounted for 61% of ad impressions on monitored websites and 96% on the monitored apps. This includes ads for both major and less-well known brands.

The EUIPO highlights this significant increase in its “main conclusions” alongside some other concerning developments.

The report explicitly links this resurgence of major brand ads to a breakdown in industry cooperation, noting that education campaigns for advertisers were halted right before the spike occurred.

“The massive growth in Major Brand advertising on IPR-infringing websites may be correlated with the 2023 termination of several coordinated outreach programmes focused on educating brands that had been placing advertising on IPR-infringing websites,” EUIPO’s report reads.

It’s all Relative

While the headline numbers reported by EUIPO are correct, they deserve some nuance. The number of ad impressions on pirate sites by major brands did not increase 567%; not by a long shot.

What the report found is that major brand ads went from just 3% of all ad impressions on websites in 2021, to 20% of all ad impressions in 2024. While that technically represents a 567% increase in market share, the number of displayed ads tanked at the same time.

Across all monitored countries, ad impressions on pirate sites crashed from 146.1 billion in 2021 to 28.3 billion in 2024. So, the total number of ads on these sites fell by roughly 80%.

While the “567% increase” statistic is technically accurate when looking at relative market share, the increase is largely driven by the collapse of low-quality, non-brand ads. In real terms, the number of major brand ads served increased by roughly 30%.

Fraud & Malware Increase/Decrease

The same logic applies to a reported surge in fraud and malware advertising, which was also highlighted in the EUIPO’s main conclusions.

“The report also notes a 250% increase in fraud and malware advertising from 2021 to 2024, showing that infringing websites not only exploit brand reputations but also expose users and advertisers to broader digital risks,” EUIPO writes.

Again, this 250% increase is relative. Looking at the absolute numbers, fraud and malware ads actually decreased by roughly 1.8 billion impressions from 2021 to 2024. That’s roughly a ~31% reduction in malicious ads.

The above makes it clear that absolute and relative comparisons can show an entirely different picture. This is largely attributable to a key change that took place over the past few years, which, strangely enough, is not mentioned in EUIPO’s main conclusions.

EU: Pirate Ad-Impressions & Revenue Plunged

The fact that the EUIPO report found an unprecedented 80% drop in pirate site ads receives very little attention. Yet, the numbers clearly show that, in the 18 monitored EU Member States, pirate site ad impressions also plunged: from 70.3 billion in 2021 to 14.4 billion in 2024.

The report links this drastic decline to an increasingly fragmented landscape of pirate sites, leading to lower traffic numbers overall. That sounds like a welcome result, but in the report the finding receives no obvious emphasis.

The same applies to the associated decrease in advertising revenue for pirate sites. The report notes that the advertising revenues from the monitored countries dropped 78%, from €102.5 million in 2021 to €22 million last year.

The Missing Number: €8.29 per day

While the EUIPO focuses mostly on the relative increases of major brand ads and fraud advertisements, one key number was not highlighted. That is, the average estimated revenue these 7,250 sites generate per day from visitors in the 18 monitored EU countries.

That number is not reported, but if we crunch the numbers, we see that the average pirate site generates roughly €8.29 per day from these EU users.

The EUIPO report puts the global revenue of these sites at ~€91 per day. This leads to the logical conclusion that the EU advertising traffic only represents a fraction of the total income of these sites. That’s worth calling out, we think.

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The full report, which includes many more data points and intriguing statistics, is available here (pdf).

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

With millions of regular users, YTS is arguably the most visited torrent site on the internet today.

The current operators ‘unofficially’ took over the YTS brand in 2015 after the original group threw in the towel. Since then, it has amassed a rather impressive user base.

After adopting one of the most iconic piracy brands, YTS faced its fair share of legal troubles. In 2019, the popular torrent site and its operator were accused of mass copyright infringement in multiple lawsuits filed by filmmakers in the United States. Surprisingly, YTS managed to settle these lawsuits to live another day, although that came at a price.

YTS also dealt with various domain name challenges. When the site first entered the scene, it was operating from the YTS.ag domain name, which it traded in for YTS.am a few years later. In 2019, the torrent site moved to YTS.lt, which it swapped for the YTS.mx domain in 2020.

YTS.mx = Gone

Over the past five years, the Mexican ccTLD proved to be a rather stable domain option, but that didn’t last.

Visitors to YTS yesterday became aware that the YTS.mx domain had stopped resolving. Many simply assumed that the site had issues due to the global Cloudflare outage but hours after Cloudflare’s troubles had been resolved, YTS.mx remained unreachable.

This was not a simple domain suspension either, as the domain’s nameservers appear to have completely vanished.

In fact, according to the Mexican domain name registry, YTS.mx no longer exists. This is highly unusual since the domain was prepaid through 2028. Clearly, an external intervention forced the action.

YTS Relocates to .LT

Initially, the YTS team remained quiet, but through various official communication channels, they eventually confirmed that something was up. While the operators don’t explain what the problem was, they note that the site has relocated to YTS.lt.

“Please use https://yts.lt (YTS.LT) for now to access our site. We’re working on some updates, and this domain will be the best way to stay connected. Stay tuned for more info!,” they note.

As we were writing this article, the official YTS Status site was also updated. All mentions of the .mx domain name have been removed in what appears to be more than a temporary update.

Indeed, in an edited blog post on YTS.lt, the team now confirms that YTS.MX is no longer used.

Legal Pressure?

While it is apparent that the .MX domain name issues are serious, it is not immediately clear what caused them. TorrentFreak asked Registry .MX for a comment on the situation, but the organization did not immediately respond.

It is possible that third-party pressure by copyright holders may have played a role here. Earlier this year, the U.S. Trade Representative identified YTS.mx as a notorious piracy market. And a few weeks ago, YTS was nominated as a notorious market again by various rightsholders.

For now, all we know for sure is that YTS.mx is gone. If more information becomes available, we will update this article accordingly.

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