In 2010, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Department of Homeland Security began their first rounds of domain name seizures.

Under the flag of “Operation In Our Sites” the authorities shut down a dozen file-sharing and streaming sites, as well as many sites that sold counterfeit goods.

The action had a massive impact at the time. It resulted in several high profile arrests, including those of several NinjaVideo operators. However, they were not without controversy either.

Several sites that were accused of piracy fought back. As a result, U.S. authorities had to return the domain name of sports streaming site Rojadirecta after a few months. And years later, the DoJ also dropped its case against torrent search engine Torrent-Finder.

Despite this rocky start, Operation In Our Sites continued. In fact, the number of seizures only increased and by 2012 the campaign expanded internationally as well, with Europe joining in.

Over the past years, the number of targeted domains continued to grow. Last year, the US National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center said it took down over a million domains in just a year. An unprecedented number, but one that didn’t draw any major headlines.

Yesterday Europol announced its latest efforts. With help from international law enforcement agencies, it seized 30,506 domain names. According to the organization, these domains distributed counterfeit and pirated items.

Among other things, the sites reportedly offered pirated movies, illegal television streaming, music, software, counterfeit pharmaceuticals and other illicit goods. In addition, officials also arrested three individuals while freezing more than €150,000 from various bank accounts and online payment providers.

While these numbers are impressive, today’s Operation In Our Sites doesn’t have the media impact it had in the early days. Of course, there are news outfits rehashing Europol’s press release, noting that thousands of pirate sites have been taken offline, but that’s about it.

What stands out most is that, in recent years, we haven’t been able to spot any pirate sites that were affected by such seizures. This, despite the fact that well over a million domains were seized.

There’s no separate breakdown for the number of pirate and counterfeit domains. We assume that the majority of the affected domain names were linked to counterfeiting instead of piracy, but still, both categories are mentioned.

The lack of visible impact stands in major contrast to the first year when only a few dozen domains were targeted. At the time, that lead to months of news coverage, lawsuits, and even questions from high profile politicians, including US Senator Ron Wyden.

TorrentFreak reached out to Europol to find out what the most recent piracy targets were, but at the time of writing, we have yet to hear back. It’s clear, however, that Operation In Our Sites hasn’t targeted any major pirate sites in recent years.

The big question is why. How does Europol pick its targets? And if it’s so easy to seize tens of thousands of domains, why do these major enforcement agencies only focus on smaller sites?

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons.

The so-called ‘Six-Strikes’ Copyright Alert System was once praised as an excellent tool to address online piracy.

Under the agreement, which included the major rightsholder groups MPA and RIAA, several large Internet providers in the US sent copyright infringement warnings to pirating customers.

After repeated alerts, these subscribers would face a variety of ‘mitigation’ measures but their accounts would not be terminated. Although rightsholders and ISPs appeared happy with the deal, it was shut down nearly three years ago.

Instead of cooperating with ISPs, several RIAA members then took another approach by filing lawsuits against Internet providers for not doing enough to curb piracy. This also happened to Cox, which was sued for failing to disconnect repeat infringers.

The lawsuit between several music companies and Cox is scheduled to go to trial later this month. Interestingly, the ISP is now planning to use the aforementioned Copyright Alert System (CAS) as evidence in its favor.

Cox was asked to participate in the voluntary anti-piracy scheme years ago but chose not to do so. According to the company, its own “strike” policy was already functioning well and perhaps even better than the industry-approved alternative.

This line of reasoning is also relevant for the ongoing legal dispute, Cox believes. The RIAA members disagreed and previously asked the court to exclude it from the trial. However, according to a recent ruling from Judge Liam O’Grady, the ISP is permitted to use it in its favor.

“Defendants are permitted to put on evidence about the Copyright Alert System as well as its own graduated response system, the Cox Abuse Ticket System,” O’Grady writes.

In addition, Cox is also allowed to present evidence about the policies at other ISPs, as identified in related reports, as long as it is relevant to the case.

This is a clear setback for the music labels which argued that the policies and actions of other ISPs and the CAS are irrelevant. It doesn’t matter whether Cox’s own anti-piracy system was reasonable or effective in comparison with other providers, they said.

The court disagreed, however, but it also brought some bad news for Cox.

The ISP planned to cite internal research to suggest that 96% of subscribers stopped receiving notices after the 5th warning. This was concluded in 2010 and resulted in the ISP’s belief that its “graduated response” system was effective.

According to the music companies these conclusions, of which the underlying data is no longer available, were based on a “mess of misleading calculations.” As such, they wanted it excluded from the trial.

Judge O’Grady agreed with the music companies. After reviewing the arguments from both sides, he concludes that there is no adequate foundation for the information presented in the “96% Stop By 5 Notices” evidence.

“Defendants have had ample time to produce such a foundation, and failed to do so. Discrepancies in numbers and figures as detailed in Plaintiffs’ briefs raise an alarming number of questions that demand the underlying data be produced, not just the emails Defendants offer in support,” O’Grady writes.

