Under United States law, rightsholders have long possessed a powerful yet controversial legal option to identify alleged copyright infringers without ever having to file a formal, full-scale copyright infringement lawsuit. Instead of navigating the protracted and expensive process of a civil litigation discovery phase from the outset, copyright owners can request what is known as a Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) subpoena. These specialized legal documents are typically signed directly by a federal court clerk and do not require any direct judicial oversight or preliminary hearings before a judge.
These DMCA subpoenas effectively function as a legal shortcut, allowing rightsholders to obtain the private personal details of anonymous, unverified alleged infringers through third-party service providers, hosting companies, and content delivery networks. In recent years, this particular legal mechanism has increasingly proven to be a highly capable open-source intelligence (OSINT) tool for major entertainment conglomerates and anti-piracy coalitions. Among all the groups utilizing this tactic, the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE)—backed by the powerful Motion Picture Association (MPA)—has emerged as the most avid and frequent user of the procedure.
Continuing this aggressive enforcement strategy, the Motion Picture Association, acting on behalf of ACE, has filed two distinct new subpoena requests in federal courts located in California. The legal maneuvers target two entirely different fronts of the modern digital ecosystem: the first subpoena is directed at major internet infrastructure and content delivery company Cloudflare, while the second targets specific Discord users and server operators who allegedly operate and manage unauthorized pirate communities.
Miruro.to, Aniworld.to, and 47 Other Domains
The first of the two newly filed requests was lodged at the United States District Court for the Central District of California. This expansive filing lists a total of 49 distinct domain names that the MPA claims are deeply involved in widespread digital piracy. Acting on behalf of prominent ACE member studios and organizations—including Disney, Netflix, Warner Bros., Universal, Paramount, and the sports broadcasting body UEFA—the MPA is asking Cloudflare to identify the actual people and entities who operate and manage the user accounts associated with these platforms.
Among the nearly five dozen targets, three prominent domains immediately stand out due to their massive web traffic and global reach. According to web analytics data from Similarweb, the anime streaming network Miruro leads the pack by a wide margin. The platform’s ".to" domain commands an astounding 45 million monthly visits, while its alternative ".tv" variant pulls in another 37 million visits every month. Close behind is Aniworld.to, a heavily trafficked German-language anime and television streaming site that draws an estimated 23 million visits a month, with the vast majority of its audience originating from Germany.
The remainder of the domain list reads like a comprehensive international tour of well-known, high-traffic streaming piracy brands. The filing includes various copycat and clone sites trading heavily on the established brand names of historic piracy giants such as 123movies, Fmovies, and SolarMovie. Also appearing on the roster are Spanish-language Pelisflix mirrors, the Chinese-language Gimy network, various Hindi-language download portals, and a series of StreamEast-branded sports streaming portals that broadcast live matches from competitions hosted by ACE member UEFA.
While a full list of all 49 domain names spans a wide variety of traffic levels, many of the entries include mirror and copycat sites that currently attract only minimal user traffic. Nevertheless, for every single domain included in the legal filing, ACE is demanding that Cloudflare hand over a comprehensive trove of identifying information. This requested data includes legal names, physical mailing addresses, associated IP addresses, telephone numbers, email addresses, payment details, and detailed account histories.
Whether this latest batch of subpoenas will yield any genuinely usable intelligence remains to be seen by legal experts. Historically, operators of commercial pirate websites are well aware of these enforcement tactics and routinely register their accounts with false names, fabricated physical addresses, and privacy-shielded payment methods. However, despite these recurring hurdles, ACE and the MPA remain hopeful that the digital footprint left behind by the operators will point investigators toward at least some of the key individuals involved in running the networks.
Two Discord Servers
The second DMCA subpoena request focuses its attention on the popular communication platform Discord and was officially filed at the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. Acting once again on behalf of prominent ACE member studios, the MPA is requesting detailed account and connection information linked directly to two specific Discord servers and two individual user accounts. According to the legal filing, these particular servers were utilized to distribute and post links providing unauthorized access to pirated copies of popular feature films, including major motion pictures like Wreck-It Ralph and Shutter Island, as well as episodes of acclaimed television series such as Invincible and The Pitt.
