![\"portugal](\"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/portugal-flag-600x472.jpg\")
Portugal now has a decade of experience with pirate site blocking measures, which were made possible through a voluntary agreement<\/p>\nPortugal now has a decade of experience with pirate site blocking measures, which were made possible through a voluntary agreement<\/p>\n
In 2015, the country\u2019s blocking scheme was formalized through a deal between several parties, including the Government, rightsholders, and Internet providers.<\/p>\n
Under the blocking regime, many thousands of domain names have been blocked over the years. To strengthen the impact, advertisers joined in on the action by preventing ad placements on these sites. <\/p>\n
The relative ease of this rollout, which received little pushback overall, was swiftly embraced by Hollywood. In 2016, Portugal served as a leading example<\/a> of how other countries, including Spain and France, could implement their blocking plans. <\/p>\n A year later, a Hollywood-commissioned study confirmed<\/a> that traffic to blocked sites had decreased significantly. This shouldn\u2019t really come as a surprise, as these domains are blocked after all, but it was seen as a great accomplishment nonetheless. <\/p>\n While site blocking is effective at blocking specific domains, it typically boosts traffic to unblocked sites. The effect wasn\u2019t considered in the initial study, but the problem was previously documented<\/a> in related research. And it\u2019s visible today too, as Portugal\u2019s piracy woes are far from over. <\/p>\n Earlier this year, Apritel, the association for Portuguese Internet providers and telcos, flagged pirate streaming and IPTV services as a major problem. The group didn\u2019t mention blocking as a solution, but suggested that the authorities should enable financial penalties<\/a> for users of these services.<\/p>\n These piracy concerns are shared by many rightsholders and were also a topic at the Colloquium on Digital Piracy of Audiovisual Content<\/a>, which took place in Lisbon last week. Here, many stakeholders discussed the ongoing piracy challenges. <\/p>\n With more than 3,000 blocked domain names, Portugal has strict anti-piracy measures in place. However, data from piracy tracking firm MUSO<\/a>, prepared for last week\u2019s meeting, shows that piracy remains popular in Portugal, even by European standards.<\/p>\n \u201cPortugal\u2019s piracy rate per user is 33% higher than the European average, marking it as one of the most active territories for unauthorised content consumption,\u201d MUSO explains<\/a>. <\/p>\n The higher piracy rates are also reflected in the number of visits to pirate sites by Internet users. These visit numbers are higher than in any other country in the region, despite the existing blocking measures. <\/p>\n \u201cThis pattern of high engagement has remained consistent across several years, indicating a need for ongoing and more refined enforcement strategies,\u201d MUSO writes<\/a>, aligning with the call for stronger enforcement. <\/p>\n Since MUSO only reports data on website visits, the growth in the use of pirate IPTV services is not reflected in these numbers. Instead, it appears that Portugal\u2019s piracy numbers are in large part due to a seemingly overlooked content category.<\/p>\n After years of site blocking, many pirate sites are known to temporarily evade measures by switching to new domain names, which are eventually blocked again, resulting in an ongoing cat and mouse game. Tugaflix, for example, has been blocked for a decade, but new domains continue to show up. <\/p>\n MUSO data shows that a \u2018Tugaflix\u2019 domain has appeared in the list of ten most visited pirate sites in Portugal over the past 12 months. The domain has since been blocked and has already moved to a new location.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n The list also reveals another interesting insight. The list of most visited piracy sites includes many Manga and Anime sites, including the hugely popular Asuracomic.net, as well as Hianime and 3xyaoi. According to our blocklist data, these remain accessible in Portugal. <\/p>\n In fact, we don\u2019t see any Manga or Anime related website in the list of 3,000 blocked domain names<\/a> we have access to, which was updated a few months ago. Apparently, this is somewhat of an enforcement blindspot. <\/p>\n This means that the relatively high piracy rates are not necessarily the result of lacking anti-piracy measures. Online piracy doesn\u2019t magically disappear merely because anti-piracy tools exist; these tools must be actively and properly utilized by rightsholders. <\/p>\n Whether this was also a topic of discussion at last week\u2019s anti-piracy colloquium is unknown. <\/p>\n From: TF<\/a>, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.<\/p>\nBlocking Pioneer and<\/em> Piracy Hotspot?<\/h2>\n
Manga \/ Anime Blindspot?<\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/porpirate.jpg\")
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![3,000 blocked domain names<\/a> we have access to, which was updated a few months ago. Apparently, this is somewhat of an enforcement blindspot. <\/p>\nThis means that the relatively high piracy rates are not necessarily the result of lacking anti-piracy measures. Online piracy doesn\u2019t magically disappear merely because anti-piracy tools exist; these tools must be actively and properly utilized by rightsholders. <\/p>\nWhether this was also a topic of discussion at last week\u2019s anti-piracy colloquium is unknown. <\/p>\nFrom: TF<\/a>, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.<\/p>\nPowered by WPeMatico<\/a><\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Portugal now has a decade of experience with pirate site blocking measures, which were made possible through a voluntary agreement In 2015, the country\u2019s blocking scheme was formalized through a deal between several parties, including the Government, rightsholders, and Internet providers. Under the blocking regime, many thousands of domain names have been blocked over the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":83306,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[308],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-83305","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\/83305","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=83305"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83305\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/83306"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=83305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=83305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=83305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}](\"https:\/\/torrentfreak.com\/images\/domains-blocked-portugal.png\"){kind=link}