Posted at 08:00AM on January 17, 2026 by Ernesto Van der Sar @ TF Publishing
Groupon 'Redeems' Itself With Rapid Takedown of Pirate IPTV Deal * TorrentFreak
Home > Anti-Piracy > t Groupon, the global marketplace that aims to offer users some of the best online deals, recently featured an offer that was too good to be true. After Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN flagged an illegal IPTV service on the platform, Groupon reportedly too...
Posted at 08:00AM on January 17, 2026 by Ernesto Van der Sar @ TF Publishing
French Court Orders Popular VPNs to Block More Pirate Sites, Despite Opposition * TorrentFreak
Home > Piracy > t A new order from the Tribunal Judiciaire de Paris requires several popular VPNs to block access to live sports streaming sites. The order, directed at CyberGhost, ExpressVPN, NordVPN, ProtonVPN, and Surfshark, confirms that VPNs are now classified as "techn...
Posted at 08:00PM on January 16, 2026 by Ernesto Van der Sar @ TF Publishing
GitHub Restores Repo of GTA Mod 'Multi Theft Auto' After Take-Two Fails to Sue * TorrentFreak
Home > Anti-Piracy > DMCA > t Multi Theft Auto (MTA), one of the longest-running and best known modding projects in gaming history, has officially returned to GitHub. The official repository disappeared last month following a takedown notice allegedly sent by Rockstar Games'...
Posted at 12:00AM on January 13, 2026 by Ernesto Van der Sar @ TF Publishing
Court Orders Porkbun and Other Registrars to Hand Over PornXP Domains to Aylo * TorrentFreak
Home > Lawsuits > Apps and Sites > t Pornhub parent company Aylo has won its copyright infringement lawsuit against PornXP, securing a $10.2 million damages award against its Kyrgyzstani operator. The court also ordered domain registries to disable and transfer the PornXP do...
Posted at 08:00AM on January 12, 2026 by Ernesto Van der Sar @ TF Publishing
X Sues Music Publishers Over "Weaponized" DMCA Takedown Conspiracy * TorrentFreak
Home > Lawsuits > t Elon Musk's X Corp. filed a landmark antitrust complaint against the NMPA, Sony, Universal, and other major music publishers, claiming that they used a coordinated "extortionate campaign" to force licensing deals. The lawsuit alleges that a flood of "base...
Posted at 08:00PM on January 09, 2026 by Ernesto Van der Sar @ TF Publishing
Italy Fines Cloudflare \xe2\x82\xac14 Million for Refusing to Filter Pirate Sites on Public 1.1.1.1 DNS * TorrentFreak
Home > Anti-Piracy > Site Blocking > t Italys communications regulator AGCOM imposed a record-breaking 14.2 million fine on Cloudflare after the company failed to implement the required piracy blocking measures. Cloudflare argued that filtering its global 1.1.1.1 DNS resolve...
Posted at 08:00PM on January 07, 2026 by Ernesto Van der Sar @ TF Publishing
Anna's Archive Loses .Org Domain After Surprise Suspension * TorrentFreak
Home > Piracy > t Popular shadow library Anna's Archive has lost control over its main domain name. Annas-archive.org was suspended and put on serverHold status, which is an action that's typically taken by the domain name registry. The site's operator doesn't believe that t...
Posted at 08:00PM on January 05, 2026 by Ernesto Van der Sar @ TF Publishing
Indian \xe2\x80\x98Piracy Kingpin\xe2\x80\x99 Acquitted After 10-Years Due to Lack of Evidence * TorrentFreak
Home > Lawsuits > Apps and Sites > t More than ten years ago, Indian police arrested the alleged mastermind behind the popular TellyTorrents site. The supposed piracy kingpin, who spent 311 days in custody before being released on bail, saw his life fall apart soon after. No...
Posted at 08:00AM on January 04, 2026 by Ernesto Van der Sar @ TF Publishing
Hollywood, Netflix, and Apple Are Behind Latest Pirate 'Brand' Blockades in Belgium * TorrentFreak
Home > Anti-Piracy > Site Blocking > t New information obtained through a transparency request reveals that major movie industry players, including Disney, Apple, and Netflix, are behind the latest site-blocking effort in Belgium. While the involvement of these companies is ...
