The last time over 200 pirate sites went offline at the same time was…..well, probably never. Certainly, so many sites have never gone down and stayed down for four days straight in what still amounts to a relatively tight niche.

Yet that’s exactly what happened this week , when at least 200 .TV domains were suddenly rendered useless. WHOIS records revealed that the domains had a status of ‘serverHold’ which indicates a domain with no presence in the domain name system.

Registry >> Registrar >> Domain Owner

The suspended domains were all registered at Sarek Oy, the Finland-based domain registrar with connections to former Pirate Bay spokesman, Peter Sunde. Those in need of a liberal, privacy-focused domain registrar, with a pedigree supported by thousands of news articles, countless interviews, TV appearances, and a full-blown movie, have fewer reasons than most to shop for domains elsewhere.

Site operators understand Peter and he understands their requirements, as other projects including Njalla demonstrate. Unfortunately, when everything went dark Tuesday/Wednesday with no sign of recovery by Thursday, lack of information from obvious sources seemed to have no solution.

When domains are placed on ‘serverHold’ that’s the work of domain registries, not registrars, but domain owners still need to know where they stand.

Frustrations Build

One of those people is Jomo, the owner of Jomo.tv, which unlike most of the .TV domains currently suspended, isn’t a pirate site.

“I use the affected domain for my tech blog and my email address. I have received zero information about what’s going on, and I don’t know if or when this is going to be resolved,” Jomo told TF early on Friday.

“Njalla does not seem to know anything, the registry did not want to tell me anything and only referred to Sarek without any further info, and Sarek does not respond at all.”

GoDaddy completed its takeover of registry services for .TV domains late 2022, after previous controller Verisign chose not to bid when .TV last came up for grabs. When attempting to contact GoDaddy for comment earlier this week, TorrentFreak’s first email received an automatic response saying “Message blocked” while a second to a different address informed us that “The recipient’s mailbox is full and can’t accept messages now.”

While frustrating for us, domain owners like Jomo had serious issues to contend with.

“It is extremely frustrating to not get any info or updates, in addition to being unable to send or receive any emails, and being unable to log in to several services. By now I’m sure some emails are lost forever as the domain has been unavailable for several days,” Jomo added.

Problem Acknowledged on Friday

When no official updates were provided on Thursday, the situation was looking increasingly grim. Then on Friday, Jomo suddenly had luck reaching GoDaddy via TurnOn.tv.

“They actually replied fairly quickly,” Jomo says, “but only told me to ‘contact your sponsoring registrar, Sarek Oy.'”

After logging into his Njalla account, a new message appeared: “Some .tv domains have been put on serverHold by the registry and we are in contact with them to resolve the issue.” There was no response to his support ticket filed earlier but at least the issue had been acknowledged.

Then a few hours later, a ray of light appeared at the end of the tunnel.

‘Technical Issue’ Resolved With Registry

After three days without any useful information, Jomo received a response from Njalla, sometime Friday evening we believe.

“It is a technical issue. We’ve squared things out with the registry and we’re just waiting for them to lift the serverHold,” a message from Njalla reads.

“That will happen anywhere between in a few minutes till Monday, but we’re hoping sooner than later of course. We apologize for the troubles it had caused.”

At the time of writing, Jomo’s domain still hasn’t returned and when we last checked, the same was true for around 200 others. While there’s optimism that all domains will eventually return to service, the episode leaves big questions unanswered.

The Information Age

Perhaps the most pressing question from a consumer perspective is the decision by the registry to suspend so many domains in one swoop with zero notice. The fact that so many domains are used by pirate sites does muddy the waters somewhat but as Jomo will confirm, non-pirate sites are affected too.

When a particular entity takes action to suspend domains, whose responsibility is it to keep customers informed? In this case the action was taken by the registry but when asked to provide information, the registry refused to supply it, referring questions back to the registrar instead.

Problems Over, or More to Come?

Then there’s the question of the issue that prompted the suspensions; what was it and is it likely to reoccur? Should domain registrants avoid .TV domains? Without information to the contrary, rightly or wrongly some will draw that conclusion.

Of course, by offering domains with toughened privacy, Sarek Oy/Njalla find themselves disproportionately involved in legal proceedings where a plaintiff hopes to identify a domain operator but runs into firewall instead.

A live case in the United States required various domain registrars including GoDaddy, Namecheap and Sarek Oy, to take action against several app stores to prevent apps with ‘Temu’ branding being made available to the public.

As far as we can see, Namecheap, GoDaddy, and Sarek Oy were ordered to disable the platforms’ domains but to date, only domains registered through Sarek remain both intact and online.

At least in part, that’s to be expected and to some extent, the service as promised. Also to be expected are complications arising from an accumulation of these types of cases and similar disputes that come with the territory, the supply of which seems endless.

From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

A few hours ago a TorrentFreak reader linked us to a list of almost 200 domains with several things in common.

The vast majority have naming conventions that almost certainly point to some type of piracy activity. No shortage of the word ‘streams’ for example, along with other familiar pirate terms such as HD, cine, film, movie, plus the likes of buff, cric and crack.

Sites with ‘anime’ in their domain names also stand out; they include the popular Animebytes, a platform that above most seemed to be generating significant panic. A gloomy discussion on Reddit spoke of the site having just hours to live, a fate that may have since been suspended but with a root cause that remains unresolved.

