The goal is the same in both notices, i.e. to have the URLs listed in the notice taken down. In that respect the notice targeting Huisman appears to have achieved its goals; as of this morning all URLs return ‘404 Not Found’.

However, in common with links that point to infringing content, the legal content linked in Huisman’s playlists also (and obviously) remains up. That raises the question of what DAZN hoped to achieve and why.

We don’t know for sure, but it seems reasonable to assume that another aspect of Huisman’s playlists may have implications for the DAZN bottom line. While the official Pluto TV playlist URLs are extensive and continue long after ‘.m3u8’ to facilitate the delivery of adverts, Huisman’s URLs end at ‘.m3u8’ and lack any additional advertising/tracking functionality.

In short, users see DAZN channels directly from Pluto TV’s servers but with no advertising whatsoever.

Again, just a theory, but trying to crowbar an ad-blocking complaint into a regular DMCA takedown notice would likely meet challenges. There’s no statement in the DAZN notice to indicate an ad-blocking issue, so we have to assume that isn’t the case here. However, the prospect conjures up all kinds of possibilities, especially in Germany where the DAZN channels in question are broadcast on Pluto TV.

In 2019, German publisher Axel Springer sued the company behind Adblock Plus, claiming that since adblockers “change the programming code of websites” that amounts to copyright infringement. A district court went on to dismiss the copyright claims, and the case.

The court further noted that prevention of ad-blocking would represent a “disproportionate encroachment” on users’ freedoms to make various choices, including not loading images to save bandwidth, deactivating Javascript, or block pop-ups or tracking elements.

For Huisman, everything is actually very straightforward.

“In my mind – no matter what the destination URL is – at the end of the day – it’s a simple redirect/shortcut. It’s the exact same thing as TinyURL or other URL shorteners,” the developer concludes.