The latest on what is happening around the big blue world.
A law firm acting for Spotify has taken down a piece of Windows software that allows users to download and remove DRM from music tracks while skipping ads. XSpotify, which also carries an ad-blocking feature, is described as a tool that "steals" Spotify encryption keys in contravention of the anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA.
Former Pirate Party Canada leader and Ebook.bike operator Travis McCrea is facing the possibility of crippling sanctions if the plaintiff in his copyright infringement lawsuit has his way. After McCrea failed to produce discovery as ordered by the court, the legal team of author John Van Stry are moving in for the kill, demanding sanctions that have the potential to undermine any chance of McCrea winning his case on the merits.
Hack the Capitol 5.0 conference took place in Washington D.C. on May 4, 2022. Here are some of the main highlights on cybersecurity from Hack the Capitol 5.0.
The Pirate Bay has revealed some intriguing statistics on its decentralized archive of data. Over the years more than 6.7 petabytes of data were made available through the site. Less than half of this is still being seeded. The data further reveal that the 2014 raid did some serious damage to the infamous torrent site.
We don't have a lot of fear here. We are angry as f*
Quantum Computing
This morning several news articles celebrated the "return" of Popcorn Time after it apparently went offline a few years ago. This claim simply isn't true,
neither is the assertion that the just released version of the app works as well as the previous one. In fact, Popcorn Time is facing a wave of complaints from users experiencing a wide range of problems that simply didn't exist before.
CS.RIN.RU is probably the largest forum dedicated to video games piracy on the planet. However, after a reported 17 years in operation, the site's
sponsor has reportedly decided to stop funding the site. As a result, the gaming pirates' paradise will have to rely on user donations to keep going.
Two companies that design and manufacture wedding dresses are suing
Cloudflare for copyright infringement after it failed to terminate service to 99 'repeat infringer' websites. Allure Bridals and Justin Alexander claim that they sent 7,000 DMCA complaints to the CDN company but aside from passing the notices on, Cloudflare failed to take more meaningful action.
Github has revealed that throughout 2019, the coding hosting platform took down more than 14,300 projects following DMCA complaints. Of the total notices received, only a tiny proportion was contested via counter-notice. Interestingly, the Microsoft-owned platform also reveals that one copyright complaint cannot be detailed as it's the subject of a gagging order.
The government of Japan has approved a new bill aimed at reducing the
downloading of pirated content from the Internet. The new law, which is
targeted for Jan 1, 2021, will criminalize the downloading of manga, magazines and academic material with prison sentences of up to two years. Operators of pirate linking sites will also face up to five years behind bars.
The developer behind the Red Dead Redemption: Damned Enhancement Project is fighting back against a copyright infringement lawsuit filed by Take-Two. Among other things, Johnathan Wyckoff states that he believes he was working within the rules published by Take-Two, which state that
the company will not generally take legal action against non-commercial single player projects.
A law firm acting for Nintendo of America has shut down a successful Kickstarter campaign for alleged breaches of copyright. According to the gaming giant, the fundraiser used characters and images from the Animal
Crossing series without obtaining the necessary permission.
In this write-up, we will understand the role of NLP in the media industry, its impact, and how it will help to clear out the issues hampering growth.
Covering test automation, security systems, testing of mobile applications, big data testing, IoT, AI, ML, Blockchain and more.
After several days of downtime, manga scanlation giant MangaDex has reappeared online. In addition to confirming the existence of a DMCA subpoena first reported here on TF last week, MangaDex says it has legal issues that have resulted in the temporary loss of its .org domain and removal from Cloudflare. It is now operating under a new domain while the problems are dealt with.
Movie and TV show streaming site Nites.tv hit the mainstream during the past few weeks, with news sites on several continents reporting on the platform seemingly out of nowhere. Now, however, the site is redirecting to the anti-piracy portal of the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment
after an apparent seizure. Strangely, a number of things don't add up.
The doggie is in heat! One of the inventors confirms Dogecoin is "DOhj"coin. The name is made up but "sounds" Japanese.
