With millions of users, torrent site YTS is one of the largest pirate sites on the Internet.

The site is a thorn in the side of many filmmakers, several of which dragged the site’s operator to US courts last year.

These types of lawsuits have proven to be lethal in the past, but not for YTS. We previously reported that YTS settled its dispute with movie outfit Wicked Nevada, and late last week it reached a similar agreement with HB Productions, the makers of the film Hellboy.

A new filing submitted at a federal court in Hawaii shows that both parties agreed to a stipulated consent judgment. The order, signed by US District Court Judge Alan Kay, effectively ends the lawsuit.

Senthil Vijay Segaran, the suspected operator of YTS, denies liability but confirms that he is the ‘John Doe’ described in the complaint and admits that people used YTS to share pirated content.

“Defendant SENTHIL VIJAY SEGARAN denies liability but acknowledges that he is Defendant JOHN DOE dba YTS identified in the original complaint and concedes that one or more third parties uploaded the torrent file of Plaintiff’s motion picture to his website YTS.LT,” it reads.

The agreement also comes at a high price for the operator. Similar to the previous settlement, Segaran agrees to pay $150,000 to compensate for the damages suffered by the makers of Hellboy.

In addition, the consent judgment includes a permanent injunction. This prevents YTS’s operator from distributing and/or promoting torrent files that point to the Hellboy film. Thus far this is indeed the case, as YTS.lt no longer lists the movie.

It is quite unusual for a movie company to resolve a lawsuit against a torrent site in this manner. Like the previous settlement, this case was handled by attorney Kerry Culpepper, who is also behind the one remaining lawsuit against YTS.

The fact that YTS remains online is good news for millions of YTS users but not all will be pleased. Around the same time that the filmmakers and YTS resolved their differences, new copyright infringement lawsuits were filed against YTS users.

These cases partly rely on information that appears to have been obtained from the YTS user database. For example, a lawsuit filed against Hawaii resident Puakailima Davis last week states the following;

“Defendant, from Internet Protocol (‘IP’) address 72.130.57.100, used a registered account associated with the email address “redactedbyTF@gmail.com” to access torrent files from YTS.

“Defendant went to torrent sites including the website YTS to upload and download Plaintiffs’ copyrighted Works,” the complaints later adds.

The complaint further mentions at what times the defendant “logged into her email address,” although it’s not clear whether that refers to the website login or that of the email provider.

As mentioned previously, an email address itself is not hard evidence. People who register an account with YTS don’t have to confirm their email, so anyone can sign up with a random address, including those of other people.

It’s not stated how all the referenced information was obtained, which leaves us with little more than speculation.

A possible scenario is that the YTS operator gave up the user information as part of the negotiations. This would not be unprecedented, as the developer of the app CotoMovies shared similar information with the film companies in the past.

TorrentFreak contacted Kerry Culpepper, the attorney in charge, but he informed us that he couldn’t comment on the matter at this time.

YTS.lt, meanwhile, remains online.

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TorrentFreak obtained a copy of the stipulated consent judgment between HB Productions and Senthil Vijay Segaran, which is available here (pdf). Two new complaints against alleged YTS users are available here (pdf) and here (pdf).

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This week we have three newcomers in our chart.

Terminator: Dark Fate is the most downloaded movie.

The data for our weekly download chart is estimated by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only. All the movies in the list are Web-DL/Webrip/HDRip/BDrip/DVDrip unless stated otherwise.

RSS feed for the articles of the recent weekly movie download charts.

This week’s most downloaded movies are:

Movie Rank	Rank last week	Movie name	IMDb Rating / Trailer
Most downloaded movies via torrents
1	(1)	Terminator: Dark Fate	6.4 / trailer
2	(3)	Joker	8.8 / trailer
3	(…)	Doctor Sleep	7.5 / trailer
4	(2)	1917 (DVDscr)	8.6 / trailer
5	(5)	Maleficent: Mistress of Evil	6.8 / trailer
6	(…)	Playing With Fire	4.7 / trailer
7	(4)	Dark Waters (screener)	8.6 / trailer
8	(6)	Frozen 2 (DVDScr)	7.2 / trailer
9	(10)	Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood	7.9 / trailer
10	(…)	Just Mercy (DVDScr)	7.4 / trailer

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For the very first time in a copyright infringement case, South Korea’s Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism in conjunction with the National Police Agency has requested a so-called Interpol Red Notice.

