Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — April 12th, 2024

Block Innovation By Supporting the Generative AI Copyright Disclosure Act
Claiming to protect creators, or perhaps that should be 'identifiable copyright holders', the Generative AI Copyright Disclosure Act of 2024 has been introduced at the U.S. House of Representatives. At its core, the Bill requires those responsible for training or modifying a dataset, used to build a generative AI system, to notify the Copyright Office of any copyrighted works used in that process. In summary, AI must achieve the impossible, to benefit the few, or completely disconnect from the internet.
April 12th, 2024 — Source

Google Delisted Thousands of 'Music Piracy' Domains in Response to UK Blocking Orders
During CinemaCon 2024, the MPA announced a major push to cement pirate site blocking in U.S. law. Similar measures are commonplace in dozens of other countries including the UK, where ISP blocking is no longer a topic of discussion. Google plays along voluntarily and following requests from music industry group BPI, has already delisted thousands of domains previously blocked by court order.
April 12th, 2024 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — April 11th, 2024

BREIN Battled ISPs For Years; They're United Against Pirate IPTV Services
Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN and local ISPs Ziggo and KPN have long been at odds over the issue of piracy. In particular, the thorny issue of whether The Pirate Bay should be blocked in the Netherlands, dragged on for years. But now, as BREIN continues its battle against pirate IPTV providers, the ISPs' sales of bundled TV services are also feeling the squeeze.
April 11th, 2024 — Source

'Pirated' TikTok Clips Help to Promote TV Series, Research Finds
A new academic study shows that condensed video clips of TV shows, posted on services such as TikTok, can serve as free advertising. This means that efforts to take down these 'copyright infringing' or 'pirated' clips may be counterproductive. This type of 'piracy' can be helpful, though there are some important caveats.
April 11th, 2024 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — April 10th, 2024

MPA: Site-Blocking Will Stop Pirate Site Owners Who Abuse Kids & Traffick Drugs
After a wait of more than 12 years, rightsholders in the United States will again seek legislation that will provide the framework for a site-blocking regime to combat online piracy. After promoting and guiding similar regimes in dozens of countries overseas, the push will see the Hollywood studios of the Motion Picture Association urge Congress to bring the United States up to date.
April 10th, 2024 — Source

The MPA plans to collaborate with Congress on piracy website-blocking legislation
The MPA CEO called pirates "real-life mobsters" who engage in child pornography
April 10th, 2024 — Source

US bill proposes AI companies list what copyrighted materials they use
Congressman Adam Schiff introduced the Generative AI Copyright Disclosure Act on Tuesday.
April 10th, 2024 — Source

'X' Denies Music Companies' Remaining Piracy Liability Claims in Court
Elon Musk's social media platform X has denied all copyright infringement claims in response to a 'piracy' complaint filed last year by a group of record labels. The Nashville federal court already dismissed several key allegations and X hopes to defeat the remaining contributory infringement claims as well. Among its defenses, X notes that the music companies demand "unconstitutionally excessive and disproportionate" damages.
April 10th, 2024 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — April 2nd, 2024

Court Denies ISP's Request to Dismiss Music and Movie Piracy Liability Claims
Internet provider Frontier Communications asked a New York bankruptcy court to dismiss several piracy liability claims brought by movie and music industry companies. Citing a recent Supreme Court decision, the ISP argued that merely providing Internet service shouldn't invoke liability. The court agreed that liability isn't automatic but it denied the ISP's request, ruling that there are other copyright-specific factors at play.
April 2nd, 2024 — Source

Piracy Shield: Influential Consumer Union Attempts to Break AGCOM's Silence
Telecoms regulator AGCOM has either downplayed, dismissed, or flat-out ignored even the most constructive criticism concerning the Piracy Shield system. How AGCOM will handle a demand for information filed by the National Consumers Union (UNC) remains to be seen, but with its connections to the Ministry of Economic Development, dismissing UNC may be less straightforward. Meanwhile, we're informed Cloudflare won't be blocked in the future...
April 2nd, 2024 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — March 29th, 2024

Telegram Block Averted For Now But Escalating Threat is Far From Over
A week ago today in Spain's National Court, a judge rubber-stamped a request from rightsholders to have Telegram blocked in its entirety, nationwide. Following a fierce backlash, execution of the order was suspended, representing a victory of sorts for the eight million or so users of Telegram in Spain. What seems clear, however, is that in one form or another, these types of actions seem unlikely to go away.
March 29th, 2024 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — March 28th, 2024

Hollywood Studios, Amazon & Netflix Sue 'Evasive' Pirate IPTV Operator From Texas
A Dallas resident is being sued by several major Hollywood studios, Amazon, and Netflix for operating a pirate IPTV operation. In a complaint filed at a federal court in Texas, they accuse the defendant of widespread copyright infringement dating back to 2016. After cautioning the alleged (re)seller of 'TV Nitro', 'Streaming TV Now', and other services, the companies are taking the matter to court.
March 28th, 2024 — Source

Ukraine Commits to Piracy Crackdown, Draws Up Blacklist, Joins WIPO ALERT
Following an announcement by the Ministry of Economy of Ukraine in February, the Ministry of Justice has registered an order that will see Ukraine become a full participant in the World Intellectual Property Organization's WIPO ALERT initiative. In common with its counterparts, Ukraine will maintain a list of pirate sites that advertisers will be required to boycott. The order also provides for administrative liability for companies that fail to adhere to the rules.
March 28th, 2024 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — March 27th, 2024

'Operation 404' Results in First Prison Sentence for Pirate IPTV Operator
Brazilian anti-piracy campaign 'Operation 404' has taken down many pirate sites and services over the past five years, but criminal prosecutions have been scarce. This week, anti-piracy group ALIANZA announced a "historic" victory: The operator of pirate IPTV service "Flash IPTV" was sentenced to more than five years in prison, marking the first criminal conviction of this kind in Brazil.
March 27th, 2024 — Source