An examination of the legal paperwork reveals that the documents are relatively sparse regarding specific community names, as the filing relies primarily on technical identifiers. Instead of listing human-readable names, the subpoena references numeric server, account, and channel IDs without explicitly attaching any server names or public user handles to the text. Independent analysis of the identifiers confirms that the researchers could not immediately link the technical data to any widely recognized server names, though the precise timestamps of their creation provide a clearer timeline of their operational history.
Every individual Discord ID is digitally stamped with the exact moment of its creation. In the case of the first targeted server, the user account, the communication channel, and the server itself were all created back-to-back in September 2025, within a remarkably brief window of roughly half an hour. Following this rapid deployment, the server remained actively operational until it was addressed earlier this month.
The background of the second targeted server reveals a much longer lifespan. That particular server was originally created years earlier, in September 2020. Interestingly, the specific user account flagged alongside it in the legal paperwork was created much more recently, in November of last year. This chronological discrepancy indicates that the individual user account allegedly responsible for posting the infringing content is distinct from the original creator who established the server years prior.
The Servers are Gone
At the time of public reporting, both of the Discord servers targeted in the legal action have already been completely deleted from the platform. It remains unclear whether Discord stepped in to pull the servers down following internal reviews or if the anonymous operators chose to delete the infrastructure themselves once they realized they were under legal scrutiny. What is known, however, is that the MPA specifically requested that Discord take decisive enforcement action against the communities in a separate takedown notice submitted to the company.
In its communications with the platform, the MPA formally informed Discord that the primary, if not sole, operational purpose of these servers was to act as a bridge, specifically designed to link Discord users to an external online service that provides unauthorized access to pirated movies and television series. This framing strongly suggests that the Discord communities functioned primarily as community hubs and notification channels linked to wider pirate streaming portals operating elsewhere on the open web.
"We request that Discord remove or otherwise disable access to the server," the formal notice sent by the MPA reads, outlining the urgency of the copyright holders’ demands.
Industry observers have noted that this particular subpoena request is considerably more targeted in scope than other recent legal actions seen in the sector. For instance, the DMCA subpoena requested by video game publisher Take-Two Interactive in its high-profile hunt for Grand Theft Auto 6 leakers demanded information concerning thousands of individual users connected to three massive servers. In contrast, the MPA’s current Discord filing is narrowly tailored, seeking identifying information exclusively from the operators of the two specific servers and the two corresponding accounts flagged in the investigation.
As of right now, the newly filed DMCA subpoena requests have yet to be formally signed off by a federal court clerk, meaning that the legal documents have not yet been officially issued to Cloudflare or Discord. Once the paperwork receives the necessary clerk signatures, both companies will be legally obligated to review the demands and determine what matching account data exists in their systems to hand over to the entertainment industry’s legal teams.
The official Cloudflare DMCA subpoena request was formally filed at the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, while the corresponding Discord subpoena request was submitted to the Northern District of California. The full roster of 49 domain names cited in the Cloudflare legal action encompasses a broad cross-section of the current piracy landscape, including Aniworld.to, miruro.tv, flixbaba.mov, flixbaba.is, flixmomo.tv, encontrei.info, fastflix.top, seeflix.to, empire-streaming.us, fmoviess.org, yesmovies.ag, tinyzone.org, solarmovie2.com, streamzy.org, watchnest.to, watchnest.org, indexflix.to, indexflix.org, imdb.su, streamimdb.ru, miruro.ru, pelisflix200.work, pelisflix200.club, pelisflix200.best, pelisflix1.cc, pelisflix1.bio, pelisflix1.de, coflix.esq, gimy.tv, gimy.now, gimyv.com, 94580.net, movieffm.net, gimytv.biz, gimytube.com, miruro.to, miruro.bz, repelisplus.my, 94itv.app, 99itv.net, solarmovies.co, 123moviesfun.is, moviesmod.at, moviesmod.zone, nupload.top, thestreameast.fun, direttecommunity.online, livetv903.me, and streameasti.is.
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