📰 New article from TorrentFreak
World Cup Piracy Crackdown Shows Limits of Domain Seizures, MPA Pushes Site Blocking
The World Cup may be over, but the digital war for your TV screen is far from finished. Operation Offsides, the largest sports piracy crackdown in history, officially wrapped up with over 1,000 domains seized and nearly 2,000 more blocked across Latin America. On paper? A massive win for the Motion Picture Association and U.S. authorities.
But here’s the plot twist: the MPA just admitted that seizing domains doesn’t actually dismantle the business.
In a rare candid op-ed, MPA leadership acknowledged that while takedowns interrupt access, they don’t kill the underlying operation. Pirate sites simply migrate. We’ve already seen major streams like Buffstreams and Footybite retreat to Iranian .ir domains and Russian .su registries—infrastructure the U.S. can’t touch. In fact, one .su site alone racked up more visits in July than all the seized domains combined.
So, what’s the next play? The MPA is pushing hard for judicial site blocking in the U.S., arguing that domain seizures are just one piece of the puzzle. They want every tool in the box, targeting the broader infrastructure like hosting and payment systems rather than just chasing domain names.
While Congress hasn’t passed a unified site blocking bill yet, the pressure is mounting. The MPA’s message is clear: if we want to stop the whack-a-mole game, we need to change the rules of the match.