Posted at 08:00PM on December 31, 2025 by pirate datasets like “Books3” @ TF Publishing
2025: Two Decades of Piracy Reporting: TorrentFreak's Retrospective * TorrentFreak
Home > Piracy > t As a tradition, we use the last day of the year to look back at some of the biggest stories of the past twelve months. However, since TorrentFreak just celebrated its 20th anniversary, we're zooming out even further, looking back at some of the key moments ...
Home > Anti-Piracy > DMCA > t Cloudflares latest transparency report reveals a massive 3,800% surge in copyright-related takedown actions, fueled by a shift to more automated enforcement. By granting rightsholders direct API access, the company says that it was able to targe...
Posted at 08:00PM on December 28, 2025 by Ernesto Van der Sar @ TF Publishing
\xe2\x80\x98Stranger Things\xe2\x80\x99 Is The Most Pirated TV Show of 2025 * TorrentFreak
Home > Piracy > t 'Stranger Things' is the most pirated TV show of 2025 on torrent sites. The final season of the Netflix production beats its other global powerhouse, the Korean thriller "Squid Game." HBO's "The Last of Us", meanwhile, ended up in third place this year. At ...
Posted at 08:00PM on December 28, 2025 by Ernesto Van der Sar @ TF Publishing
Legal Push to Unmask Minions 3 Leaker Targets YouTube and Reddit * TorrentFreak
Home > Piracy > t NBCUniversal is doing all it can to identify the person(s) behind a series of high-profile leaks of the film Minions 3, which is scheduled to come out on July 1, 2026. Through DMCA subpoenas, both Google and Reddit are compelled to hand over the personal de...
Posted at 08:00PM on December 24, 2025 by Ernesto Van der Sar @ TF Publishing
French Torrent Giant YggTorrent Faces User Revolt after Introducing Paid 'Turbo Mode' * TorrentFreak
Home > Piracy > t YggTorrent, the largest francophone torrent community, faces widespread pushback after it introduced a paid 'Turbo Mode' for 86 this week. For regular users, the tracker now has a limit of five torrent downloads per day and a 30-second download delay. Accor...
Posted at 08:00PM on December 23, 2025 by \n \n Authors & Copyright Scholars Back ‘Internet Archive’ in Landmark Legal Battle\n @ TF Publishing
Anna\xe2\x80\x99s Archive Backed Up Spotify, Plans to Release 300TB Music Archive * TorrentFreak
Home > Piracy > t In what appears to be the largest music leak in history, Annas Archive says it has made a multi-terabyte 'backup' of Spotify, including metadata for nearly the entire catalog and audio files for 86 million tracks. While Anna's Archive typically focuses on b...
Posted at 08:00PM on December 22, 2025 by Andy Maxwell @ TF Publishing
Video Game Giants Suddenly Have RuTracker in their Crosshairs Again * TorrentFreak
Home > Anti-Piracy > DMCA > t RuTracker is not only Russia's largest torrent site, it's one of the oldest and most resilient pirate sites anywhere in the world. Most major entertainment companies have had issues with RuTracker at some point during its 21 years online, and th...
Posted at 08:00PM on December 22, 2025 by Ernesto Van der Sar @ TF Publishing
Brazilian Criminal Court Convicts Yout.com Owner in Landmark Stream Ripping Case * TorrentFreak
Home > Lawsuits > Apps and Sites > t The owner of popular U.S.-based stream-ripping site Yout.com has been found guilty of massive copyright infringement by a criminal court in Brazil. Last week, the court sentenced American citizen Johnathan Nader to a prison term of three ...
Home > Anti-Piracy > Takedowns and Seizures > t With the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) set to kick off in Morocco on December 21, a "vast operation" against illegal IPTV services is reportedly in the works. The plan follows an anti-piracy summit on Tuesday, where copyri...
Posted at 08:00PM on December 21, 2025 by Ernesto Van der Sar @ TF Publishing
A DMCA "Bot War": Google Search Processed 5 Billion Takedown Requests in 2025 * TorrentFreak
Home > Piracy > t Google Search has reached a staggering new DMCA takedown milestone, processing over five billion copyright removal requests in 2025. Driven by a massive automated reporting spike, mostly from Link-Busters, the total all-time count has now eclipsed 15.8 bill...
Home > Anti-Piracy > DMCA > t Hayase is a full-featured torrent streaming client optimized for anime content. The developer tried to stay clear of legal trouble by relying on user-installed extensions. However, MarkScan, the takedown partner of anime giant Crunchyroll, insis...