Red Notices detail people who are wanted internationally for serious crimes, typically murder, rape, child abuse or armed robbery, according to Interpol. However, South Korean authorities state that since serious copyright infringers can be jailed for significant periods, those with an arrest warrant filed against them can now be pursued internationally.

“Previously, it was not possible to investigate copyright infringers residing abroad, so the investigation would have to be temporarily suspended and only the information notified to immigration,” the Ministry says.

“But now, with a long period of two years in prison or in jail, a copyright infringer with an arrest warrant has been redeemed with the cooperation of the International Criminal Police Agency (Interpol) to arrest the wanted person and lead him to the country.”

The name of the suspect hasn’t been released publicly but the Ministry of Culture states that they want their Interpol partners to apprehend the operator of a torrent site (simply referred to as ‘torrent—‘) that offered around 455,000 titles illegally and generated around 15 million visits per month. The only other detail is that the person is Australian and residing overseas.

In its announcement, the Ministry of Culture revealed recent progress in its battle against large scale copyright infringers who allegedly distribute copyright works using overseas servers. After closing 25 sites in 2018, police say they arrested nine site operators in 2019, arrested a further six, and closed 20 illicit platforms.

Those arrested include three detained for distributing 5,000 comic works and 20,000 pornography titles on sites utilizing overseas servers, plus two who “earned advertising revenues” by posting 100,000 comic works on foreign sites.

In parallel, the Korea Communications Commission and the Korea Copyright Protection Office under the Ministry of Arts and Culture have been working closely to improve the country’s site-blocking mechanism. In common with other regions around the world, alternative domains, proxies and mirrors that quickly spring up after domains are blocked have been receiving special attention.

As part of the overall crackdown, the National Police Agency is reportedly investigating gambling sites that place banner advertising on ‘pirate’ platforms while encouraging international cooperation against infringement, including strengthening ties with service providers and copyright authorities, plus Google.

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Indonesia has been very active on the anti-piracy front in recent months, with the government ordering Internet providers to block hundreds of pirate sites.

Despite these enforcement efforts, several high profile US entertainment industry groups see room for improvement in the Asian country.

The International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA), which includes a wide range of copyright groups including the MPA, RIAA, and ESA, made this clear in a recent submission to the US Trade Representative.

IIPA advises the U.S. government to suspend Indonesia’s GSP trade benefits if the country fails to do more to protect the interests of US copyright holders. With many millions of dollars at stake, this is a serious threat.

In their submission, IIPA acknowledges that the Indonesian government has recently taken “significant strides” to combat piracy. However, it also adds that “more should be done.”

The group notes that the movie and music industries “worked” with the government to block hundreds of websites. This resulted in some success stories, such as the recent decision by pirate site IndoXXI to voluntarily shut down.

However, blockades are not always effective. In many cases, the initial drops in traffic that occur after a blockade are undone when sites move to new domain names.

“[T]hese drops in traffic are intermittent as most well-known piracy sites employ a strategy of domain hopping—redirecting domains to circumvent the results of site-blocking efforts,” IIPA writes.

The Indonesian government has already responded to this by blocking new domains as well, but IIPA sees room for improvement on this front.

“The government should streamline the process for rights holders to ensure access to infringing sites is disabled and to deal efficiently with the problem of domain hopping,” the group writes.

These demands are clear but it remains odd to see calls for these types of drastic measures from US companies that have yet to take any action to block a single pirate site in the US itself.

IIPA’s demands don’t end there either – the copyright holders have more suggestions. For example, Indonesia should prioritize enforcement efforts against illegal camcording in theaters as well as live streaming piracy.

