Mega lands on EU piracy list due to lack of upload filter

Cloud providers Mega, FMovies and DDoS-Guard end up on the EU’s piracy watchlist. Mega cites the lack of an upload filter as the main reason. This comes as a surprise, as the hoster actually deletes reported links with illegal downloads immediately.

Mega and other providers on EU piracy list

On 01 December, the European Commission published the so-called “Counterfeit and Piracy Watch List”, which in the form of a 50-page document lists sites and providers outside the EU to keep an eye on. Torrent sites and those that distribute illegal content can be found on it, as well as now cloud service Mega.

As TorrentFreak reports, the now third version of the list is based primarily on reported sites from various interest groups that consider them problematic. The list has no legal effect, the EU says – but the listing certainly has implications for the companies on it.

In addition to usual suspects like The Pirate Bay, however, there are also sites on it that surprise. The file hosting service Mega, founded by Kim Dotcom, is one of these sites. Unlike most piracy sites, Mega features a transparency report that reveals when and how content is taken down.

Upload filter becomes Mega problem

According to the EU report, however, a lack of upload filter has become Mega’s undoing. Apparently, shareholders from the music industry reported the service for not offering preventive measures against uploads of protected content.

“According to their information, Internet service providers in Russia were instructed as early as January 2022 to permanently block the site following complaints from music rights holders,” the EU Commission says.

Mega is, of course, unhappy with the outcome. The commission never contacted Mega for clarity or asked for comment, says Stephen Hall, Mega’s managing director. According to him, Universal Music made the claim for two public links, which the service promptly disabled.

Cloudflare was also previously in a similar situation and was part of the first list in 2018, but they were able to refute the allegations, he said, so Cloudflare is no longer on the current list.