Z-Library Scammers Use Email Campaigns to Lure Users and Extract Payments
Popular pirate ebook repository Z-Library remains online despite a criminal prosecution by the United States. The site continues to release new features with support from users who appear happy to chip-in as part of a new fundraising campaign. At the same time, however, scammers are trying to 'steal' the site's traffic and money, through targeted email campaigns.
March 27th, 2024 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — March 25th, 2024

Judge Blocks 8M Telegram Users After Platform Failed to Help Identify Pirates
A copyright complaint filed by Mediaset España, EGEDA, Atresmedia, and Movistar Plus, escalated Friday when a judge ordered ISPs to prevent eight million Telegram users from accessing the service in Spain. Expected imminently, the blockade is Telegram's punishment for not helping to identify IPTV pirates. Described as "necessary" and "proportional" by the judge, the order was made on behalf of rightsholders pursuing a private criminal prosecution.
March 25th, 2024 — Source

Internet — Browsers — March 25th, 2024

Microsoft is making Chrome's text rendering better on Windows
This is the latest example of software engineers at Microsoft making improvements to Chromium-based browsers.
March 25th, 2024 — Source

Mozilla fixes $100,000 Firefox zero-days following two-day hackathon
Users may have to upgrade twice to protect their browsers
March 25th, 2024 — Source

Mozilla Patches Firefox Zero-Days Exploited at Pwn2Own
Firefox browser updates address two zero-day vulnerabilities exploited at the Pwn2Own hacking contest.
March 25th, 2024 — Source

Internet — Browsers — March 22nd, 2024

Best settings you should be using on Microsoft Edge for Windows 11
These are the settings you should be using on Microsoft Edge for the best experience on Windows 11.
March 22nd, 2024 — Source

DoodStream: Hollywood, Netflix, Amazon & Apple Sue "Rogue Cyberlocker"
With the benefit of hindsight, the MPA's 'notorious markets' submission to the USTR last year may have also sent a message to the operators of video hosting service DoodStream. The platform was featured unusually prominently and the studios seemed confident of the operators' whereabouts. Whatever the intent, DoodStream's operators are now being sued by Hollywood, Netflix, Amazon and Apple, who apparently identified them as long ago as last summer.
March 22nd, 2024 — Source

Dutch Court Orders ISP to Block 'Anna's Archive' and 'LibGen'
The Dutch pirate site blocklist has expanded with two new targets, shadow libraries Anna's Archive and Library Genesis. The court order was obtained by local anti-piracy group BREIN, acting on behalf of major publishers. Interestingly, Z-Library isn't listed in the blocking order, despite explicit warnings previously issued by BREIN.
March 22nd, 2024 — Source

Mozilla fixes two Firefox zero-day bugs exploited at Pwn2Own
Mozilla has released security updates to fix two zero-day vulnerabilities in the Firefox web browser exploited during the Pwn2Own Vancouver 2024 hacking competition.
March 22nd, 2024 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — March 20th, 2024

ISP's Landmark Piracy Liability Case Doesn't Get a Do-Over in Appeals Court
The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals has denied rehearing requests filed by Internet provider Cox and several record labels, who are engaged in a landmark piracy liability battle. The ISP warned that the current precedent threatens the Internet connectivity of millions of people, but the court sees no reason to reconsider its earlier findings.
March 20th, 2024 — Source

Music Industry Threatens 'Deepfake AI Music' Service With Legal Action
BPI, the UK's leading music industry group, views Voicify as one of the world's largest and most egregious 'deepfake' AI music sites. The group is now threatening to sue the vocal cloning service if it continues to operate in its current form. While the site hasn't commented on the allegations directly, it recently rebranded to "Jammable" citing legal troubles.
March 20th, 2024 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — March 18th, 2024

Apple Joins Hollywood & Netflix on a Pirate Site Blocking Trip to Oz
Relative quiet over the past few months may have given the impression that Australia has lost interest in site-blocking injunctions. But just like waiting for a bus, suddenly two come along at once. The first aims to block Australians' view of more than 30 pirate sites, a disproportionate number serving the pirate anime market. A brand-new application sees Apple in a surprise partnership with Hollywood and Netflix, because everyone has exclusives to protect these days.
March 18th, 2024 — Source

BitTorrent dethroned as the main source of internet's upstream traffic
File sharing protocol is now being superseded by streaming and cloud storage
March 18th, 2024 — Source

Publishers Cite Napster and AI Training Threats in Legal Battle with the Internet Archive
A copyright lawsuit filed by several major publishers puts the future of the Internet Archive's scan-and-lend library at risk. In a recent appeal, the non-profit organization argued that its solution is protected by fair use and critical to preserving digital books. The publishers, however, frame it as a radical and unlawful threat to their exclusive right to publish ebooks.
March 18th, 2024 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — March 15th, 2024

BitTorrent is No Longer the 'King' of Upstream Internet Traffic
BitTorrent is no longer the 'King' of upstream traffic. New data published by Canadian broadband management company Sandvine reveals that cloud storage, YouTube, and other apps have taken over. This marks the end of a period of declining dominance that started two decades ago when BitTorrent reportedly accounted for a third of all web traffic.
March 14th, 2024 — Source

YouTuber Liable For Bogus DMCA Notice "Awareness Campaign" Targeting Bungie
A gamer who impersonated a Bungie anti-piracy partner as part of a bogus copyright takedown campaign on YouTube, has been found liable for violations of the DMCA. 'Lord Nazos' sent bogus complaints to YouTube claiming to represent Bungie, to take down Destiny content creators' videos, to "raise awareness" of shortcomings in the takedown system. A remarkable investigation followed as Bungie tracked down the perpetrator.
March 14th, 2024 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — March 14th, 2024

Nintendo Hits Circumvention Tool Linkers With DMCA Trafficking Violations
In the wake of its one-week lawsuit targeting the Yuzu Switch emulator, Nintendo is back to clean up the house. The company has just shut down around 30 GitHub repos offering circumvention tools with attempts to evade liability given short shrift. One Nintendo takedown notice makes it clear that, even when people link to a third-party site that hosts tools available via different links, it still amounts to trafficking in circumvention devices under the DMCA.
March 14th, 2024 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — March 11th, 2024

