The Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines (IPOPHL) is moving to block piracy website YTS. This marks the first site-blocking request issued by the agency.
Eleven domains and subdomains associated with YTS, including yts.mx, yts.rs, and yts.do, were found by the IP Rights Enforcement Office (IEO) to have commited piracy or copyright infringement, violating the Intellectual Property Code of the Philippines.
“A thorough examination reveals that all of the aforementioned websites are hosting pirated versions of movies or TV shows,” said the IEO decision.
Additionally, the websites were flagged on the World Intellectual Property Organization’s piracy data-sharing platform.
YTS, known for its YIFY brand, has a long history of distributing copyrighted material. Citing a 2015 report by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPA), IPOPHL revealed that YIFY has facilitated access to roughly 4,500 infringing film titles.
Major studios like Netflix, Paramount Pictures, and Warner Bros. are all members of the MPA.
Following established procedures, IPOPHL were unable to contact the administrators of the blocked websites. This led to the agency to post the site-blocking request on its website and notified the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) and internet service providers (ISPs).
On May 16, the NTC issued a memorandum on ordering ISPs to block the websites. As of today, most ISPs have complied with the directive.
Source: IPOPHL
Image: Pixabay
