The Motion Picture Association is going off on piracy again. During CinemaCon in Las Vegas, MPA CEO Charles Rivkin announced that the organization plans on working with Congress to pass rules blocking websites with pirated content. The Verge: The MPA is a trade association representing Hollywood studios, including Paramount, Sony, Universal, and Disney (it's also behind the ratings board that gives you an R if you say curse words too often). It has long lobbied for anti-piracy laws, but it seems the battle is heating up again. In his speech on Tuesday, Rivkin highlights what a major problem piracy in the US has become, saying it costs "hundreds of thousands of jobs" and "more than one billion in theatrical ticket sales." It's true: piracy has gone up in recent years. A report from piracy data analytics company Muso revealed that video piracy websites around the globe received 141 billion visits in 2023, making for a 12 percent increase when compared to 2019. The US and India made up most of these visits. But at the same time, the price to subscribe to a streaming service is higher than ever, and so is the cost of a movie ticket. The solution to stopping piracy, at least in Rivkin's eyes, is to prevent users from accessing piracy websites altogether.

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Plex is a multi-functional streaming platform that allows users to watch, organize, and curate their favorite media entertainment. Sharing Plex libraries is also an option; one that comes with piracy concerns. In an effort to "avoid the growth of piracy," Plex asked GitHub to remove a repository that allows people to reshare libraries that were not originally theirs. TorrentFreak reports: The Swiss company, which is headquartered in the U.S., asked GitHub to remove a "Plex Reshare" repository, alleging that it may contribute to its piracy problem. "Plex Reshare" doesn't host any copyright-infringing material and, as far as we've seen, it doesn't reference any either. Its main purpose is to allow Plex users to make shared Plex directories browsable on the web, which allows people to "reshare" them without being the original owner. "The reason behind this project is to make available your PLEX shares to other friends unrelated to the person who owns the original library," Plex Reshare developer Peter explains. While the repository doesn't host or link to copyright-infringing material, Plex argues that it can be used to 'grow' piracy. "We have found infringing material in your website which indeed is OTHER 'Plex Server'. The material that is claimed to be infringing is to be removed or access to which is to be disabled immediately and avoid the growth of piracy," the takedown notice reads. The first part of the sentence is somewhat confusing. Plex-reshare is not a Plex server but the company may use "OTHER Plex Server" as an internal classification category. In any case, Plex alleges that the repository can contribute to the growth of piracy on its platform. Citing the Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act, Plex urges GitHub to take immediate action, or else it may be held liable. It's not clear what this liability claim rests on, as there are no actual copyright infringements mentioned in the takedown notice. Despite the broad nature of this claim, GitHub has indeed taken the repository offline, replacing it with a DMCA takedown reference. This likely wasn't a straightforward decision as GitHub is known to put developers first with these types of issues. In this case, it took more than three weeks before GitHub took action, which is much longer than usual. This suggests that GitHub allowed the developer to respond and may have sought legal advice from in-house lawyers, to ensure that the rights of all parties are properly considered. The report notes that the Plex-reshare code is listed on Docker Hub as well, which means it may face a similar fate.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak: Today, more than two decades have passed and most of the files shared on The Pirate Bay in the early years are no longer available. BitTorrent requires at least one person to share a full file copy, which is hard to keep up for decades. Surprisingly, however, several torrents have managed to stand the test of time and remain available today. A few days ago the site's longest surviving torrent turned 20 years old. While a few candidates have shown up over the years, we believe that an episode of "High Chaparral" has the honor of being the oldest Pirate Bay torrent that's still active today. The file was originally uploaded on March 25, 2004, and several people continue to share it today. The screenshot [here] only lists one seeder but according to information passed on by OpenTrackr.org, there are four seeders with a full copy. This is quite a remarkable achievement, especially since people complained about a lack of seeders shortly after it was uploaded. Over the years, the "High Chaparral" torrent achieved cult status among a small group of people who likely keep sharing it, simply because it's the oldest surviving torrent. This became evident in the Pirate Bay comment section several years ago, when TPB still had comments. Record or not, other old torrents on The Pirate Bay also continue to thrive. On March 31, 2004, someone uploaded a pirated copy of the documentary "Revolution OS" to the site which is alive and kicking today. While these torrents are quite old, they're not the oldest active torrents available on the Internet. That honor goes to "The Fanimatrix", which was created in September 2003 and, after being previously resurrected, continues to be available today with more than 100 people seeding. Ten years ago, we were surprised to see that any of the mentioned torrents were still active. By now, however, we wouldn't be shocked to see these torrents survive for decades. Whether The Pirate Bay will still be around then is another question.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak: Brazilian anti-piracy campaign 'Operation 404' has taken down many pirate sites and services over the past five years, but criminal prosecutions have been scarce. This week, anti-piracy group ALIANZA announced a "historic" victory: The operator of pirate IPTV service "Flash IPTV" was sentenced to more than five years in prison, marking the first criminal conviction of this kind in Brazil. [...] The operator of Flash IPTV, who is referred to by the initials A.W.A.P., was found guilty of criminal copyright infringement and sentenced to five years and four months in prison. Flash IPTV was a relatively large IPTV service with 13,547 active users at its peak. According to local news reports, the service generated $912,000 in revenue over twelve months, before it was taken offline in 2020 as part of the second 'Operation 404' campaign. Speaking with TorrentFreak, ALIANZA says that this is a historic verdict, as it's the first criminal IPTV prosecution linked to 'Operation 404' in Brazil. "We appreciate the commitment of the police and judicial authorities in resolving this important case. The conviction of A.W.A.P. is a milestone that reinforces our commitment to defending the rights of creators and fighting against illegal practices that harm the creative economy," says Victor Roldan, ALIANZA's executive director. While Operation 404 resulted in many arrests over the years, follow-up prosecutions have been rare in Brazil. Previously, ALIANZA did score a similar victory in Ecuador, where the operator of the pirate IPTV service IPTVlisto.com was sentenced to a year in prison. Last fall, Brazilian authorities conducted the sixth wave of Operation 404 and more are expected to follow in the future. These enforcement initiatives are broadly praised by rightsholders and the recent conviction will only strengthen their support.

