At the height of the cyberlocker boom in the early 2010s, Uptobox was already an established name.
The platform remained online despite a fierce anti-piracy crackdown that led to the demise of Megaupload, Hotfile, and many other file-hosting services.
Uptobox eventually met its fate in September 2023, when a coalition of entertainment companies including Disney, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, Paramount, and Warner Bros. obtained a court order to seize its servers at various data centers.
Uptobox Crackdown
The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment claimed responsibility for the operation, which was carried out simultaneously in France and the UAE. While Uptobox put up a fight in court, hoping for a comeback, the courts disagreed and kept it offline.
Behind the scenes, Disney was pursuing a parallel case against a French national residing in the UAE. Local news site L’Informé previously identified the defendant by his X.com pseudonym “Starouille”, who previously described himself as the CTO of Uptobox.
In October 2023, Disney obtained an order from a Paris enforcement judge, authorizing seizures of up to €16.127 million against his personal bank accounts. In the legal paperwork, Disney described the defendant as one of the “founders, operators, and de facto co-directors” of Uptobox.
When the seizure was executed at the BNP Paribas bank, it froze approximately €197,000. Two additional seizures followed under separate orders. These seized assets are not damages awards, but they are kept as a security while the case is fought on its merits.
Not a Director
Starouille, who is identified in the legal paperwork as ‘M. [U]’, did not agree with the way Disney described him. His lawyer Me Damien Faupin argued that he was a technical contractor who managed server infrastructure, not a co-director. The CTO title on social media did not reflect reality, the lawyer clarified.
In January 2025, the enforcement judge agreed that Disney could not prove the defendant’s director role, ordering the seized funds released. However, Disney objected and requested a stay of execution while they appealed. This decision eventually came this month.
After considering all evidence, the Court of Appeal upheld the finding that Disney failed to prove Starouille was a de facto director. The evidence showed he began as a freelancer in 2012, but there’s no evidence that he actually had a managerial function.
“The fact that [the defendant] presented himself on social media, notably on his Facebook and Twitter accounts, as ‘Chief Technical Officer’ (CTO) of Uptobox does not in itself constitute, even assuming this title to be accurate, a sufficient element to establish that, beyond operations of installation, maintenance, and upgrading of servers, he was more generally engaged in management or technical development of the service,” the court said (all quotes are translated).
The Court of Appeal noted that there was insufficient evidence to prove the defendant was engaged in the general management of the service. Instead, his role was strictly limited to operations, maintenance, and server upgrades. This was corroborated by evidence seized at hosting provider Opcore, which listed him as “interlocuteur technique N1” (Technical Liaison Level 1).
While the court concluded that Disney failed to prove that the defendant had a director role, it ultimately ruled that the funds should remain frozen for another reason.
DNS Tweets Keep Funds Frozen
The court order notes that the defendant was not ignorant of the alleged piracy-facilitating activities of Uptobox. In fact, his own social media posts showed that he was aware of site blocking efforts and shared information on how these could be bypassed.
For example, in one of the X/Twitter posts that are no longer public, Starouille wrote (translated): “for those who can no longer access Uptobox/Uptostream, change your DNS on all your devices (procedure here: uptobox.info/dns). You can also use uptobox.link.”
When a user asked whether this was about “yet another court order,” Starouille replied: “yes, where Uptobox is not condemned, just 4 ISPs. As usual…” He later posted specific instructions for changing DNS settings in a Freebox router’s download manager.
According to the Court of Appeal, these posts show that the defendant was aware of the blocking orders, as well as the copyright-related reasons for these blocking measures. His defense that the DNS instructions were meant to help rightsholders contact the service was dismissed.
“[The defendant] cannot validly maintain that his message, far from enabling the circumvention of an institutional block, was solely intended to allow users, rightsholders such as the appellant, or any other natural or legal person to be able to contact the company or the service, in particular to report a copyright infringement problem.”
This was not the first time Starouille’s social media activity was used against him in court. As L’Informé previously reported, a since-deleted tweet showing a car entering a parking lot tagged “@online DC2” helped entertainment companies locate Uptobox servers at Scaleway’s second data center in Vitry-sur-Seine, facilitating the September 2023 raid.
Importantly, this is not a finding on the merits. Starouille is not held liable, the court merely concluded that Disney’s claims are plausible enough to keep the funds frozen for now.
From €16 Million to €306,000
The defendant also booked a win, at least on paper. Disney previously calculated its claim using the lost Disney+ subscription revenue over 2020-2023, applying its 15% streaming market share to Uptobox’s estimated one million monthly unique visitors.
The Court of Appeal adjusted this number downward, citing a study which concluded that roughly 80% of pirates already subscribe to legal streaming services. This means that these would not necessarily result in lost revenue.
Additionally, the court found that Starouille’s alleged wrongful conduct was limited to his July-August 2023 social media posts, which further limits the claim.
Ultimately, this shorter ‘liability’ window and the reduced lost subscriptions, slashed the authorized asset freeze of more than €16 million to €306,000. However, since this is still more than the €197,000 that’s frozen at BNP Paribas, nothing is returned yet.
For now, Starouille’s savings remain frozen and the merits case is pending. No piracy damages have been awarded yet, but the ruling shows that publicly instructing users to circumvent court orders can be used to justify piracy-related asset seizures.
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A copy of the Paris Court of Appeal ruling is available here (pdf).
From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.
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