MPA Reports ‘Notorious’ Piracy Threats to U.S. Government

The Motion Picture Association (MPA) has sent its latest overview of notorious piracy markets to the U.S. Government. The Hollywood group, which also represents Netflix and Amazon, lists a broad variety of online piracy threats. Aside from traditional pirate sites, it also includes domain registries and hosting providers.

pirate-flagThe Motion Picture Association (MPA) has been a key player in the anti-piracy fight for decades and this position has only strengthened in recent years.

As the driving force behind the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment, the MPA finds itself at the center of an international enforcement apparatus.

A few weeks ago, ACE helped to shut down Fmovies, the largest pirate streaming conglomerate. While this was a hard fought and important achievement, Hollywood’s piracy problem hasn’t disappeared.

MPA Flags Piracy Challenges
This week, MPA sent its latest submission to the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) in response to the annual inquiry on notorious piracy markets. The movie industry group, which counts the major Hollywood studios, recent addition Amazon, and Netflix among its members, still sees plenty of challenges.

The submission describes piracy as a global problem that requires cooperation from the broader Internet ecosystem. Services that see themselves as neutral intermediaries, operating parts of the core Internet infrastructure, should take responsibility.

“[I]t is imperative that all global stakeholders in the fight against online piracy — including hosting providers, Domain Name System providers, content delivery networks, reverse proxy and other anonymization services, registrars, registries, cloud services, advertising networks, payment processors, social networks, and search engines — work together to reduce support for notorious offenders.”

Cloudflare and DDos-Guard
Proxy services and CDN providers are called out specifically. They reportedly frustrate rightsholders enforcement efforts by adding an anonymity layer, which helps to avoid detection.

The MPA names Cloudflare and DDos-Guard in this category, stating that these companies offer their services to a wide range of pirate sites.

“Cloudflare’s customers include some of the most notorious, long-standing pirate websites in the world, including the massively popular streaming sites vegamovies[.]im, cuevana[.]biz, and The Pirate Bay, whose current domain, thepiratebay[.]org, has been identified as infringing rights holders’ copyrights more than six million separate times.”

From MPA’s submission

cloudflare mpa
The notorious markets list is limited to non-U.S. operations, so Cloudflare itself isn’t one of the MPA’s targets. However, as a foreign entity, DDos-Guard is flagged as a notorious hosting company later in the submission.

The Notorious Piracy Markets
MPA’s submission continues with a detailed overview of notorious pirate sites and services. This non-exhaustive list includes many of the names mentioned in previous years, combined with several new additions. A full list is available at the end of this article.

Most of the mentioned sites are streaming and linking portals. While Fmovies fell off the list after shutting down, many other prominent targets including Vegamovies, Cuevana3, Animeflv and HiAnime remain.

The Pirate Bay gets a mention in the torrent site category, alongside competitors such as 1337x, RuTracker, and YTS.

“While the TPB founders were criminally convicted for large scale copyright infringement, TPB remained operational via multiple alternative domains hosted in various countries over the years,” MPA writes, adding that the site is currently blocked in 22 countries.

Other categories include apps and piracy devices, such as Pikashow, EVPAD, and LokLok; IPTV services including MagisTV and Gogo IPTV; ‘Piracy as a Service’ providers such as 2embed, Rewall, and WHMCS Smarters; and direct download portals including Doodstream and Mixdrop.

The popular communication app Telegram, whose CEO was arrested recently, is also flagged as a problematic ‘download’ portal. While the service isn’t specifically targeted at pirates, its features appeal to copyright infringers, the movie industry group notes.

Hosting Providers and Domain Registries
The rest of the MPA’s submission highlights third-party intermediaries, including hosting providers 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, MPA writes that the .CC, .IO, .TV, .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.

Rogue registries?

mpa registries
The same reasoning could also apply to U.S. based .com and .org registries, which are not mentioned. Notably, the Public Internet Registry (.org) previously declined to cut off The Pirate Bay, as it prefers not to act as piracy police.

Intermediary Pushback
Hosting service and domain registries are not typical pirate sites. While MPA would like to see them listed among other notorious services, the USTR seems more reluctant to include these companies in its overviews.

The most recent notorious markets report included some hosting providers, but no domain name registries, for example. This may be partly due to pushback from intermediary organizations, such as the Internet Infrastructure Coalition (i2Coalition).

i2Coalition also submitted a filing to the USTR this week, applauding it for being mindful of the ‘neutral’ role some intermediaries play.

“The i2Coalition applauds the USTR’s evolving perspective on what constitutes a notorious market and the acknowledgment of neutral intermediaries’ roles. The recent lists’ recognition of the complex Internet ecosystem and the misuse of intermediaries, rather than categorizing them as notorious markets, is a significant step forward,” i2Coalition writes.

The USTR will review these and other stakeholder comments in coming months and is expected to release a new version of its “notorious markets” overview early next year.

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A list of all sites and services highlighted and categorized in the MPA’s 2024 notorious markets submission (pdf) can be found below. For additional context, we highlight the new entries, while also indicating those from the 2023 report that have since been removed.

Linking and Streaming Websites

Priority sites
– Fmovies.to
– Vegamovies
– Cuevana3.biz/eu
– Animeflv.net (new)

Additional sites
– Aniwatch.to
– Cda.pl
– Bs.to (new)
– Buffstreams.app (new)
– Diziwatch.net
– Dramasq.com (new)
– Dytt8.net, dytt89.com, dy2018.net, dy2018.com, dydytt.net, and ygdy8.com
– Futemax.app (currently, Futemax.to) and Futebolplayhd.com
– Gimy.ai (new)
– Goojara.to/levidia.ch/to (new)
– Hianime.to (new)
– Indoxxi Network
– Librefutbol.su (new)
– Librefutboltv.net (/new)
– KatmovieHD
– Librefutboltv.com
– Myflixer.to
– Rezka.ag
– S.to (new)
– Soaper.tv (new)
– Solarmovie.to (new)
– Tamilblasters / Streamblasters
– TV**.wiki (e.g., tv51.wiki) (new)
– Veronline.in (new)

Direct Download Cyberlockers and Streaming Video Hosting Services

Priority sites

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

Additional sites

– HQQ/WaaW/Netu
– Baidu Wangpan
– Rapidgator (new)
– Uloz.to
– VK.com

Illegal IPTV Services

Priority services

– MagisTV
– Gogo IPTV (new)

Additional services

– Apollo Group TV
– Crystal OTT (new)
– BestBuyIPTV.biz
– GenIPTV
– Iptv.casa
– Spider Receiver
– TheKing365tv.site
– TVExpress.pro (new)
– IcutCord.net
– King-IPTV.net
– SatCon Africa

Piracy Devices and Apps

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

Peer-to-Peer Networks & BitTorrent Portals

– 1337x.to
– DonTorrent.com
– Rutracker.org
– ThePirateBay.org
– Ygg
– Yts.mx
– Zamunda.net

Hosting Providers

– Amaratu/KoDDos
– Ddos-Guard.net
– Private Layer, Swiss Global, and affiliated companies (new)
– Mnogobyte
– Squitter, ABC Consultancy, Peenq, ESTOXY, BestDC, SERDECH
– Veesp
– Virtual Systems, V-Sys (new)

Registries

– .IO Registry
– .CC Registry
– .ME Registry
– .RU Registry
– .TO Registry
– .IV Registry (new)

Payment Processors

– Wise

Ad Networks and Online Advertisers

– Propeller Ads

Piracy-as-a-Service (PaaS)

– 2embed.me
– Collaps.org
– Rewall.in (new)
– Fire Video Player (new)
– GDrivePlayer
– HDVB
– Njalla
– WHMCS Smarters
– Pelisplus.icu
– XFileSharing/XVideoSharing