Authors Sue NVIDIA for Training AI on Pirated Books
Several authors have filed a class action copyright infringement lawsuit against technology giant NVIDIA, which leads the AI revolution. In addition to selling hardware and services, NVIDIA has its own large language models. The authors allege that the AI models were trained on copyrighted works taken from the 'pirate' site Bibliotik, and as such they're entitled to compensation.
March 11th, 2024 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — March 8th, 2024

DMCA Notices Took Down 20,517 GitHub Projects Last Year
GitHub received more than 2,000 valid DMCA takedown notices last year, which resulted in the removal of over 20,000 projects. Targeted repositories included pirate apps and games, as well as hundreds of RARBG backups. The number of takedowns has increased significantly in recent years. However, legitimate projects have grown faster and GitHub says it continues to take a developer-first approach.
March 8th, 2024 — Source

DSA: Google Reports Billions of Deletions on Google Play & Shopping
TorrentFreak can confirm a massive action against billions of content items reported under Europe's Digital Services Act. On Google Play, thousands of apps have been removed following rightsholders' copyright complaints, over 200,000 for other reasons. Other reports, over 13.5 billion of them and counting, include mass action against Google Shopping advertisers found in breach of agreed terms and conditions.
March 8th, 2024 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — March 6th, 2024

X Partially Defeats Music Piracy Liability Claims in Nashville Federal Court
The federal court in Nashville has handed an early and partial win to Elon Musk's X as it fights back against a copyright complaint filed by several record labels. Judge Trauger dismissed the labels' direct and vicarious copyright infringement claims but left the contributory infringement claims intact. This means that X can still be held liable for failing to act properly against repeat copyright infringers.
March 6th, 2024 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — March 4th, 2024

China Sentences Pirate Site Operators, Huge Win For Japan's Anime Industry
Three people arrested in China last year for operating major piracy site B9Good have been sentenced by a local court. Foreign companies face significant obstacles when attempting to enforce their rights in China but here, anti-piracy group CODA, acting for major Japanese anime rightsholders, came up with a novel strategy. The convictions of a pirate site operator and two uploaders are the first ever obtained by foreign rightsholders inside China.
March 4th, 2024 — Source

Publishers Target LibGen Domains, IPFS Gateways, Plus $30m in Piracy Damages
Several prominent textbook publishers including Cengage, Macmillan Learning , and Pearson Education, are seeking $30 million in piracy damages from the operators of shadow library, LibGen. Collecting payment from the unknown defendants will be complicated, but the terms of a proposed injunction reveal that the publishers aim to target the site's domain names and proxy services, even third-party IPFS gateways.
March 4th, 2024 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — March 3rd, 2024

Piracy Shield: IP Addresses and Server Locations Blocked Since Launch
After dismissing concerns that overblocking needed to be taken more seriously, those behind Italy's Piracy Shield system pressed ahead regardless. After one major overblocking incident was branded 'fake news' and a bigger one wasn't addressed at all, promised transparency has also ground to a halt. Data obtained by TorrentFreak shows that the ten domains made available to the public, have led to domains and IP addresses being blocked in their thousands.
March 3rd, 2024 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — March 2nd, 2024

In Indonesia, Women Pirate More Music and Movies Than Men
Piracy was traditionally seen as something that predominantly young males were interested in. This is a largely outdated representation of reality, as girls and women began to catch up a long time ago. In some countries, including Indonesia, more women pirate music, movies, and TV-shows than their male counterparts.
March 2nd, 2024 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — March 1st, 2024

Piracy Moghul Aniwatch Rebrands to HiAnime
The massively popular anime pirate site Aniwatch has a new name. The site, which was known as Zoro.to just a year ago, just rebranded to HiAnime. The site's staff doesn't explain the latest brand switch but a recent 'dynamic+' site blocking order in India may have factored into their decision. With well over 100 million monthly visits globally, there is a lot at stake.
March 1st, 2024 — Source

Russia's 'VPN Ban' is Live as Authorities Warn of Bad VPNs & U.S. Spying
The latest stage of Russia's crackdown on VPNs and similar technologies went live a few hours ago. Contrary to some reports, today's changes don't amount to a total ban on VPNs. Use of state approved VPNs, which do everything except the useful stuff, remain legal. The new law criminalizes the promotion of VPNs for site-blocking circumvention. But Russia also wants citizen's to stay safe, warning that VPNs in the U.S. are prone to government spying.
March 1st, 2024 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — February 28th, 2024

Video of New 'Masters of the Air' Episode Leaks on Pirate Sites
Unreleased footage of the Apple TV+ hit series "Masters of the Air" appears to have accidentally leaked online. The video track of the eighth episode, which is scheduled to be released next week, showed up on pirate sites as the latest release of another Apple series, "The New Look". Pirate release groups were swift to fix the 'mistake' but, now that it's out, the leak can't be unseen.
February 28th, 2024 — Source

Wading through the staggering amount of social media content being produced every second to find the nastiest bits is no task for humans alone.
Given its zero-tolerance approach to piracy, Nintendo's copyright lawsuit targeting the company behind Switch emulator 'Yuzu' isn't a big surprise. While the 41-page complaint throws almost everything at the hugely popular Switch emulation project, Nintendo's focus on specific functionality plus knowledge, conduct, and intent, seems to avoid a direct assault on general emulation. It could cover the entire scene with banana peels, however.
February 28th, 2024 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — February 27th, 2024

Intelligence UX: Making Mobile AI Features Accessible and Intuitive for Everyone
Picture a world without language barriers and the ability to recreate scenes from the imagination with just a few touches. This vision may sound far-fetched, but AI is already making this a reality.
February 27th, 2024 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — February 26th, 2024

Hollywood Used 'Dynamic+ Injunction' to Shut Down movie-web and Other Pirate Sites
Late last week, the public-facing demo website of movie-web went offline. New information shows that this was likely the result of a 'dynamic+ injunction', ordered by the High Court of Delhi, India on behalf of Netflix and the Hollywood majors. The order requires ISPs to block dozens of pirate sites and also applies to domain name registrars, including the American company Namecheap.
February 26th, 2024 — Source

