Pirate Site Operator’s Appeal Goes Bad, Court Extends Prison Term By 50%
Despite a stream of news reports that seem to suggest the opposite, there are more examples of pirate site operators surviving unscathed than there are public catastrophes. That’s to be expected when facing finite anti-piracy resources, yet some individuals do seem to fly under the radar with very little effort. Others prefer to weigh the likelihood of enforcement against available resources and confidence in their personal skill set....
MPA Shut Down OnionPlay’s Discord & Tries to Unmask Pirate Site Operator
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...
Share-Online Operator Gets Two Years Probation in Landmark ‘Cyberlocker’ Verdict
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...
Greek Cybercrime Unit Shuts Down IPTV Pirates, 68 End Users Face Fines
A new legal framework to tackle online infringement in Greece went live just a couple of months ago, and reports of prosecutions are already coming in. Early September, it was reported that a man from Sparta faces prosecution and a fine of up to 6,000 euros for two IPTV piracy offenses. The suspect, reportedly a café owner, was targeted at his workplace on a Saturday, allegedly in front of customers. One told local media that they...
‘Destroyed’ Usenet Provider NSE and BREIN End 16-Year Battle With Secret Settlement
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...
Live Sports Piracy: EU Commission Admits that Anti-Piracy Advice Had Limited Impact
For years, powerful rightsholders and media groups have demanded urgent and decisive action from the European Commission to tackle IPTV piracy of live sports and events. From the MPA, to the Premier League, Sky, LaLiga and Serie A, the message couldn’t have been clearer or more consistent. It didn’t change after the EC’s rejection of their call for urgent legislative measures in 2022, and remained intact following a consultation and...