I asked 100 people on reddit what fundamental lessons they learned as a result of quarantine, hopefully you can get some insight on how other people have been
Popular YouTuber OMI IN A HELLCAT was raided by the FBI last year in connection with his 'pirate' IPTV service Gears TV.
On any given day, you'll find tons of stories that are seemingly important, some moving, others hilarious/weird.
Centralized cloud has never been a safe custodian of your private data but we may have finally found the perfect solution - Decentralized Cloud Storage.
The unreleased updates of famous apps like Twitter and Instagram - 3rd Issue
Mastodon is the largest decentralized social network on the internet.
This blog explains how to Install Superdesk in 9 easy steps !!
Ex CEO of Twitter Jack Dorsey, Alex Morcos, and Martin White published an email to Bitcoin developers about establishing a Bitcoin Legal Defense Fund.
TDPel Media offers original news content and covers general news, politics, business, entertainment, environment, technology, lifestyle, culture, comedy, etc.
There is an anarcho-capitalist lurking in the shadows of the Argentine presidency. He is responsible for occupying the first position in opinion polls.
In this opinion, we will focus on two types of watches: the traditional watch and the connected watch.
E3 2022 was cancelled entirely this year - no physical or digital event will take place this year. Let's read into what this means for the future of gaming.
YesPornPlease, an adult-focused video site that was until recently servicing more than 100 million visitors per month, has disappeared following the filing of a lawsuit in the United States. The complaint, filed by Mindgeek-owned MG Premium, also targets hosting site VShare.io, demanding a broad injunction and potentially hundreds of millions of dollars in damages.
A study published in 2019 revealed that controversial gambling company 1XBET, known for placing adverts on pirate sites, had become the third most active online advertiser in Russia.
The top 16 crypto blogs that can keep you up to date with cryptocurrencies, including crypto news, product releases, new regulations and product reviews.
We hope you did have an awesome week! Here is your dose of the best
articles that came up over the last week. Have fun reading them!
The SEC alleges that Justin Sun directed his employees to engage in 600,000 wash trades of TRX between two crypto asset trading platform accounts he controlled.
A recap of the latest news, trends, products, and solutions from the most sought-after tech startups in the industry.
Blockchain Gaming Going Mainstream?
Two men who sold piracy-enabled TV boxes and encouraged buyers to access content without an appropriate subscription have been found guilty after a four-day trial in the UK. The individuals, who will be sentenced later this month, face potentially lengthy sentences under the Serious Crime Act 2007 and Fraud Act 2006.
How we sold multiple real world properties as NFTs, and what's still needed to disrupt the multi-trillion dollar real estate industry via NFTs.
The Metaverse is now the talk of the town. It is a place where people can be who they want to be and do what they want to do.
Coinbase Lawsuit Incoming!
9/7/2022: Top 5 stories on the Hackernoon homepage!
From January 18, 2023, it will no longer be possible to access your Revue account.
On March 13th, Euler Finance, a decentralized lending platform, was hacked for a whopping $197 million.
This week on HackerNoon’s Stories of the Week, we looked at ApeCoin and the Bored Ape Yacht Club after a surprise performance at MTV from Snoop Dogg and Eminem
Today’s news includes the foundation of Venture Studio, the 2022 Startup World Cup, as well as the latest on aerospace, cybersecurity, and crypto.
Author John Van Stry has won his copyright infringement lawsuit against former Pirate Party of Canada leader Travis McCrea and his long-defunct eBook download platform eBook.bike. After a year of stressful litigation, the court asked the author to consider reducing his $180,000 damages claim to $9,000 to avoid a full trial. Van Stry accepted but with McCrea now
claiming to be broke, it remains to be seen whether the amount will ever be recovered.
Movie and TV show information portal AlloCiné has reportedly sent a wave of DMCA notices to Google to have allegedly-infringing content taken down. Unfortunately, however, the complaints are littered with clearly erroneous URLs that target everything from Netflix and Amazon listings to news reports from sites like Wired, plus content on rival movie portals such as JustWatch and Rotten Tomatoes.