Piracy Shield Cloudflare Disaster Blocks Countless Sites, Fires Up Opposition
Experts warned that a radical site-blocking program without proper checks and balances would end badly in Italy. On Saturday, at least one Cloudflare IP address was added to the Piracy Shield anti-piracy system. According to an expert, that ended up blocking a large number of websites, including a charity, a telecoms company, and several schools. It's the outcome many people predicted but one that could've been easily avoided.
February 26th, 2024 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — February 25th, 2024

"Perfect" Piracy Shield & Propaganda: Blocking Blunders Branded "Fake News"
Just three weeks after launch, Italy's Piracy Shield blocking system is set for expansion. The news was revealed by the head of AGCOM and local anti-piracy group FAPAV, who also addressed media reports that overblocking is already affecting innocent parties. Those media reports, published by reputable outlets, were dismissed as "fake news."
February 25th, 2024 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — February 23rd, 2024

Google Search Takedown Requests Rush to 8 Billion at Record Pace
Google has just processed the eight billionth DMCA takedown request for its search engine. With a recent increase in notices, the 10 billion milestone is just a year away. A recent uptick in activity is mainly pushed by publishers, including Korean media giant Kakao Entertainment, which is one of the most active senders over the past six months.
February 23rd, 2024 — Source

'IPFS Gateway Operator is not Liable for Pirated Software Keys'
The Interplanetary File System is known as a censorship-resistant technology. However, it's not immune to copyright holder complaints. When software company JetBrains warned an IPFS gateway operator that they are liable for the alleged availability of pirated keys, the Electronic Frontier Foundation stepped up in his defense. Liability questions are never straightforward, though.
February 23rd, 2024 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — February 21st, 2024

Appeals Court Vacates $1 Billion Piracy Damages Award Against Cox, Orders New Trial
The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals has vacated the $1 billion piracy damages award against Internet provider Cox Communications. While the ISP remains contributorily liable for pirating subscribers, a finding of vicarious copyright infringement was reversed. A new trial will determine the appropriate damages amount given these new conclusions.
February 21st, 2024 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — February 19th, 2024

IPTV / Astrology Business Received Signals, Failed to Predict Copyright Lawsuit
The owner of an astrology business, who allegedly sold subscriptions to a 10,000 channel IPTV service, was warned that his illegal business had no future. A complaint filed at a California court claims the defendant believed he had enough time and space to dodge a cease-and-desist. Ultimately, the stars failed to align, rendering an inevitable copyright infringement lawsuit impossible to predict.
February 19th, 2024 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — February 16th, 2024

Pirate Site Blocking Boosts Legal Consumption, Research Finds
A new study has found that pirate site blocking in Brazil and India boosted legal consumption. The non-peer-reviewed research confirms previously published findings that were limited to the UK. The effects on unblocked pirate sites are mixed, however, and whether the increased interest in legal content lasts over longer periods has yet to be researched.
February 16th, 2024 — Source

Pirate Site Shut Down For Trademark, Cybersquatting & Copyright Violations
A popular pirate site specializing in content from South Korea has been shut down by a court in the United States. Wavve Americas, a coalition of Korean broadcasters, filed a complaint against Kokoa TV in 2023, alleging trademark infringement, cybersquatting, copyright infringement, and other business-related violations. Kokoa TV had been receiving tens of millions of visits each month.
February 16th, 2024 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — February 14th, 2024

Apple's App Store is Riddled With Popular Piracy Brands
Apple is relatively good at banning piracy-related software from its App Store. Now and then, a pirate app may slip through the cracks, as happened this week. These are typically dealt with right away, but not always. Just as intriguing is the fact that the App Store is riddled with apps that use pirate brands, presumably to attract users.
February 14th, 2024 — Source

MPA & ACE Rack Up Over 3,000 Pirate Site Domain Seizures
Over the past few weeks the volume of pirate site domains signed over or redirected to the MPA following ACE enforcement action reached record levels. Since researching and documenting them all has become all but impossible, a broader statement will suffice. Give or take, MPA/ACE appear to have amassed over 3,000 pirate site domains but the potential for that to expand exponentially isn't as outrageous as it might sound.
February 14th, 2024 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — February 12th, 2024

Google: Piracy Shield Has Legal Limits, Anti-Piracy Chief: Think Ethics, Do More
Italy's Piracy Shield system has been fully-operational for almost two weeks yet usage remains surprisingly low. Meanwhile, responding to reports that pirate streaming apps are available on the Play Store, Google noted that, under law, it is not subject to Piracy Shield blocking orders. In a response that spoke of the need for "autonomous initiatives" inspired by "ethics and self-regulation," the head of telecoms regulator AGCOM disagreed.
February 12th, 2024 — Source

The U.S. Tops the Manga Piracy Chart, While Iran Leads in Music Piracy
Piracy continued to rise globally in 2023 across all content categories. The largest relative increase was visible in the music and software categories, which saw double-digit growth. In the publishing category, manga comics dominate with the United States the leading source of traffic. Surprisingly, most music pirates come from Iran today.
February 12th, 2024 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — February 9th, 2024

Appeals Court Hears RIAA and Yout in 'High Stakes' Stream-ripper Case
Do online services that allow users to download content from YouTube break the law? This question is at the center of a legal battle between Yout.com and the RIAA. Last year, the district court dismissed the case in favor of the music group, before getting properly started. The dispute is now at the Court of Appeals where YouTube's absence in this "big stakes" matter was repeatedly mentioned.
February 9th, 2024 — Source

Reddit beats film industry again, won't have to reveal pirates' IP addresses
Firms wanted seven years' worth of IP address logs on users who discussed piracy.
February 9th, 2024 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — February 7th, 2024

Lawsuit Accuses Anna's Archive of Hacking WorldCat, Stealing 2.2 TB Data
American nonprofit OCLC is known globally for its leading database of bibliographic records, WorldCat. A few months ago, many of these records were posted publicly by the shadow library search engine, Anna's Archive. OCLC believes that this is the result of a year-long hack and, with a lawsuit filed at an Ohio federal court, it demands damages.
February 7th, 2024 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — February 2nd, 2024

Lawsuit Targets Genshin Impact Hackers 'Akebi Group' & 'Crepe Team'
Members of two hacking groups allegedly responsible for the development and sale of Genshin Impact cheating software are being sued in Canada's Federal Court. The statement of claim, filed by publisher Cognosphere's HoYoverse entity, focuses on 'Akebi Group' & 'Crepe Team' and currently identifies just one defendant by name. Copyright infringement allegations dominate, including circumvention of technical measures.
February 2nd, 2024 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — February 1st, 2024

Jake Paul PPV Boxing Piracy Amnesty Misled The Public, Lawsuit Claims
In the wake of the Jake Paul versus Ben Askren fight in 2021, Triller filed a $100m lawsuit against entities that allegedly offered the event for free. In a subsequent media release, Triller said that to avoid being sued for $150K each, up to two million PPV pirates should step forward and voluntarily pay $49.99. As part of a long-running lawsuit against the H3 Podcast, Triller now faces allegations that its amnesty program aimed to deceive the public and smear the H3 Podcast.
February 1st, 2024 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — January 31st, 2024

ISP Suggests That Record Labels Can Sue Torrent Client Developers
Internet provider Grande Communications hopes to overturn a jury verdict that awarded $47 million in piracy damages to several record labels. The company argues that merely providing Internet services to pirates should not invoke liability. Others, including BitTorrent client developers and torrent site operators, are more directly related to piracy activity, the ISP notes.
January 31, 2024 — Source

World's Most Notorious Pirate Sites Listed in New USTR Report
The Office of the United States Trade Representative has published its annual overview of the world's most significant and problematic piracy websites. Familiar targets such as The Pirate Bay, Sci-Hub, and Fmovies, appear alongside major newcomers including rising force, Vegamovies. Despite enforcement action, 2embed remains on this year's list, joined by newcomer Aniwatch, the most-visited anime piracy site in the world.
January 31, 2024 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — January 29th, 2024

Viewing Illegal Streams: No Cautions, Fines or Arrests Say GM Police
After two UK regional police forces refused to supply information on the number of people cautioned, fined or arrested for simply watching illegal streams, this weekend it emerged that Greater Manchester Police received the same request and actually responded. For the years 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023, the number of people cautioned, fined and/or arrested for simply watching illegal streams was.....zero.
January 29, 2024 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — January 26th, 2024

Dish & Sling Sue 'Pirate' IPTV Operation For Circumventing Widevine DRM
DISH Network and Sling TV have filed a lawsuit against a pirate IPTV operation that allegedly made more than $20 million. The defendants, who allegedly worked with many resellers, stand accused of circumventing Widevine DRM and rebroadcasting channels without permission. The set-top boxes that served as gateways were sold through Amazon stores.
January 26, 2024 — Source

Police Website Offers Pirated Live Sports Streams as IPTV FOIA Requests Denied
Two regional police forces have rejected Freedom of Information Act requests seeking data relating to cautions, penalty notices, and arrests in connection with illegal streaming. Since there is no way to run a report to provide the information requested, each potential case would need to be manually reviewed; too expensive, according to police. Meanwhile, a third regional police force's website appears to have been transformed into an illegal sports streaming platform.
January 26, 2024 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — January 22nd, 2024

ACE Shuts Down Huge Football Piracy Ring, Total Destruction TBC
Right now, dozens of domains linked to live football piracy sites are redirecting to the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment. Domains began displaying the ACE seizure banner on Saturday and the list has been growing ever since. Once complete, ACE will quite rightly celebrate a significant win but unless those behind the sites have been taken out too, confirming total destruction may never be possible.
January 22, 2024 — Source

It's Copyright Week 2024: Join Us in the Fight for Better Copyright Law and Policy
We're taking part in Copyright Week, a series of actions and discussions supporting key principles that should guide copyright policy. Every day this week, various groups are taking on different elements of copyright law and policy, addressing what's at stake and what we need to do to make sure that copyright promotes creativity and innovation.
January 22, 2024 — Source

The Public Domain Benefits Everyone -- But Sometimes Copyright Holders Won't Let Go
Every January, we celebrate the addition of formerly copyrighted works to the public domain. You've likely heard that this year's crop of public domain newcomers includes Steamboat Willie, the 1928 cartoon that marked Mickey Mouse's debut. When something enters the public domain, you're free to copy, share, and remix it without fear of a copyright lawsuit.
January 22, 2024 — Source

Warner Bros. Wants Tumblr to Identify Beetlejuice 2 'Leaker'
The upcoming "Beetlejuice 2" film, starring Jenna Ortega and Winona Ryder, is scheduled to premiere in September. However, it appears that someone managed to get their hands on early footage, leaking an 'on set' photo on Tumblr. Warner Bros. is unhappy with this teaser and has obtained a DMCA subpoena, requiring Tumblr to identify the user in question.
January 22, 2024 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — January 19th, 2024

ACE Shuts Down Popular Pirate Sites, 27+ 'Instant Pirate Sites' Fall Over
The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment, in partnership with TrueVisions, Thailand's leading pay-tv provider, announced the shutdown of all domains associated with two popular pirate sites. ACE has labeled one of the targets a Piracy-as-a-Service (PaaS) platform, which enabled anyone to become an instant owner and operator of a pirate site. In this case, 'anyone' only applies to people with $225 to spend.
January 19, 2024 — Source

Vietnam's Pirate Site Blocklist Quietly Adds Torrent Sites
Vietnam has become a focal point in the international battle against online piracy. Rightsholders have repeatedly spurred on the government to take action and while grave concerns remain, Vietnam has recently expanded its site-blocking efforts by targeting popular torrent sites.
January 19, 2024 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — January 18th, 2024

Sky's Industrial-Scale Pirate IPTV Blocking Becomes a War of Attrition
Last summer, Sky TV obtained a somewhat mysterious pirate IPTV blocking injunction at the High Court in London. In the months up to November 2023, that led to UK ISPs blocking at least 400 IPTV domains/subdomains, potentially many more. Available data today suggests a perpetual war of attrition on an unprecedented scale. In the last four weeks alone, Sky blocked almost 4,200 IPTV service URLs; the pirates' response is simple: churn out more.
January 18, 2024 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — January 16th, 2024

