Piracy

The details of a new procedure for imposing and collecting administrative fines for intellectual property offenses has been published in Greece. At the bottom end of the scale, fines for accessing pirated content such as pirate IPTV streams, start at €750 per violation, increasing to €5,000 if use is commercial. For repeat offenses, fines double to €1,500 and €5,000 respectively.

Major academic publishers, including Elsevier and Springer Nature, are trying to unmask the operators of several shadow libraries including Anna’s Archive, Z-Library and Libgen. They're also targeting SLUM, a third-party uptime monitor for these unofficial libraries. A DMCA subpoena, issued by a D.C. federal court, requires Cloudflare to hand over identifying user data for possible legal action.

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Reports that the Nigerian Copyright Commission had recently shut down a pirate site didn't sound especially interesting. Operating under MovieBox branding, currently seen on endless domains, the local site reportedly received over 130 million visits in the previous three months and was actually still in business. Indeed, plans to develop the MovieBox brand began last month, with an application for intellectual property protection underpinning all kinds of business opportunities.

The Paris Judicial Court has ordered top VPN providers to block yet more pirate sports streaming domains. Two rulings dated July 18th side with broadcasters beIN Sports and Canal+, rejecting the VPN providers' arguments that these blocking measures are ineffective, costly, and technically difficult to implement. A request from CyberGhost and ExpressVPN, to pause the case and refer questions to the EU's highest court, was also rejected.

Brazil's National Telecommunications Agency has reported a significant operation targeting a group who smuggled pirate IPTV devices from neighboring Paraguay, for distribution and nationwide sale in Brazil. Thirty-eight police officers executed 12 warrants, seizing vehicles, real estate, and other property, with assets worth up to US$6m frozen by a court.

After years of legal skirmishes, an ambitious strategy by film studio Voltage Pictures, to sue alleged BitTorrent pirates through a reverse class action in Canada, has been permanently shut down. The Federal Court of Appeal ruled that these cases, where IP addresses are the main initial evidence, are unsuited to this legal approach. Furthermore, the proposed methods for mass notification are deemed unlawful.

After focusing on IPTV services offering pirated live football matches from Italy's Serie A, legal amendments adopted by telecoms regulator AGCOM last week will widen the scope of the Piracy Shield blocking platform. The now-infamous claim, that pirate streams will be blocked inside 30 minutes, now applies to movie and TV premieres, and other events broadcast live. The more serious issues concern VPNs, DNS providers and whoever AGCOM decides to pursue next.

A man described by Sky as a "top level" pirate has agreed to pay the broadcaster €480,000 in damages. Sky's investigation of David Dunbar reportedly began on social media last November, but soon benefited from a timely anonymous tip from another country. In May 2025, Sky obtained a court order to secure evidence from Dunbar's home, but that didn't go according to plan. After being denied access to the premises, evidence was destroyed and funds were "dissipated".

Efforts to introduce pirate site blocking to the United States continue with the introduction of the "Block BEARD" bill in the Senate. The bipartisan proposal, backed by Senators Tillis, Coons, Blackburn, and Schiff, aims to create a new legal mechanism to combat foreign piracy websites. Block BEARD is similar to the previously introduced House bill "FADPA", but doesn't directly mention DNS resolvers.

Medical device associations behind a lawsuit challenging a Library of Congress exemption to the DMCA's anti-circumvention provisions, have failed to have the exemption ruled illegal. Motions for summary judgment from both sides went in favor of the defendants after a district court judge found that the exemption, granted for the maintenance and repair of medical devices, permits a non-infringing, transformative fair use.

Facebook has several anti-piracy tools and technologies to keep problematic content off the platform. This apparently includes automated keyword filters that ban mentions of piracy-related terms, regardless of the context. This resulted in the removal of several MagisTV news articles, including a press release from anti-piracy coalition ACE. Trying to spot these errors is not without risk either, as Facebook bans repeat offenders.

In Q2 2025, anti-piracy coalition Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment continued to 'seize' domains in bulk, adding to the world's largest collection of former pirate domains maintained by the MPA. While the archive contains countless unique and memorable domains, many with interesting and informative backstories, new additions illustrate typical responses to site blocking measures and very little else.

A new report investigates the cybersecurity risks consumers face when using digital piracy services in Southeast Asia. The findings clearly show that pirate sites are a bigger threat than legal streaming platforms, suggesting that countermeasures are warranted. However, does is also mean that pirates are 65 times more likely to be infected by malware? And is that even important?

Adult film producers Strike 3 Holdings and Counterlife Media have filed a significant copyright infringement lawsuit against tech giant Meta. A complaint filed at a California federal court alleges that their films were downloaded via BitTorrent for AI training purposes. With at least 2,396 movies at stake, potential damages could exceed 350 million dollars.

Top-tier Spanish football league LaLiga and Latin American anti-piracy group Alianza have joined forces to maintain the pressure on illegal IPTV service Magis TV. In conjunction with law enforcement partners in Argentina, multiple arrest warrants were executed in five regions against local sellers of premium Magis TV packages. Two of the locations targeted are operated by a local internet service provider; reports indicate that the owner of the ISP is now considered a fugitive.

In a move that could reshape the online copyright enforcement landscape, last month the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear a pivotal piracy liability lawsuit. The Court's decision will have a direct impact on similar lawsuits, including that between major record labels and ISP Altice, which is now on hold. Verizon has asked the court for a similar stay, but since that lawsuit is in its early stages, the labels are firmly opposed to any further delay.