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The Dutch pirate site blocklist has expanded with two new targets, shadow libraries Anna's Archive and Library Genesis. The court order was obtained by local anti-piracy group BREIN, acting on behalf of major publishers. Interestingly, Z-Library isn't listed in the blocking order, despite explicit warnings previously issued by BREIN. TorrentFreak reports: All blocking requests were submitted by local anti-piracy group BREIN, which acts on behalf of rightsholders. These include the major Hollywood studios but BREIN's purview is much broader. Last week, it obtained the latest blocking order, this time on behalf of the publishing industry. Issued by the Rotterdam District Court, the order requires a local Internet provider to block two well-known shadow libraries; "Anna's Archive" and "Library Genesis" (LibGen). News of this new court order was shared by BREIN which notes that both sites were found to make copyright infringing works available on a large scale. At the time of writing, a published copy is not available but, based on the covenant, all large Internet providers are expected to implement the blockades. "These types of illegal shadow libraries are very harmful. The only ones who benefit are the anonymous owners of these illegal services. Authors and publishers see no return on their efforts and investments," BREIN comments. "Copyright holders deserve an honest living. There are numerous legal ways to obtain ebooks. If desired, this can also be done very cheaply; through the library for example." The Rotterdam court issued a so-called 'dynamic' blocking order, meaning that rightsholders can update the targeted domains and IP addresses if the sites switch to new ones in the future. This also applies to mirrors and increases the blockades' effectiveness, as there is no need to return to court. Previously, Internet provider KPN challenged these 'dynamic' orders, suggesting that they are too broad. The court rejected this argument, however, noting that the process hasn't led to any major problems thus far. BREIN further reports that Google is voluntarily offering a helping hand. As reported in detail previously, the search engine removes blocked domains from its local search results after being notified about an ISP blocking order. "The effectiveness of the blocking measure is increased because Google cooperates in combating these infringements and, at the request of BREIN, completely removes all references to websites that are blocked by order of the Dutch court from the search results," BREIN writes.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak: Back in 2004, in the pre-Web 2.0 era, research indicated that BitTorrent was responsible for an impressive 35% of all Internet traffic. At the time, file-sharing via peer-to-peer networks was the main traffic driver as no other services consumed large amounts of bandwidth. Fast-forward two decades and these statistics are ancient history. With the growth of video streaming, including services such as YouTube, Netflix, and TikTok, file-sharing traffic is nothing more than a drop in today's data pool. [...] This week, Canadian broadband management company Sandvine released its latest Global Internet Phenomena Report which makes it clear that BitTorrent no longer leads any charts. The latest data show that video and social media are the leading drivers of downstream traffic, accounting for more than half of all fixed access and mobile data worldwide. Needless to say, BitTorrent is nowhere to be found in the list of 'top apps'. Looking at upstream traffic, BitTorrent still has some relevance on fixed access networks where it accounts for 4% of the bandwidth. However, it's been surpassed by cloud storage apps, FaceTime, Google, and YouTube. On mobile connections, BitTorrent no longer makes it into the top ten. The average of 46 MB upstream traffic per subscriber shouldn't impress any file-sharer. However, since only a small percentage of all subscribers use BitTorrent, the upstream traffic per user is of course much higher.

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Piracy was traditionally seen as something that predominantly young males were interested in. This is a largely outdated representation of reality, as girls and women began to catch up a long time ago. In some countries, including Indonesia, more women pirate music, movies, and TV-shows than their male counterparts. TorrentFreak reports: [N]ew findings published by researchers from Northumbria University Newcastle, which include gender, are worth highlighting. The survey data, looking at piracy trends in Thailand and Indonesia, was released by Marketing professor Dr. Xuemei Bian and Ms. Humaira Farid. The results were presented to WIPO's Advisory Committee on Enforcement recently and the associated presentation (PDF) was published online. Through an online survey and in-person interviews, the research aims to map consumer attitudes and behaviors in Indonesia and Thailand, particularly in connection with online copyright infringement. One of the overall conclusions is that piracy remains a common activity in both Asian countries. Pirates are present in all age groups but and music, movies en TV-shows tend to be in highest demand and younger people. Those under 40, are more likely to pirate than their older counterparts. These findings are not out of the ordinary and the same trends are visible in other countries too. Interestingly, however, some notable differences between the two countries appear when gender is added to the mix. The tables below show that women are more likely to pirate than men in Indonesia. This is true for all content categories, except for software, where men are slightly in the lead. In Thailand, however, men are more likely to pirate across all categories. The researchers do not attempt to explain these differences. However, they show once again that 'dated' gender stereotypes don't always match with reality. And when they have little explanatory value, one can question whether gender is even relevant in a piracy context. Looking at other differences between Thai and Indonesian consumers there are some other notable findings. For example, in Indonesia, 64% of the respondents say they're aware of the availability of pirated movies and TV-shows on YouTube, compared to 'just' 32% in Thailand. Indonesian consumers are also more familiar with music piracy sites and pirate much more frequently than Thai consumers, as the table below shows. Finally, the researchers also looked at various attitudes toward piracy. This shows that Thai pirates would be most likely to stop if legal services were more convenient, while Indonesian pirates see cheaper legal services as the largest discouraging factor.

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