With these and various other motions dealt with, the trial will soon get underway. While some boundaries have been set, there is still plenty left to argue over.

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A copy of U.S. District Court Judge Liam O’Grady’s order is available here (pdf).

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons.

With the rise of convenient web-based live streaming, in recent years the Premier League has found itself on the front lines of anti-piracy enforcement.

While a significant proportion of its actions are targeted at illicit offerings available in the UK, the Premier League doesn’t shy away from tackling those who offer live games in other areas of the world too.

The group, which operates top-tier football in England, says it launched an investigation which was taken on by Thailand’s Department of Special Investigation in 2015. That developed into a covert investigation in Hong Kong during 2017 targeting individuals behind various websites operating under the banner Expat.tv.

The trail eventually led back to an operation in Thailand which offered pirate streams and preloaded set-top boxes across southeast Asia including Indonesia, Singapore, Vietnam and Malaysia.

Raids were subsequently carried out by Thailand’s DSI at five locations including a residential address in Bangkok on May 11, 2017. Two British men were arrested and a Thai woman was detained at a later date.

One of the men subsequently skipped bail but the remaining pair faced charges, including copyright infringement, relating to the unlicensed distribution of Premier League content and running a major ‘piracy network’ across Asia. Both pleaded guilty and have now been sentenced.

The Premier League reports the pair have paid damages to them totaling THB 15 million (around £385,000) which, according to the League, is one of the highest damages awards for copyright infringement ever paid in Thailand.

This is an addition to funds of almost THB 7 million (£180,000) that were seized by the state, THB 3 million (£76,800) in fines, plus suspended prison sentences totaling 3.5 years.

“This is one of the most substantial compensations for piracy-related crimes in Thailand and is a stark warning to anyone involved in the illegal supply of Premier League streams,” says Premier League Director of Legal Services Kevin Plumb. 

“Attitudes towards, and acceptance of, these types of operators in Asia is changing, which is good news for fans who watch Premier League content through legitimate channels.”

This latest success for the Premier League can be added to the growing list of anti-piracy victories reported by the football group in recent times which include dynamic blocking injunctions and dealing with the sprawling problem of premium IPTV services.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons.

To many people, the Pirate Bay logo is the icon of free entertainment. For more than 15 years, the site has been the goto place for pirate content.

Although the site has faced regular downtime and connectivity issues in recent years, it remains online today.

In recent weeks, however, we noticed that The Pirate Bay’s logo was regularly replaced with something else. This isn’t entirely new, as the site often used to swap the iconic pirate ship graphic to send a message.

The more recent changes are noteworthy though, as they are – at least in part – used to generate revenue.

The Pirate Bay never displayed standard ads on the site’s homepage. And while there are still no network ads, TPB has swapped its logo several times to promote the “Pirate Bay approved” VPN provider AzireVPN, as shown below.

The VPN provider confirmed to TorrentFreak that The Pirate Bay asked to join its affiliate program, which it uses to generate some extra revenue. In addition to the homepage banner that appeared several times, there’s a “VPN” link to AzireVPN on all TPB pages as well.

Another new logo that showed up recently promotes the file-hosting service TMP.ninja. It’s not clear whether this is an advertisement, or perhaps a promotion for a ‘friend,’ but there must be a good reason to show the banner.

We reached out to TMP.ninja to find out more but, at the time of writing, we have yet to hear back. As with the VPN, TMP.ninja also has a sitewide link on the site, under the “filehosting” tag.

Finally, there’s The Pirate Bay’s promotion of the blockchain project Hex, which describes itself as the first high-interest savings account on the blockchain. Like most crypto projects it’s not without controversy. However, TPB believes it can get something out of it.

The torrent site currently displays a Hex.win banner on its homepage which comes with a referral link. This means that TPB gets a 20% bonus minted for everyone who signs up through the site.

It’s unclear whether the logo swaps are a temporary thing or if they will happen more frequently in the future. Over the past few weeks, the ‘promo’ logos have been appearing on an off, with Hex being the most recent addition.

In any case, people shouldn’t be surprised to see a slightly different look when they access the TPB homepage.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons.

This week we have three newcomers in our chart.

Gemini Man 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	(4)	Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood	7.9 / trailer
2	(3)	Rambo: Last Blood	6.6 / trailer
3	(1)	Gemini Man	5.7 / trailer
4	(…)	The Irishman	8.4 / trailer
5	(2)	Angel Has Fallen	6.5 / trailer
6	(6)	It Chapter Two	6.8 / trailer
7	(5)	Joker (Subbed HDRip)	8.8 / trailer
8	(…)	Hustlers	6.5 / trailer
9	(8)	Ready or Not	7.0 / trailer
10	(…)	Abominable	7.0 / trailer

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons.