Brazil's Ministry of Justice and Public Security today announced fresh action and the latest achievements in the ongoing 'Operation 404' anti-piracy campaign. International partners including City of London Police, MPA, ACE, IFPI, ESA, ALIANZA, and the EU's Intellectual Property Office, assisted local agencies as they reportedly took down 675 pirate sites, 14 apps, and executed search and seizure warrants. Data seen by TF reveals that ISP's in Brazil now block 6,700+ domains.

From launch in November 2019, the last five years have seen Brazil’s Operation 404 establish itself as both a local and international anti-piracy enforcement campaign.

Operation 404’s branding plays on the HTTP 404 error message “page not found” and to indicate each new wave, 404 is followed by a decimal point and the corresponding wave number; the results of Operation 404.6 were announced late November 2023 so here in September 2024, news of Operation 404.7 has arrived a little earlier than expected.

Operation 404.7

In common with more recent waves, including 404.5, authorities and law enforcement agencies in Brazil are once again stressing the importance of collaboration with international partners from both the public and private sectors.

From the UK, the Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit (PIPCU) and Intellectual Property Office (IPO) took part in 404.7 alongside the Premier League. The Department of Justice and the Department of Commerce were in Brazil for the United States, and the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) represented all 27 member states.

And of course, the borderless anti-piracy organizations based in the United States, United Kingdom, and the EU, but active almost anywhere and everywhere all at once, also took part. They include the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE), Motion Picture Association (⁠MPA), the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), Entertainment Software Association (ESA), plus several local and regional anti-piracy groups focused mainly on the TV sector.

Multi-Agency Action

The Ministry of Justice and Public Security (MJSP) is carrying out Operation 404 this Thursday (19/9). In its seventh phase, the action aims to combat crimes committed against intellectual property on the internet and is part of an international mobilization,” a Brazilian government statement reads.

Despite the same characterization every year that Operation 404 amounts to a one-day spectacular, each wave begins when the last one ends and is better described as an ongoing initiative spread over many months, peppered with various types of action. These are typically followed by a day or days of high-profile enforcement action across a number of regions in Brazil, and occasionaly overseas, where police execute search and seizure warrants against specific targets.
For wave 7, the Ministry of Justice says that thirty search and seizure warrants and five arrest warrants were served, with various materials seized under the authority of the court.

Numerous government agencies and regional police forces were involved, including the Cyber ​​Operations Laboratory (Ciberlab) of the Operations and Intelligence Directorate (DIOPI), the National Secretariat of Public Security (SENASP), and the Public Ministries of São Paulo (Cyber ​​Gaeco) and Santa Catarina (Cyber ​​Gaeco). Civil Police from around ten states – Espírito Santo, Mato Grosso, Mato Grosso do Sul, Minas Gerais, Paraná, Pernambuco, Rio de Janeiro, Rio Grande do Sul and São Paulo – executed search and seizure warrants.

Updates during Thursday afternoon indicated that search and seizure warrants had led to six arrests in Brazil and a further three arrests in Argentina.

Operation 404 ‘Takes Down’ 675 Pirate Websites, 14 Streaming Apps

In common with previous waves, the media headline for 404.7 indicates that the operation had “taken down” a total of 675 illegal websites and 14 illegal streaming applications. While later clarified as “blocking and suspension” the usual site-blocking caveats apply here as they do anywhere else.

Blocking can prevent consumers from reaching targeted sites by presenting the above notice instead. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean the sites no longer exist. Some site users may choose to circumvent blocking but more often than not, sites themselves make the necessary changes by taking various countermeasures, including deploying new domains and encouraging use of VPNs.

Nevertheless, rightsholders claim that blocking is a useful anti-piracy tactic and from the very first wave of Operation 404, it’s been the weapon of choice in Brazil.

• 404.1 (2019) 210 websites and 100 streaming apps
• 404.2 (2020) 252 websites and 65 streaming apps
• 404.3 (2021) 334 websites and 94 streaming apps
• 404.4 (2022) 461 music streaming apps
• 404.5 (2023) 128 domains, 199 streaming/gaming sites, 63 music streaming apps
• 404.6 (2023) 606 websites blocked in Brazil, 368 in other countries

Blocking Information Routinely Withheld

The names of the websites and apps blocked in previous waves were routinely absent from information provided by the government. The same is true for 404.7, so there’s no real opportunity to determine whether the strategy works or not, or even which rightsholders blocking aims to protect.

What we can confirm, however, is that Brazilian courts regularly grant site-blocking applications. Since December 2023, coinciding with the most recent 7th wave of Operation 404, around 72 blocking orders were processed, with the overwhelming majority relating to IPTV/streaming services and others dealing with so-called stream-ripping platforms.

None of the orders are made available for public scrutiny. That includes an order dated September 18 which appears to relate to Elon Musk’s X. The social platform has reportedly been fined by Brazil for circumventing the country’s blocking measures.

But while the actual content of these orders remains elusive, ISPs in Brazil can only block sites and services when they’re named. As a result, all have access to the main blocking list which at the time of writing, easily exceeds 6,700 domains, with most clearly linked to pirate sites.

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