PortalRoms, a popular index for ROM and emulators for a wide range of gaming systems, has disappeared without trace. Up until a few days ago the site was servicing more four million visitors per month with links to download content via torrents. However, after domain issues hit the site last October, history may now be repeating itself for the ten-year-old site.
An Italian court has ordered 'preventative measures' that requires the websites of 15 'pirate' IPTV providers to be blocked in the country. The complaint was filed by top Italian soccer league Serie A after the IPTV providers reportedly broadcast live matches without permission. How effective the blocks will be remain to be seen, however.
Why the new Bitcoin taproot might be a massive upgrade for the cryptocurrency and why its implementation might be crucial for keeping the system secure.
How does AI help to fight fake news? The use case that we created during the war.
In December 2019 a web-series dedicated to debunking copyright and
copying myths was hit with four copyright complaints over the alleged
illegal use of tracks from Robin Thicke, Marvin Gate, Bee Gees and Michael Jackson. However, the makers of The Creativity Delusion: Geniuses Steal, decided to fight back and have now defeated every single claim against their video. Fair use, they say, is worth fighting for.
After falling into third-party hands the main domain of Kim Dotcom's K.im project is set to be reclaimed. The Isle of Man domain recently expired and was quickly snapped up but, following a dispute process, it could be transferred back to the crypto project in a matter of days. Documents reviewed by TorrentFreak reveal that there was an attempt in December to sell the domain back for $100,000.
GraphQL Editor new release
Media giant ABS-CBN has filed two US lawsuits worth millions of dollars in damages against two men they accuse of supplying pirate IPTV devices to the public. One of the men was arrested earlier this month by Los Angeles
Police Department following an undercover sting operation.
There have been countless anti-piracy strategies deployed over the years and pirates have deployed their own in response. In the end, the parties "at war" aren't so different and may even benefit from the same techniques. The most fundamental ones aren't new either, having been around for at least 2,500 years.
Since early 2019, author John Van Stry has been spending huge sums of money in an effort to bring the former operator of download site eBook.bike to justice. The site itself has been down for months but legal costs are mounting to the point that Van Stry feels there might be an effort to bankrupt him. As a result, a practical win for either side seems a distant proposition.
New EU crypto laws might "substantially widen" the scope of existing EU regulations by requiring non-fungible token issuers to consolidate their assets.
The RIAA has obtained a DMCA subpoena against Cloudflare in an effort to unmask the operators of several 'pirate' music platforms including one offering iTunes content. The subpoena requires the CDN company to hand over names, addresses and account information of people allegedly behind infringement of tracks by Justin Timberlake, Red Hot Chili Peppers,
Selena Gomez and more.
An anti-piracy memorandum aimed at removing allegedly-infringing content from search engines is beginning to have an effect in Russia. That's
according to the chief of the Internet Video Association, an anti-piracy group representing the interests of numerous licensed online video distribution platforms.
There are many options when it comes to publishing a news product. Some publishers choose to collaborate with other publishers to develop their own platform,
As the conflict between Russia and Ukraine escalates, it is important to take steps to protect the country's critical infrastructure from these cybercrimes
In 2018, four of Japan's largest manga publishers filed a motion at a Tokyo court demanding that Cloudflare stop providing services to several 'pirate'
sites, including Mangamura replacement Hoshinoromi. The companies now reveal that a settlement has been reached with Cloudflare to "stop the
replication" of the sites on its Japan-based servers, if a court declares them illegal.
The International Olympic Committee and leading soccer organizations including FIFA and the Premier League are urging the United States Trade Representative to apply maximum pressure to Saudi Arabia over TV piracy. While beoutQ's illegal satellite broadcasts stopped last August, its set-top boxes now present an Internet-based pirate IPTV threat, the sports groups say.
According to the latest report, Typescript has surpassed Javascript to become world's favourite language for developers.
France's largest torrent site YggTorrent has lost control over its main domain. According to the site's operators, YggTorrent.ws was suspended by the domain registrar without providing additional information. Given that Alexa reports that YggTorrent is one of the most-visited websites in the whole of France, the disruption is likely to affect millions of visitors.
The New Zealand Supreme Court has declined Kim Dotcom's appeal in his bid to access private communications captured illegally by the country's spy agency. Dotcom will still be entitled to damages for the unlawful intrusion into his private life but he says this matter is not about money. Instead, he seeks to hold the GCSB agency accountable for its illegal behavior, for the benefit of all New Zealanders.
A law firm hired by notorious 'copyright troll' outfit Malibu Media is suing the company over breach of contract and unpaid bills. According to a lawsuit filed this week by The Lomnitzer Law Firm, Malibu 'circumvented' an agreement between the companies by hiring other attorneys to conduct litigation. The law firm is also demanding that Malibu pay more than $280K to settle its debts with the company.
There's always something new in the world of technology, and it can be hard to keep up.
Dogecoin's popularity has inspired more clones with very similar names to emerge, creating a situation where the name itself is in contention between coins.
This week on HackerNoon’s Stories of the Week, we looked at the Ethereum Merge and what the shift from Proof of Work to Proof of Stake means for the industry.
The last week has been fairly quiet in the markets, and had it not been for BTC’s 5% tumble in price yesterday, the same could be said for crypto.
New York-based photographer Mark Seliger has filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against NBCUniversal demanding millions of dollars in damages.
Binance caught RED-handed?
Being a busy coder over the years of software development, sometimes I feel difficult in staying up to date with the latest tech news which inturn would help me in the growth of my software development career. In today's fast-paced world, technology is constantly evolving, and it can be challenging to keep up with the latest trends and advancements. Fortunately, there are many resources available that can help you stay up-to-date on the latest tech news and information. One of the best resources available is an app called DevBytes.
The ground-breaking anti-piracy deal signed by Russia-based content and Internet platforms in 2018 will not be written into local law any time soon. The agreement, which sees search engines voluntarily delete allegedly-infringing links, was supposed to be formalized in recent months but in the face of complexities and parliament being tied up with other things, will now be extended until 2021.
A man who was sentenced in 2018 to 4.5 years in prison for selling pirate IPTV devices to pubs and clubs has been ordered to pay £520,000 to the public purse. Failure to come up with the funds will result in John Dodds
having his prison sentence extended by an additional five years. The Premier League, which brought the action, welcomed the judgment.
Dish Network is fighting online streaming piracy on many fronts. Aside from lawsuits and other legal campaigns, the company also looks at the
broader picture. In a new patent application, Dish envisions a blockchain-based anti-piracy management system that promises to be open and accessible to all.
With the world still grappling with the new coronavirus outbreak, an unofficial paywall-free archive of scientific papers is spreading hope, not disease, to the scientific community. Speaking with TF, the operators of the project reveal that since its launch under a week ago, visitors from all over the world to the 5,300+ study resource have consumed almost half a terabyte of bandwidth.
TWEET OF THE DAY
The biggest developments in the cryptocurrency and blockchain world we saw last month (August, 2019)
An artist who uploaded a parody cartoon to YouTube and received a strike against his channel following a Warner Bros. complaint has been denied the opportunity to fight his corner. MeatCanyon uploaded a cartoon featuring a creepy 'Bugs Bunny' and later appealed using a DMCA counternotice. YouTube, however, refused to pass the notice on and dismissed the claim.
Katy Perry's writers lost a $2.8m lawsuit against Christian rapper Flame last year over the use of a handful of notes. Musician Adam Neely published a hit video on YouTube slamming the lawsuit but in a bizarre twist, Perry's publisher Warner Chappell has now filed an infringement complaint against Neely. Not only have they claimed all of the advertising revenue from his video, they've turned the entire matter into an unbelievable trainwreck.
The operator of YTS recently 'settled' a lawsuit that was filed by the US. movie company Wicked Nevada. Soon after, the same movie company joined other filmmakers to sue several users of the notorious torrent site. According to the complaint, the rightsholders know the email addresses that the defendants used to register with at YTS, as well as the VPN IP-address of one user. This raises some questions.