BREIN Takes Down Virtual Pirate Streaming Worlds on VRChat
With technology developing at a rapid pace, virtual reality is expected to be a growth market for entertainment, including films. While it's a relatively small market today, pirates are already venturing into these new worlds, with anti-piracy organizations following closely behind.
January 16, 2024 — Source

JW Player Suffers Severe Traffic Loss After Dynamic Piracy Blocking Blunder
A piracy blocking injunction handed down by an Indian court last September appears to have cost video delivery service JW Player over half of its usual website traffic from visitors in India. Plaintiffs Star India, Hotstar and Disney+ Hotstar, initially requested ISP blocking against less than 10 websites. However, since the court issued a dynamic+ injunction, they were free to keep adding domains, JW Player's included. Instructions to unblock JW Player's domain were not issued until January 9, 2024.
January 16, 2024 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — January 15th, 2024

'£1m' Pirate TV Box Seller Avoids Prison Due to Private Prosecution Delays
A man who sold "thousands" of piracy-configured TV boxes to customers in the UK has avoided prison, despite claims he generated up to £1 million. Jordon Longbottom faced a private criminal prosecution brought by the Federation Against Copyright Theft but avoided a custodial sentence after the case failed to be brought in a timely fashion.
January 15, 2024 — Source

FrostWire Returns to Google Play Store After Music Industry Takedown
With millions of users, BitTorrent client FrostWire is no small player. The content-neutral download tool distances itself from piracy but following an Indian music industry complaint, it was unavailable in the Play Store for more than a month. The 'misunderstanding' was eventually resolved so to commemorate the comeback, FrostWire has just released a new update, dubbing it the "Ice Phoenix" release.
January 15, 2024 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — January 13th, 2024

Meta admits using pirated books to train AI, but won't pay for it
The company is preparing a fair use-based defense after using copyrighted material
January 13, 2024 — Source

Yandex Yanked The Pirate Bay From its Search Results?
The Pirate Bay is no longer the leading pirate site on the Internet, but it remains the most censored one. Similar to other search engines, Yandex appears to make it hard to find the notorious torrent site's official domain name in the top results. The motivation is unclear but other more popular pirate sites remain easy to find.
January 13, 2024 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — January 12th, 2024

Domain & IP Seizures in UK's Criminal Justice Bill Could Apply to Pirate Sites
Measures in the UK's Criminal Justice Bill currently range from criminalizing the homeless in the event their "rough sleeping" is deemed a nuisance, to outlawing 3D printer firearms templates. Also likely to be approved are provisions to suspend domain names and IP addresses when used for serious criminal purposes.
January 12, 2024 — Source

Tachiyomi Manga Reader: Threats Motivate Pirates & Boost Engagement
On January 2, contributors to the open source Tachiyomi manga reader project received legal threats from Kakao Entertainment. The orders were clear: destroy the project and ensure the deletion of all forks. The events of the next 10 days show that by selecting the 'wrong' target, freshly motivated pirates boost their engagement and content-neutral apps like Tachiyomi reap the benefits.
January 12, 2024 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — January 11th, 2024

Film Companies and Reddit Clash Again in Court over Anonymous Piracy Comments
Reddit finds itself in court again as film companies continue to seek information on the site's 'anonymous' users. The latest attempt focuses on IP addresses and doesn't request names, emails, or other registration details. The targeted users are not in legal trouble, the filmmaker clarifies, but Reddit believes that their First Amendment right to anonymous speech is at stake.
January 11, 2024 — Source

Meta Admits Use of 'Pirated' Book Dataset to Train AI
With AI initiatives developing at a rapid pace, copyright holders are on high alert. In addition to legislation, several currently ongoing lawsuits will help to define what's allowed and what isn't. Responding to a lawsuit from several authors, Meta now admits that it used portions of the Books3 dataset to train its Llama models. This dataset includes many pirated books.
January 11, 2024 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — January 10th, 2024

Hope For Hollywood? Vietnam Police Raid Movie Piracy Group, Three Arrested
Police in Vietnam say they have arrested three people behind at least three websites that offered pirated movies and anime content for online streaming. It's claimed that the alleged 30-year-old ringleader launched the operation in 2019 and was assisted by people he recruited online. Action of this type is rare in Vietnam and may offer Hollywood a glimmer of hope that a wider crackdown sits somewhere on the horizon.
January 10, 2024 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — January 9th, 2024

Pirate Sites Worldwide Face Emerging, Perpetual Threat of Domain Seizures
Pirate sites are facing an emerging and potentially global threat of domain name seizures that goes way beyond anything seen before. A pirate site blocking order obtained by the studios of the MPA in India encapsulates the incremental steps taken in recent years. The end result is so expansive that almost any site offering the studios' content, even that yet to be made, could face perpetual domain name suspensions. No matter where they are in the world.
January 9, 2024 — Source

Video Piracy Visits Rose to 141 Billion in 2023, Report Shows
In 2023 there were over 141 billion visits to pirate sites worldwide, with the United States and India identified as the top traffic sources. New data published by piracy tracking firm MUSO and consulting firm Kearney further shows that movie and TV show piracy remains dominant. The report is limited to video content, which appears to have increased globally in recent years.
January 9, 2024 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — January 8th, 2024

Could Piracy Help Netflix Win the Streaming Wars?
Online video streaming services face fierce competition from online piracy. The same platforms are engaged in an online battle for subscribers with legitimate competitors. In the U.S. and many other countries, Netflix has a commanding lead in these streaming wars. Intriguingly, piracy may be an unintentional 'secret weapon' for Netflix.
January 8, 2024 — Source

DAZN DMCA Notice Hits Pluto TV Playlist Linking to DAZN's Own Streams
A DMCA takedown notice sent by DAZN to a host in the U.S. shows that even a complainant's own content, being made available legally from official servers, can be implicated as pirated content to justify the takedown of something else. The target in this case is a popular Pluto TV playlist but the legal basis for removal as cited in the takedown notice demands patience and a very open mind.
January 8, 2024 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — January 7th, 2024

