3 Count: Pirate Squids

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1: Unauthorized Sports Streaming Sites Closed After Crackdown

First off today, Jacob Feldman, Eben Novy-Williams and Michael McCann at Sportico report that two prominent sports pirate streaming sites have gone dark, though it is unclear why.

The sites, Methstreams and Crackstreams, both announced that they would be “taking a break from live streaming.” They encouraged visitors to follow their Discord server, which has about 80,000 members.

It is unclear why the sites have stopped operating. Previously, Methstreams announced that one of their domains was seized due to anti-piracy action by The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE). However, ACE has not taken credit for this recent closure, and the sites gave no reasons for shutting down.

2: Chinese Piracy Under Fire as ‘Squid Game’ Dominates Globally

Next up today, Song Seung-hyun at the Korea Herald reports that a Korean professor has accused China of exploiting Korean content by enabling widespread piracy of Korean-made content.

The professor, Seo Kyung-duk, is a liberal arts professor at Sungshin Women’s University. Seo accused the Chinese government of turning a blind eye to rampant piracy, only cracking down when Chinese content, such as the recent Olympics, is at risk.

The post comes as the Korean show Squid Game is enjoying renewed success after the release of its second season. Despite not being officially available in China, the show has over 60,000 reviews there. Seo also highlighted similar piracy issues with Korean music and other creative works.

3: More Than Half of All Google Search Takedowns Now Come from Link-Busters

Finally, today, Ernesto Van der Sar at Torrentfreak writes that Google recently processed its 10 billionth URL removal request, and over 2 billion of those requests came from just one company: Link-Busters.

Link-Busters is an anti-piracy service that works with major book publishers. It has filed over 2 billion requests with Google, one billion of which came just over the past six months. The company primarily targeted “shadow libraries,” which are simply piracy sites for accessing unlawful ebooks.

Most takedowns target a handful of well-known pirate sites, with 340 million coming from just six domains. In total, Link-Busters filed approximately half of all the takedown notices Google processed in the last six months.

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