A lawsuit filed by US broadcaster DISH Network against Easybox IPTV looks set to end with significant cost to the men behind the unlicensed IPTV provider. In a motion for final judgment and permanent injunction, DISH is demanding $9.9m in damages for direct copyright infringement of 66 copyrighted works, broadcast by Easybox without permission.
GenZ-ers seem to like political and international news so journalists are now moving to TikTok.
Chairman and CEO Mitch Glazier has been oulining some of the RIAA's successes since he joined the industry group. Interestingly, he went straight to the Kim Dotcom and Megaupload case, which he described as a "huge significant victory". While the case hasn't yet gone to trial, its destruction more than eight years ago may be a good enough result for the RIAA.
Facebook’s parent company Meta has announced laying off more than 11,000 employees. The long list of companies sacking their employees includes Netflix, Netflix
Humanoids, or robots designed to resemble humans in form and function, have been a staple of science fiction for centuries.
The Saints Row games are infamous for a lot of things, not least of which is the robust and absurd customisation system that the reboot has expanded on.
Since the release of Vue 2, Vuejs has grown rapidly. It is receiving awesome reviews from the users. Vuejs was one of the most popular Javascript front end frameworks in 2018 along with the giants like Angular and React. And now Vue 3 is all set to release. For the last few months, it has been in talks across various parts of the world.
They never had to directly pay for the news, but Gen Z won’t kill off the digital publisher. Technology is giving publishers the tools to engage the ‘lost’ generation.
months ago Canada's Federal Court issued the country's first pirate 'site' blocking order. The order was requested by Bell, Rogers, and Groupe TVA, who recently asked the court to amend the order to ban additional domains that provide access the pirate IPTV service GoldTV. This request was granted. Despite attempts from the rightsholders to keep the update quiet, the new domains have been revealed as well.
An overview of Enjin and its ecosystem updates for 2022 to see how it will change and evolve in the year to come thanks to new opportunities for the system.
The National Emergency Library recently launched by the Internet Archive now finds itself in the middle of a controversy.
we will look at the new Fibers Feature in the future PHP update
Following a massive lawsuit filed by adult entertainment giant MG Premium, video site YesPornPlease temporarily shut itself down. It is now operating behind what appears to be geo-based blocking mechanism that promotes the use of a VPN. Meanwhile, MG Premium wants permission from the court to force several US-based service providers including Cloudflare and PayPal to reveal what they know about the site's operators.
Hackers, the wait is over! Elden Ring has risen from its status as a MIA game with new Gameplay video, a trailer, and a release date all in one package!
In October 2019, Share-Online.biz, Germany's largest file-hosting site, was shut down following police raids around Europe. As the investigation into the platform's operators continues, a cybercrime police representative now says that hunting down former content uploaders and regular downloaders at the site remains a "realistic scenario."
In today’s digital world, both standard and social media channels are renowned for having a huge effect on our daily lives. From the ways we communicate and share content, to the ways we keep up to date with the world around us, social media has, and continues to have a disruptive effect on how we view the world. Cryptocurrencies have been no exception.
Excitably, I FINALLY get to announce that institutions are pouring nearly 58 million dollars a week into Bitcoin! Oh, and Jr over there, Ethereum is seeing nearly $10M/USD in trades, weekly.
The top 3 headlines from across the pond for Tuesday, May 26, 2020.
We are creatures of habit. As we live in those comfortable loops we barely deviate from, we rarely question the “why” of our doing so. Technology, once thought of as a means of emancipation, has become a way to feed us an endless stream of news we want to hear and believe in — what Nicholas Negroponte calls the daily me.
Authorities in Ukraine report that officers from the cybercrime unit have raided an advertising agency in the capital Kiev for doing business with sites offering pirated movies and TV shows. Images released by the government show masked and armed officers targeting a building and herding out large numbers of employees.
Angular v14 is available. Here are the new features and improvements from this new version such as streamlined page titles, ng modules and new commands.
Adult movie company AMA Multimedia has obtained a DMCA subpoena from a Washington court to help it track down individuals who uploaded content to various 'tube' sites. The subpoena orders Cloudflare to hand over the identities of uploaders and potentially site operators too but given the way the content seems to be delivered, it remains a question whether the former will be possible.