Disney's 'Steamboat Willie' YouTube copyright claim is back, this time for audio
The public domain saga continues.
January 7, 2024 — Source

How Seized Firesticks in a Plastic Bag Opened Up a Pirate Rabbit Hole
When piracy-related news is delivered via press release, the information provided is rarely enough to fully understand the bigger picture. Whether for legal or commercial reasons, details can be frustratingly scarce or in some cases, simply a bit one-sided. That means looking for more interesting information elsewhere or even stumbling upon it, completely by chance.
January 7, 2024 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — January 5th, 2024

Disney backs down from 'Steamboat Willie' YouTube copyright claim
The company tacitly acknowledges that 'Steamboat Willie' is in the public domain.
January 5, 2024 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — December 29th, 2023

Are Pirated Movie Screeners Off Limits Since the EVO Bust?
A decade ago, nearly all screener copies of all Oscar-nominated films leaked online. Today, these types of screener leaks are non-existent. Changes in the movie industry contributed to this change but the bust of piracy group EVO a year ago had a big impact too. The group's suspected leader was arrested in Portugal and others are still under investigation.
December 29, 2023 — Source

Internet — Podcast — December 28th, 2023

2023 Apple year in review: iPhone 15, 15-inch MacBook Air, Vision Pro unveiling, and more
Benjamin and Chance look back on the year in Apple news, assessing the state of the iPhone, iPad, Mac, and the rest of Apple's product lineup in light of the 2023 releases, and what is rumored to come in 2024.
December 28, 2023 — Source

How We Chose Our Games Of The Year | GI Show
In this week's episode of The Game Informer Show we discuss our game and games of the year, the best and brightest feature (currently in the Final Fantasy VII Rebirth issue of the magazine), and just generally recap all the discussions that went it how that annual feature comes together.
December 28, 2023 — Source or Watch Video

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — December 28th, 2023

ACE Has Prepared a Huge List of Pirate Sites it Wants to Shut Down in 2024
At a time when hundreds of millions of people in North America, Latin America, Europe, and beyond had little but Christmas on their minds, MPA & ACE were deciding which platforms to target in 2024. Their latest list of streaming, hosting, torrent and other platforms is not only substantial, but almost certainly represents just the tip of a very large iceberg.
December 28, 2023 — Source

The Last of Us Was the Most-Pirated Show of 2023
Sci-fi streaming shows dominated the list of the most-pirated shows this year, with Pedro Pascal headlining a one-two hit between Last of Us and Mandalorian.
December 28, 2023 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — December 27th, 2023

'Strike 3' Files Record Number of Piracy Lawsuits in 2023
Strike 3 Holdings continues to raise the bar when it comes to the number of piracy lawsuits filed in U.S. federal courts. This year, the adult entertainment company has already filed a record-breaking 3,465 cases. With potential settlements of hundreds or thousands of dollars each, this can be quite a lucrative business.
December 27, 2023 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — December 24th, 2023

ISP Linked to Premier League & La Liga Piracy Arrests Clears Up App "Confusion"
Two suspects said to be involved in the supply of illegal IPTV streams have been arrested following a raid at an ISP. An investigation concluded that illicit content, including Premier League and La Liga matches, was made available to thousands via an app bundled with internet subscriptions. In a statement, the ISP aimed to clear up "some confusion" but whether that will be enough is up for debate.
December 24, 2023 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — December 23rd, 2023

"90% of All Pirated Films are Recorded in Movie Theaters"
In the streaming age, most films are never shown in movie theaters. Despite this fact, we recently saw the claim that "90 percent of all pirated films are illegally recorded in theaters". This mythical statistic, which is clearly incorrect today, first appeared online roughly two decades ago when counterfeit DVDs were still in fashion.
December 23, 2023 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — December 22nd, 2023

Authors & Copyright Scholars Back 'Internet Archive' in Landmark Legal Battle
A copyright lawsuit filed by several major publishers puts the future of the Internet Archive's scan-and-lend library at risk. In a recent appeal, the non-profit organization argued that its solution is protected fair use and critical to preserving digital books. This position is shared by copyright scholars, the Authors Alliance, and other supporters now backing IA in court.
December 22, 2023 — Source

Canal+ Demands €7,000,000 From Streaming Pirate, Court Awards €60,000
Despite being ordered to pay around €60,000 by a French court this week, a farmworker who previously ran a pirate streaming service may have dodged a bullet. According to calculations presented by broadcasting giant Canal+, users of the site who clocked up 1.495 million visits avoided paying around 100 euros per month each to access the content legally. The court rejected the company's €7,200,000 claim but will Canal+ accept the court's decision?
December 22, 2023 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — December 21st, 2023

"Home Alone" Enjoys Seasonal Piracy Spike as Christmas Draws Near
After 33 years, "Home Alone" remains one of the most watched movies around Christmas. The film is also the absolute favorite Christmas classic on pirate sites. Newly collected data show that the seasonal interest begins at the end of November and typically reaches its peak at the end of the year.
December 21, 2023 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — December 19th, 2023

Google to pay $700 million in Play Store settlement
A bunch of U.S. states and districts said Google isn't playing fair.
December 19, 2023 — Source

PornHub Sister Company Seeks Piracy Blocking Order & $21m Damages
Pornhub sister company MG Premium hopes to shut down the copyright-infringing tube site Goodporn. Following a bizarre court battle, the company is requesting a default judgment of more than $21 million. MG Premium also seeks an injunction that would require hosting companies, search engines, and other intermediaries to block the site's domain names.
December 19, 2023 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — December 18th, 2023

Internet Archive: Digital Lending is Fair Use, Not Copyright Infringement
Internet Archive has filed its opening brief in its appeal of a court ruling which found its digital lending program copyright-infringing. The Archive believes the decision should be reversed on the grounds that its lending activities amount to fair use. Founder Brewster Kahle believes the legal battle is vital for the future of all libraries in the United States and around the world.
December 18, 2023 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — December 12th, 2023

