{"id":79745,"date":"2024-10-21T09:01:00","date_gmt":"2024-10-21T09:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/?p=79745"},"modified":"2024-10-21T09:01:00","modified_gmt":"2024-10-21T09:01:00","slug":"game-companies-list-fitgirl-repacks-as-a-key-piracy-threat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/?p=79745","title":{"rendered":"Game Companies List \u2018FitGirl-Repacks\u2019 as a Key Piracy Threat"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"amelie2\"The Entertainment Software Association (ESA<\/a>) has submitted its latest overview of \u201cNotorious Markets<\/a>\u201d to the Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR).<\/p>\n

These submissions serve as input for the USTR\u2019s yearly overview of piracy \u2018markets\u2019 which helps to shape the U.S. Government\u2019s global copyright enforcement agenda going forward.<\/p>\n

The ESA, which represents video game companies including Electronic Arts, Epic Games, Microsoft, Nintendo, Sony, and Ubisoft, hopes that the interests of its members will be taken into account. In the report, the group lists various pirate sites that enable the public to download games for free.<\/p>\n

FitGirl Repacks<\/h2>\n

The most notable newcomer in ESA\u2019s overview is FitGirl-Repacks. The site, commonly abbreviated as \u201cFitGirl<\/a>\u201d publishes slimmed down copies of pirated games which are easy to distribute and share. These repacks are in high demand and, as one of the most famous repackers, FitGirl became a brand in and of itself. <\/p>\n

At this point, many gamers associate FitGirl\u2019s supposed likeness (image above) with piracy, instead of the film Am\u00e9lie, from where the image was originally sourced. Yet despite being active for well over a decade, FitGirl-Repacks shows no signs of slowing down. <\/p>\n

Admittedly, the site\u2019s domains have been blocked in several countries, including Italy and Spain, but rightsholders have yet to identify the person or people who run the site. <\/p>\n

According to ESA, FitGirl continues to serve an audience of millions of visitors today. The site doesn\u2019t host content directly but links to pirated content hosted on third-party platforms. <\/p>\n

\u201cIn July 2024, fitgirl-repacks received 22 million visits, offering visitors access to ESA member personal computer (\u2018PC\u2019) game titles. Internationally, this website has been subject to scrutiny for its failure to comply with takedown notices reporting infringing content,\u201d the ESA writes. <\/p>\n

More Newcomers<\/h2>\n

Seeing FitGirl listed as a notorious piracy site comes as no shock; it\u2019s more surprising that it was never mentioned in earlier years. The same can be said about Dodi-Repacks, another new entry on ESA\u2019s list this year. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

From ESA\u2019s submission<\/em><\/center>
\"ESA<\/center><\/p>\n

Dodi-Repacks hasn\u2019t been around as long as FitGirl and the site doesn\u2019t have as much traffic, but ESA notes that it poses a significant threat nonetheless. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe site operator is non-responsive to ESA take-down notices and runs a backup version of the site at dodi-repacks.download. Both domains utilize a CDN,\u201d ESA informs the USTR. <\/p>\n

Other newcomers highlighted by the ESA are cosmocheats.com, a relatively small cheat seller with a few thousand daily visits, and the online marketplace eldorado.gg that sells game accounts and virtual items without permission.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Eldorado.gg<\/em><\/center>
\"eldorado\"<\/center><\/p>\n

Emerging Threats Disappear<\/h2>\n

ESA\u2019s list of notorious pirate sites and services includes other familiar targets, such as torrent site 1337x, hosting sites 1fichier.com and megaup.net, as well as other dedicated game pirate services. <\/p>\n

Interestingly, the game companies no longer mention last year\u2019s \u201cgrowing trends\u201d, which included malware and cryptocurrencies. These issues haven\u2019t disappeared overnight but ESA, apparently, doesn\u2019t feel the need to separately focus on these again. <\/p>\n

ESA\u2019s mention of Scene release groups and highly skilled hackers also disappeared from the latest USTR submission. However, according to the group, repackers were part of this category, so this mention might have been replaced by the FitGirl and Dodi listings. <\/p>\n

\u2014<\/em><\/p>\n

A copy of ESA\u2019s submission for the 2024 Special 301 Out-of-Cycle Review of Notorious Markets is available here (pdf)<\/a>. An overview of the (online) threats is listed below. The bold entries are new, and the ones with a strike-through were listed last year, but removed in 2024. <\/p>\n

Hyperlinking Websites (\u201cLinking Sites\u201d or \u201cLink Sites\u201d)<\/u>
\n\u2013 nsw2u.com
\n\u2013 Game3rb.com<\/strike>
\n\u2013 fitgirl-repacks.site
\n\u2013 dodi-repacks.site<\/strong><\/p>\n

Hosting Websites (\u201cCyberlockers\u201d)<\/u>
\n\u2013 1fichier.com
\n\u2013 megaup.net<\/p>\n

Torrent Indexing Websites<\/u>
\n\u2013 1337x.to
\n\u2013 Solidtorrents.to<\/strike><\/p>\n

Cheats<\/u>
\n\u2013 unknowncheats.me
\n\u2013 mpgh.net<\/strike>
\n\u2013 cosmocheats.com<\/strong><\/p>\n

Unauthorized Online Marketplaces<\/u>
\n\u2013 playerauctions.com
\n\u2013 G2G.com<\/strike>
\n\u2013 eldorado.gg<\/strong><\/p>\n

Malware<\/u><\/strike><\/p>\n

Cryptocurrency<\/u><\/strike><\/p>\n

Scene Release Groups<\/u><\/strike><\/p>\n

From: TF<\/a>, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.<\/p>\n

Powered by WPeMatico<\/a><\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Entertainment Software Association (ESA) has submitted its latest overview of \u201cNotorious Markets\u201d to the Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR). These submissions serve as input for the USTR\u2019s yearly overview of piracy \u2018markets\u2019 which helps to shape the U.S. Government\u2019s global copyright enforcement agenda going forward. The ESA, which represents video game companies […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":79746,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[308],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-79745","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-torrent"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79745","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=79745"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79745\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/79746"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=79745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=79745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=79745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}