Facebook-owned Instagram has taken down an independently developed API claiming that it violates the anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA. The complaint claims that the tool 'Instagram-API' allows unauthorized access to Instagram users' posts, which the company says are copyrighted works to which it grants protected access.
Researchers at Delft University of Technology have secured another €3.3
million in funding for academic research into the ‘Internet-of-Trust’. The money will in large part be used to continue development on the Tribler BitTorrent client. Professor Johan Pouwelse, who leads the Tribler lab, hopes that the software and underlying technology will shake up the entertainment industry by shifting the balance of power.
This week anti-piracy company Rivendell made history by reporting its 500 millionth infringing URL to Google. Speaking with TorrentFreak, the founder of Rivendell and sister company LeakID says that his team works closely with Google and finds the search giant very cooperative and helpful. He credits pirates for being resourceful but loves finding ways to "outsmart" them.
Major Japanese publisher Takeshobo has sued Cloudflare in a Tokyo court for alleged copyright infringement. The publisher says it was forced into
the action after requests to remove content being offered by a Cloudflare customer were ignored. Takeshobo is taking care not to mention the name of the 'pirate' site in question but TorrentFreak has uncovered a DMCA subpoena from 2019 which may shine some light on proceedings.
Social media over the last five years has become a growing and dominant source of information and news for hundreds of millions of individuals all over the world. Social media is always in your pocket on your smartphone.
South Korean authorities say they have rquested their first ever Interpol 'Red Notice' in an effort to apprehend the suspected operator of a torrent site that indexed around 455,000 copyright works. Information released by the Ministry of Culture and National Police suggests that the unnamed person is Australian. Police are demanding his or her arrest and extradition.
The end of web publishers being handcuffed to Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) is in sight. In May of 2021, Google will roll out an algorithm update using a new set of page experience signals to help determine rankings. these new guidelines will no longer give preferential treatment to sites using Google’s AMP format.
Kailin O'Donnell is the Director and Co-Founder of NEM Ventures, the VC and Investments arm of the NEM Blockchain Ecosystem. Kailin is a DLT advocate who has been deeply involved in NEM since before launch, coding some early SDKs for NIS1 and Symbol, and has assisted multiple companies building on the NEM blockchain.
John McAfee killed himself in Spanish prison where he was expecting extradition to the US. Let's recall all the crazy shit we're going to remember him for.
Huge scanlation platform MangaDex recently revealed that legal pressures had, among things, restricted its ability to receive donations from users. Following our report, a server administrator connected to several other groups gave us additional insight into these anti-piracy efforts. Amid the hostilities, however, it appears that all the scanlation community really wants is to improve the chances of manga titles arriving in the West.
MalwareBytes persistently blocked an essential element of the Pirate Bay platform due to the presence of "a few" cryptocurrency miners on a secondary domain.
In this opinion, we will look at some possible changes that could occur in the next 100 years and discuss what they could mean for humanity.
Printed newspapers have been around for a long time, some newspapers appearing as early as the 16th century namely in Germany. However, they quickly gained in popularity outside of Germany in countries like the United Kingdom, Italy, Sweden and France.
People love news. Which is why in crypto, product updates almost always drive the price up. But with over 5,000 projects already on the open market, how can you stay both informed and sane while sorting through the volume of articles, news blips, and tweets published every single day? Even if you had the capacity to capture them all, how do you know which ones really matter?
New java features you must use.
RSS feeds are a largely underestimated feature of the web nowadays — at least outside the circles of geeks. Not only they are much more omnipresent than many think (every single respectable news website provides at least one feed); not only they empower users with the possibility of creating their own news feeds and boards through aggregators, without relying on the mercy of a cloud-run algorithm; but their structured nature (under the hood an RSS feed is just a structured XML) offers the possibility to build automation pipelines that deliver the content we want wherever we want, whenever we want, in whichever format we want. IFTTT is a popular option to build custom logic on RSS feeds. It makes it very intuitive to build relatively complex rules such as “send me a weekly digest with The Economist articles published in the latest issue”, or “send a Telegram message with the digest from NYT every day at 6am”, or “send a notification to my mobile whenever XKCD publishes new comics”.