“The government should issue clear guidelines and regulations on illegal camcording and live streaming piracy, and take the initiative to reduce instances of these illegal activities as a priority,” IIPA writes.

In addition, piracy apps and the distribution points for piracy-enabling set-top boxes should be dealt with as well.

“IIPA encourages the Indonesian Government to take steps to crack down on piracy apps and on device retailers who preload the devices with apps that facilitate infringement, and take action against key distribution points for devices that are being used illegally.”

This is just a small selection of the demands which also include a repeal of certain copyright exceptions and an extension of the copyright term to the life of the author plus 70 years.

According to IIPA, Indonesia was on the right track but in 2019 progress stalled and even regressed. The organization hopes that by listing a wide variety of improvement opportunities, perhaps with a nudge from the US government, progress can continue.

If the US Government doesn’t see any improvement, it should suspend (some of) the existing trade benefits for the country, the rightsholder groups conclude.

“If, at the conclusion of the review, the Government of Indonesia has not made adequate progress remedying the deficiencies outlined above, IIPA requests that the Committee suspend or withdraw Indonesia’s GSP benefits, in whole or in part,” IIPA writes.

This type of pressure is not new. In 2017 the US Government sanctioned Ukraine following a similar referral from the IIPA. This triggered a wave of copyright-related actions in the country, with President Trump deciding to lift the sanctions a few months ago.

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IIPA’s full submission to the US Trade Representative is available here (pdf).

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First launched in 1993, France-based company AlloCiné aims to support the entertainment industries by providing information on movies and TV shows.

The company operates a portal located at Allocine.fr where users can research movies, TV series, actors and view a wide range of additional information such as release dates, for example. While less well-known than iMDb, for example, Allocine.fr is a huge draw with more than 46 million visits per month.

During December 2019 and for reasons that remain unclear, a new wave of DMCA takedown notices began appearing on Google’s Transparency Report, reportedly sent by AlloCiné and targeting a broad range of sites. All told and from a standing start, the company appears to have requested the removal of more than 6,300 URLs from third-party sites, claiming that they infringe AlloCiné’s rights.

Determining whether that’s actually the case is not easy since the notices submitted to Google don’t include links where original content can be found. The first notice, dated December 16, 2019, seems to target sites that give the impression of being streaming portals. They bear no close resemblance to AlloCiné and Google eventually rejected every single request.

This pattern largely continues across many copyright claims targeting thousands of URLs but then even more glaring errors start to appear.

While similar to those that preceded it, this notice asks Google to delete a page on rival entertainment database JustWatch featuring Game of Thrones. It also demands that a link to a Rotten Tomatoes page detailing The Mandalorian is deleted, just one of many targeting the site in the days that followed.

For reasons unknown, this notice targets the History Channel while another attempts to delist a Harley Quinn article published by Newsweek.

With Google refusing to take action for almost all URLs thus far, another notice persists by demanding the takedown of an information page relating to the TV series Asylum City published on the CanalPlus website. Another targets pages on both MetaCritic and Decider after they covered the Disney show The Imagineers.

Things only go down from here, with another notice targeting four more Rotten Tomatoes URLs, one belonging to Hulu, plus one owned by Paramount Network. Just a day later, another notice swooped back for another bite at Hulu (it is targeted in several notices) plus an attack on the site AllSeries.co.uk. While this might sound like a TV show platform, it is in fact a BMW-focused sales and repairs company in the UK.

Sadly, subsequent notices don’t offer any improvement, with one in particular standing out after targeting news site Le Parisien for writing about Netflix, Wired.com for reporting on The Witcher, and Vulture for recapping The Mandalorian.

Quite what AlloCiné is trying to achieve here isn’t clear but the very same notice also targets the New York Times, Netflix, KickStarter, IGN, Express.co.uk, Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk, Wikipedia and – for good measure – AlloCiné’s very own domain.

TorrentFreak’s request for comment from AlloCiné remains unanswered.

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