Posted at 08:00AM on December 19, 2025 by Andy Maxwell @ TF Publishing
Tweaks to IPTV Piracy Law That "Bans VPNs" Won't Change Its Intent or Scope * TorrentFreak
Home > Anti-Piracy > t Early December, Denmark's Ministry of Culture submitted a bill that aims to combat viewing of pirated content on illegal IPTV platforms. Public debate was more concerned with proposed restrictions on VPNs, with some concluding that the government wants...
Posted at 08:00AM on December 18, 2025 by Ernesto Van der Sar @ TF Publishing
EU Ban on Russian War Propaganda Misfires: Blocks Social Media Giants & Pirate IPTV * TorrentFreak
Home > Piracy > t To help its members comply with the EU sanctions against Russian war propaganda, the Dutch ISP trade association compiled a consolidated blocklist. This list is based on input from regulators in other countries and features over 700 blocking targets. It inc...
Posted at 08:00AM on December 17, 2025 by Andy Maxwell @ TF Publishing
Judge: GoDaddy Must Unmask Owners of 100+ "Copyright-Infringing" Domains * TorrentFreak
Home > Lawsuits > Apps and Sites > t In late May 2025, a Gibraltar-based company asked GoDaddy to deny service to over 100 domains, based on allegations of widespread copyright infringement. A subsequent DMCA subpoena, compelling GoDaddy to disclose the operators' personal d...
Posted at 08:00PM on December 16, 2025 by Ernesto Van der Sar @ TF Publishing
Hollywood Warns: \xe2\x80\x98Extortionary\xe2\x80\x99 Codec Patent Fees Could Hike Streaming Subscription Prices * TorrentFreak
Home > Lawsuits > t For decades, the Motion Picture Association (MPA) has been Hollywood's main protector of intellectual property rights, especially when it relates to piracy. In a recent federal lawsuit, however, the roles are reversed. Siding with Disney, the MPA calls ou...
Posted at 08:00PM on December 15, 2025 by Andy Maxwell @ TF Publishing
Automated Real-Time Pirate IPTV Blocking in France "Within Six Months" * TorrentFreak
Home > Anti-Piracy > Site Blocking > t French telecoms regulator Arcom says it expects an automated, real-time pirate IPTV blocking system to be operational no later than the first half of 2026. Inspired by systems in place in the UK and Italy, Arcom aims to simplify existin...
Posted at 08:00PM on December 14, 2025 by Ernesto Van der Sar @ TF Publishing
Online Piracy Can Boost Box Office Revenue, Study Suggests * TorrentFreak
Home > Piracy > t A new academic study counterintuitively concludes that online piracy can boost revenue for some films. By analyzing years of box office data, as well as upload details from The Pirate Bay, researchers found that high-quality leaks of "spectacle" movies, suc...
Posted at 08:00PM on December 13, 2025 by Ernesto Van der Sar @ TF Publishing
Google Removes Sci-Hub Domains from U.S. Search Results Due to Dated Court Order * TorrentFreak
Home > Anti-Piracy > Site Blocking > t Google has removed dozens of new Sci-Hub domain names from its search results in the United States. Unlike typical DMCA takedowns, the removals were triggered by a dated court order that was not enforced for several years. This appears ...
Home > Anti-Piracy > Takedowns and Seizures > t The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment says it was behind the sudden closure of MKVCinemas, a popular India-based streaming site that disappeared unexpectedly last month. As part of the same operation, ACE says it also s...
Posted at 08:00PM on December 12, 2025 by Andy Maxwell @ TF Publishing
Scammers Mimic Cloudflare's 'Error 451' Site Blocking Notice to Infect Pirates * TorrentFreak
Home > Piracy > t Earlier today we saw fairly compelling evidence that blocking pirate sites can lead to internet users being infected with malware. Apparently inspired by Cloudflare's use of HTTP Error 451, which greets pirates when attempting to visit sites blocked in the ...
Posted at 08:00PM on December 10, 2025 by Ernesto Van der Sar @ TF Publishing
Rampant U.S. Piracy is a Multibillion-Dollar Concern for Japanese Manga Publishers * TorrentFreak
Home > Anti-Piracy > t A recent report, published by the Japanese anti-piracy group Authorized Books of Japan (ABJ), shows that manga piracy is rampant. American pirates, in particular, are a key roadblock in Japan's mission to expand the export of manga and anime. At the sa...