Spring profiles are very useful concept in framework but there are some cothas to catch for mastering it. Article about how to survive in multi profile set-up.
72% of managers prefer their subordinates to be in the office. Why are bosses so against remote work? Find out what our readers think might be the issues here.
AMD has filed at least two DMCA notices against Github repos that carried
"stolen" source code relating to AMD's Navi and Arden GPUs, the latter being the processor for the upcoming Xbox Series X. The person claiming
responsibility for the leak informs TorrentFreak that if they doesn't get a buyer for the remainder of the code, they will dump the whole lot online.
There have been dozens of anti-piracy campaigns over the years but which ones are more likely to work on illicit consumers? According to some of the findings in a government report published in the UK this week, different approaches may be needed to convince both casual and savvy pirates to stop or reduce their activities.
In today's most talked about and not-talked about global news: Minneapolis; Brazil; Trump vs. Twitter; Xpeng vs. China; and two well-intentioned men with machetes and a broom end up in the wrong home Down Under.
Read the unbelievable story of Hank the Tank, the bear on the run from California Police. Just wait until you see the twist!
Several takedown notices, reportedly sent on behalf of the NFL, are asking Google to remove VPN-related URLs. According to a recent request, these sites promote the use of VPN services "to illegally stream NFL games." While many of the pages show how VPNs can bypass geographical restrictions, Google has left most URLs in its search results.
According to the American press institute, the purpose of news and journalism is to provide citizens with the information they need to make the best possible decisions about their lives, their communities, their societies, and their governments.
The UK's Intellectual Property Office has published the latest edition of its
Online Copyright Infringement Tracker report. Illicit consumption of movies increased considerably over the previous period, with a new category of live sports leaping almost to the top of the infringement tables. Interestingly, the report also highlights a significant decrease in hardcore pirates.
Facebook says that it takes abuse and misuse of its 'Rights Manager' system very seriously. The company sees this type of abuse as one of its main challenges and it spends a lot of time making sure that legitimate content isn't blocked. The social media giant made these statements in a recent "Article 17" stakeholder meeting at the EU Commission.
Two men who sold piracy-configured set-top boxes and coached the public on how to use them to access infringing content have been sentenced to one-year prison terms under the Fraud Act, suspended for two years. The pair, who supplied 'BlackBox.tv' devices, must also do 120 hours of unpaid work.
Netflix subscribers in France shared a wry smile over the weekend when a
screenshot from the anime movie City Hunter was shared on Twitter. The
screenshot revealed that the subtitles hadn't been obtained from an official supplier. Instead, they were apparently culled from a 'pirate' file distributed by an IRC channel specializing in anime content, one that could've been dead for some time.
Model Kendall Jenner generates considerable sums from her Instagram account but according to a lawsuit filed in California, not all of that is
raised legally. The complaint states that Jenner obtained a video of herself taken by a third-party and posted it on Instagram, in breach of copyright law. After gaining almost 23 million views, the owner now wants up to $150,000 in damages.
A draft law in Sweden envisions much tougher penalties for serious copyright infringement. Under current rules, sentences carry fines and/or prison terms up to a maximum of two years. Under the new proposals, serious copyright-related crimes would be treated more harshly, with prison sentences starting at six months and going all the way to a maximum of six years.
In 2019, 'pirate' IPTV supplier One Box TV found itself on the wrong end of a DISH Networks lawsuit. Filed in a Florida court, the complaint alleged that the IPTV supplier was transmitting DISH programming unlawfully via the Internet. After failing to put up a defense, One Box TV and its owner have now been ordered to pay $3.8 million in damages.
The trial of six defendants who allegedly operated the 'pirate' streaming service Jetflicks will now take place in July 2020. The delay is in response to Canadian authorities handing over masses of discovery data, including subscriber information and support tickets of the defunct service. The original request for information was made around 22 months ago.
What do you need to do to get in front of more people who might be interested in your website? Meet Google Discover.