The Sun Doesn’t Shine on .TV

The sites on the list have other things in common too. All operate from .TV domains that were registered at Finnish registrar Sarek Oy. As things stand, none have any functioning DNS and that means all are completely inaccessible, at least as far as site users are concerned.

The list can be viewed here and given its size and the platforms on it, it feels safe to conclude that this blackout is currently affecting millions of pirates. It’s probably fraying the nerves of many site operators too, albeit some more than others.

As far as we know, information and explanations for the unprecedented failure are in short supply, at least those announced directly from Sarek Oy. It’s the middle of the night in Finland, so it may be a few hours before any official announcement arrives.

Domain Status: serverHold

After checking a few dozen WHOIS records for domains on the list, all display a domain status of ‘serverHold’. ICANN’s official description notes that the status is set by domain registries to indicate that a domain is not activated in the Domain Name System (DNS).

Given the way the current problem manifests itself, the explanation is accurate but not especially helpful.

The bigger question is why hundreds of domains were suddenly placed on serverHold and why did that have to be done so urgently that there was no time to inform the domain owners? That will likely become evident during the next few hours, but we can confirm that sites operating .TV domains with other registrars remain functional.

That may suggest an issue specific to the registrar. Some type of issue between the registry and registrar seems most likely, but it’s hard to imagine either party simply deciding to render so many domains inoperable, seemingly all at once, without any kind of warning.

So at least for now, beads of perspiration will have to persist while soaking up the irony. Perhaps more than any other registrar in operation right now, Sarek Oy’s reputation for keeping sites online is extremely well known. That it’s currently at the center of one of the largest blackouts in recent history is unexpected, to say the least.

From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

Much like regular websites operated by governments, companies, organizations, and the general public, most internet-based piracy services can be accessed using a domain name.

From a user’s perspective, domain names are more easily remembered than IP addresses and remain the same despite IP address changes behind the scenes.

Domain names also play an important role in conveying branding and as a result can be worth considerable sums of money. For companies enforcing their intellectual property rights, determining who owns a domain can prove invaluable as part of a wider investigation.

When the General Data Protection Regulation ( GDPR ) came into effect in May 2018, it aimed to protect the personal data of EU citizens. That included those whose names appeared in public WHOIS databases as registrants or owners of domains.

ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, responded with restrictions that on one hand protected registrants’ privacy , but on the other came at the expense of rightsholders’ being able to conduct meaningful WHOIS-based investigations.

ICANN Accused of Hindering Rightsholders

Potential problems had been flagged way ahead but workable solutions remained elusive. Increasingly vocal rightsholders including the RIAA and MPA criticized WHOIS restrictions and piled on with other shortcomings; WHOIS proxy/shielding services that hide registrant information, for example, and the lack of an effective system to ensure the accuracy of collected data.

In an August 2023 joint submission to the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), Hollywood, the recording industry, TV companies, the gaming industry and publishers left little doubt that patience had run out.

RDRS: Registration Data Request Service

With WHOIS protocols set to be replaced by RDAP (Registration Data Access Protocol), a technology designed to improve Registration Data Directory Services (RDDS), this week ICANN launched RDRS , an all new service to simplify access to non-public domain registration data.

“Due to personal data protection laws, many ICANN-accredited registrars are now required to redact personal data from public records, which was previously available in ‘WHOIS’ databases,” ICANN explained.

“With no one way to request or access such data, it can be difficult for interested parties to get the information they need. The RDRS helps by providing a simple and standardized process to make these types of requests.

“The RDRS can be an important resource for ICANN-accredited registrars and those who have a legitimate interest in nonpublic data like law enforcement, intellectual property professionals, consumer protection advocates, cybersecurity professionals, and government officials,” ICANN added.

Probably Not What Rightsholders Are Pleading For

There appears to be little restriction on who can sign up for RDRS, something that already has some worried about what that could mean for their privacy. ComLaude confirms anyone can file a request but it doesn’t necessarily follow that information will be provided.

RDRS is effectively a case management system for handling WHOIS data disclosure requests, rather than a database which can be interrogated, as WHOIS has been. Anyone can make a request, via the system, for certain non-public domain registration data. RDRS identifies the sponsoring registrar for the domain name and routes the request to them, subject to the registrar having signed up to be part of the system. Then, subject to applicable law, the registrar will make a determination on what, if any, requested data will be disclosed.

Some rightsholders may be disappointed that the system only covers gTLDs such as .com, .net, and .org, plus new gTLDs including .xyz, .online and .horse. Common ccTLDs deployed at pirate sites, including .ag, .am, .cc, .me, .pw, .re, .sx, and .to, are excluded from the system.

Hands-On Test

Kevin Murphy at Domain Incite took RDRS for a spin and posted his first impressions of the service.

“The system is defined largely by what it isn’t. It isn’t an automated way to get access to private data. It isn’t guaranteed to result in private data being released. It isn’t an easy workaround to post-GDPR privacy restrictions,” Murphy explains.

“It is a way to request an unredacted Whois record knowing only the domain and not having to faff around figuring out who the registrar is and what their mechanisms and policies are for requesting the data.”

Murphy also got the impression from interface settings that simply walking in off the street and requesting domain registration data might not be what ICANN has in mind. As a tool for rightsholders demanding so much more, it’s certainly nothing like what they have in mind.

“The RDRS merely connects Whois data requestors — the default settings in the interface suggest that ICANN thinks they’ll mostly be people with court orders — with the registrars in charge of the domains they are interested in,” Murphy concludes.

From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.