Hollywood and Netflix Flag ‘Priority’ Piracy Threats

The Motion Picture Association (MPA) has submitted its latest overview of 'notorious' foreign piracy markets to the US Trade Representative. The Pirate Bay and other usual suspects secured entries and for the very first time, the MPA also highlights priority concerns; streaming site Fmovies, video hosting service DoodStream, plus IPTV software WHMCS Smarters.

“Cloudflare’s customers include some of the most notorious, longstanding pirate websites in the world, including the massively popular streaming sites vegamovies.im, cuevana3.ch, and The Pirate Bay.”

“An analysis of 1,386 unique and currently active piracy domains found that 65 percent use Cloudflare’s services,” MPA adds.

This isn’t a groundbreaking finding. The MPA and other rightsholders have shared this critique many times in the past. In fact, Cloudflare previously responded to it through the USTR, explaining that it shares information with rightsholders, both voluntarily and through the courts.

Priority Threats

The above remarks appear as an introduction and handily serve as an indirect lobbying effort. The USTR is mostly interested in the actual notorious markets, however, which are also described in detail in the MPA’s submission.

In previous years the MPA didn’t specifically rank identified threats, but there is a novelty in the latest submission. For several categories, the movie industry group specifies “priority targets” that ideally should be dealt with as soon as possible.

In the streaming and linking category, Fmovies is listed as the top priority. The site, which is purportedly operated from Vietnam, has roughly a hundred million monthly users.

Fmovies faced some setbacks earlier this year. First, the MPA-affiliated group ACE took down its streaming partner 2Embed. The site responded by using an alternative provider and recently rebranded to Fmoviesz.

“With its former primary source for streaming video files 2embed taken down in July 2023, Fmovies.to now uses video streaming API vidsrc.to. It is likely that Fmovies.to has a close association with vidsrc.to,” MPA writes.

Other priority streaming sites include Vegamovies and Cuevana3.ch, while Aniwatch.to, Dizibox.tv, KatmovieHD and others are marked as less urgent.
get into the game. These include simple setup piracy content systems, pirate content libraries, and IPTV dashboards.

One of Hollywood’s greatest anti-piracy achievements this year was the shutdown of the Vietnamese video CMS 2embed.to, which had more than a billion monthly visits. However, plenty of other targets remain.

The IPTV turnkey solution ‘WHMCS Smarters’ is seen as the priority target in this category. Operated from India, it offers a software solution that allows third parties to administer IPTV services.

Other, lower-priority PaaS threats include the familiarly-named 2embed.me, pirate video libraries such as Collaps.org and Pelisplus.icu, as well as the domain privacy service Njal.la.

Intermediaries

The rest of the MPA’s submission mostly highlights third-party intermediaries, including hosting providers, advertising services, and domain name registries. These are not the source of any piracy activity but play a crucial role in keeping services afloat, the anti-piracy group argues.

For example, the .CC, .IO, .ME, .RU and .TO domain registries continue to provide their services to pirate sites “despite notification and outreach.”

“A registry — directly or via its contractual relationship with its registrars — can withdraw or disable domain names used by websites engaged in massive copyright infringement,” MPA clarifies.

The same reasoning could also apply to the more high-profile .com and .org registries, but they are not mentioned. The Public Internet Registry (.org) previously declined to cut off The Pirate Bay, as it prefers not to act as piracy police.


– .IO RegistryInstant update: ACE/MPA just reported that they shut down two of Latin America’s “most notorious” piracy things; Futbolparatodos.online and Pelisplus.Lat. These are not mentioned in the USTR notorious markets recommendation.

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A list of all sites and services highlighted and categorized in the MPA’s notorious markets submission (pdf) can be found below. For additional context, we highlight the new entries, while also indicating those from the 2022 report that have since been removed.

Linking and Streaming Websites

Priority sites
– Fmovies.to
– Vegamovies (new)
– Cuevana3.ch (new)

Additional sites
– Aniwatch.to (new)
– Cda.pl
– Dizibox.tv (new)
– Dytt8.net, Dy2018.com, dygod.net, and Ygdy8.com
– Futemax.app (currently, Futemax.to) and Futebolplayhd.com (new)
– Indoxxi Network (new)
– KatmovieHD
– Librefutboltv.com (new)
– Myflixer.to
– Rezka.ag
– Tamilblasters / Streamblasters /
– Cuevana3.me
– Cuevana.pro
– Egy.best
– Fullhdizlesene
– Gimy.app
– Gnula.se/Gnula.nu
– Hesgoal.com
– NooNoo.tv
– Soap2Day
– Streaming Community
– TheNetNaija

Direct Download Cyberlockers and Streaming Video Hosting Services

Priority sites

– DoodStream.com
– Mixdrop.co
– Streamtape.com

Additional sites

– HQQ/WaaW/Netu (new)
– Baidu Pan and Baidu Search
– Telegram
– Uloz.to (new)
– VK.com
– 1fichier.com
– Uptobox.com

Illegal IPTV Services

– Apollo Group TV
– BestBuyIPTV.biz
– GenIPTV
– MagisTV
– Iptv.casa
– Spider Receiver
– TheKing365tv.site
– IcutCord.net
– King-IPTV.net
– SatCon Africa
–

Piracy Devices and Apps

– EVPAD
– LokLok
– Movie Box (new)
– PikaShow
– Shabakaty
– SVI Cloud
– TVMob
– Unblock Tech (unblocktech.com & ub1818.com)

Peer-to-Peer Networks & BitTorrent Portals

– 1337x.to
– DonTorrent.com (new)
– Rutracker.org
– ThePirateBay.org
– Ygg/Yggtorrent.wtf (new)
– Yts.mx
– Zamunda.net
– Rarbg.to

Hosting Providers

– Amaratu/KoDDos
– Ddos-Guard.net
– Mnogobyte
– Squitter.eu (ABC Consultancy)
– Veesp (new)

Registries

– .IO Registry
– .CC Registry
– .ME Registry
– .RU Registry
– .TO Registry
– .CH Registry

Payment Processors

– Wise (new)
– VoguePay

Ad Networks and Online Advertisers

– Propeller Ads
– 1XBET

Piracy-as-a-Service (PaaS)

Priority
– WHMCS Smarters

Additional

– 2embed.me (new)
– Collaps.org
– GDrivePlayer
– HDVB (new)
– Njalla
– Pelisplus.icu
– XFileSharing/XVideoSharing
– Fembed.com
– Abyss.to