After falling into third-party hands, the main domain of Kim Dotcom's K.im project has been returned following a settlement agreement. While this progress is being welcomed by the Megaupload founder, even more serious matters lie on the horizon. Will the New Zealand Supreme Court decide against extradition to the US? Dotcom predicts that while close, the judgment will not go in his favor.
The new laws introduced by the government are meant to help businesses improve their cybersecurity and avoid any losses that would be incurred from cybercrime.
A woman who uploaded one of her own photographs to print-on-demand site RedBubble says she has been hit with a takedown notice by Disney. The photograph, which features the 107-year-old The Little Mermaid statue in Copenhagen, apparently violates Disney's rights. According to a copy of the complaint, the statue depicts one of "Disney's Princesses".
One of the most common recurring questions in respect of downloading, sharing and even streaming, is whether service X or platform Y is 'safe' to use, from a copyright-infringement perspective. Recent developments show that no matter how safe users think they are, security is something that should never be taken for granted.
In this thread, our community discusses Stipe Pleic's case and whether or not they'll go total immersion in a characters' lifestyle.
Russia is planning action against apps that facilitate access to pirated content. If app developers don't quickly respond to a request from authorities to cease distribution of their software, telecoms watchdog Roscomnadzor will demand action against platforms such as Google Play and Apple's App Store. Failure to respond could result in ISP blockades.
Last week the Internet Archive responded to the coronavirus outbreak by offering a new service to "displaced learners". Combining scanned books from three libraries, the Archive offered unlimited borrowing of 1.4 million
books, so that people can continue reading while in quarantine. What
followed was a huge backlash from publishing and pro-copyright groups,
with the Copyright Alliance decribing the actions of IA's operator as "particularly vile."
A judge at a Texas court has ordered two individuals behind the pirate IPTV service Easybox IPTV to pay $9.9m in copyright infringement damages. In a judgment handed down this week, the judge awarded the maximum $150,000 in statutory damages for each of 66 copyrighted works willfully infringed by the defendants via their unlicensed streaming platform.
We found discriminatory ads can still appear, despite Facebook's efforts
The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment has claimed another scalp in the 'pirate' IPTV space. The UlangoTV app provided free access to thousands of unlicensed TV streams but there was also an option to pay for more reliable content. Today, however, its clear it is unlikely to be
returning after its domain was taken over by the global anti-piracy coalition.
As cinemas around the globe continue their shutdowns in response to the coronavirus pandemic, a number of movies are now enjoying early digital releases. Of course, many of these are also hitting pirate sites, with Bad Boys For Life, Bloodshot and The Gentlemen currently proving most popular with downloaders.
A judge at the Federal Court of Australia has handed down a site-blocking
injunction against 86 piracy-related sites accessible from 115 domains. The application, filed by the MPA including Netflix, plus Roadshow Films and several other studios, targets torrent sites, streaming portals, subtitle sites, and various related unblocking/proxy platforms. All must be rendered inaccessible by 50 local ISPs.
A man from the US became a hero last year when a video of him subduing a man who had headbutted someone in the face went viral. The video has been reposted numerous times since but is regularly taken down following
bogus copyright complaints. However, the censorship efforts massively
backfired this week when someone tried to delete a Reddit thread using a DMCA anti-circumvention notice. Duh...
On January 9, action thriller movie 'Darbar' enjoyed its theatrical release in India. Bizarrely, just three days later, a pirated copy of the hit production was illegally aired on cable TV. The makers of the movie immediately filed a complaint with police who, according to local reports, have now arrested the channel owner and begun the process of confiscating equipment.
Multiple times a day, the President of the United States types a thought into his phone, my pocket buzzes, and I read his message. I don’t watch the news anymore.
A lawsuit filed against BitTorrent owner Rainberry Inc, TRON Foundation's Justin Sun, and one of his colleagues, is based in employment law. However, the allegations it contains could pique interest in Hollywood, with claims that movies including The Lion King were involved in a "fraudulent scheme" to "make a profit from the illegal piracy of those materials."
The copyright infringement lawsuit filed by author John van Stry against
former Pirate Party leader Travis McCrea may be edging closer to financial discomfort.