BeStreamWise 'Piracy=Malware' Campaign Site Blocked By Security Vendors
The BeStreamWise anti-piracy campaign run by Sky, Premier League, FACT, ITV, CrimeStoppers, and the UK Intellectual Property Office, aims to deter piracy by linking illegal streaming services with criminality and malware. In an ironic twist, multiple security vendors are flagging the campaign's website for suspected suspicious activity. On closer inspection, this unusual and unlikely situation may pre-date the campaign's official launch.
December 12, 2023 — Source

Music Piracy Remains a Widespread Problem, Particularly in Emerging Countries
Music industry group IFPI has released its latest music consumption report, revealing that people are listening to more music in more ways than ever before. The report also stresses that piracy remains a threat. The problem is most pronounced in emerging countries, where well over half of the online population pirates music.
December 12, 2023 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — December 8th, 2023

DNS Resolver Quad9 Wins Pirate Site Blocking Appeal Against Sony
DNS-resolver Quad9 has won its appeal against Sony Music's pirate site-blocking order at the Higher Regional Court in Dresden. The non-profit Quad9 Foundation no longer has to block pirate sites. The court concluded that it can't be held liable, since DNS resolvers don't play a central role in copyright infringing activities. Meanwhile, trouble is brewing in Italy.
December 08, 2023 — Source

Piracy Shield: Pirate IPTV Killer Goes Live, No Casualties to Report....Yet
A new law passed in Italy during the summer promised a new dawn in the war against pirate IPTV providers. It soon transpired that Piracy Shield, the all-new, massively hyped anti-piracy system poised and ready to eliminate piracy had a minor flaw; it wasn't actually ready. By law, it had to launch yesterday, and reportedly it did just that, albeit with a couple of tiny caveats....
December 08, 2023 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — December 5th, 2023

Cloudflare Applauds Court for Rejecting DNS Piracy Blocking Order
Cloudflare applauds a recent decision from a Higher Court in Germany, which ruled that DNS resolvers are not liable for online piracy. The ruling is a key victory in an ongoing legal fight over the responsibilities of online intermediaries. According to Cloudflare, broad DNS blocking orders are not just ineffective but also disproportionate.
December 5, 2023 — Source

Legal Manga App User Banned After Taking 'Fraudulent Screenshots'
A user of a legal manga app operated by one of Japan's largest publishers claims they were locked out of the service after being accused of fraudulent activity. While using Shueisha's YanJan! app, the user's smartphone began vibrating before displaying a message that their account had been suspended. It was later confirmed that taking screenshots, even inadvertently, can lead to being banned.
December 5, 2023 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — December 4th, 2023

Movie Companies Sue Lawyer in Dispute Over Piracy Settlement Cash
Movie companies behind The Expendables, Olympus Has Fallen, and The Hitman's Bodyguard, have built a reputation for tracking down thousands of BitTorrent users in pursuit of cash settlements. In a rare case that could provide an even rarer glimpse behind the scenes of an industrial-scale settlement operation, the movie companies are now suing a lawyer who acted for them in a large number of settlement cases.
December 4, 2023 — Source

Record Labels Urge Court to Uphold $47 Million Piracy Liability Verdict
In 2022, a group of major recording labels won $47 million in damages from Internet provider Grande Communications. The ISP appealed the verdict, challenging the evidence and the liability claims. However, according to the music companies, Grande can't escape responsibility for infringement since it willingly profited from pirating subscribers.
December 4, 2023 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — December 1st, 2023

Bungie Wins Powerful Disclosure Order to Identify Anonymous Cheat Makers
In a lawsuit filed early August targeting cheat operation Ring-1, Bungie warned that the "wholesale assault" on Destiny 2 would have consequences for those involved. With up to 50 Ring-1 developers, marketers, and customer support staff in Bungie's crosshairs, some have already been identified. An order handed down by a Washington court this week, one of the broadest ever seen in a case of this type, requires dozens of major platforms to help identify the remainder.
December 1, 2023 — Source

Pirate Bay URL Disappears from Google Knowledge Panel in 'Blocked' Regions
In dozens of countries around the world, The Pirate Bay and other deviant sites are blocked by ISPs. The underlying court orders and other legal mechanisms are intended to make it harder for people to access pirate sites. To help with this, Google removed thepiratebay.org from its search results in regions where it's already blocked. This ban apparently applies to Google's 'knowledge panels,' from which the site's problematic URL is carefully stripped.
December 1, 2023 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — November 30th, 2023

ICANN Simplifies Requests For Hidden Domain Name Registration Data
ICANN has launched a new service which aims to simplify requests for domain name registration data currently unavailable to the public. The Registration Data Request Service (RDRS) aims to provide a "simple and standardized" process for interested parties, including IP professionals, to obtain data previously available via public WHOIS databases.
November 30, 2023 — Source

Malware Threats Can Be An Effective Anti-Piracy Strategy, Research Suggests
Most people know that they shouldn't stream or download pirated content. However, legal and moral arguments are often insufficient to deter prospective pirates. In recent years anti-piracy campaigns have started to focus on malware and other security threats instead. New research suggests that that can be quite effective.
November 30, 2023 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — November 29th, 2023

Site Blocking Fallout Keeps GitHub Unusable for Some Indians
Website blocking is used in dozens of countries to prevent the public from easily accessing pirate sites. This is also true in India, where many thousands of sites have been rendered inaccessible, including developer platform GitHub. While the underlying court order was reversed many months ago, some Indians continue to have trouble accessing parts of the website.
November 29, 2023 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — November 28th, 2023

Google Bans 'Downloader' Again Following Markscan DMCA Notice
Close to seven years online and after more than 50 million installs, in May 2023 Android app 'Downloader' was removed from Google Play following a baseless copyright complaint. The app was restored three weeks later by which time Downloader had lost almost half its userbase. A few hours ago, Google suspended Downloader again in response to a substantially deficient takedown notice filed by anti-piracy outfit Markscan.
November 28, 2023 — Source

Shopify Files Fresh Lawsuit over DMCA Takedown Harassment
At the peak of the online shopping season, Canadian e-commerce giant Shopify filed a new lawsuit to take a stand against DMCA abuse. The company filed a complaint at a Florida federal court, accusing an Orlando resident of filing dozens of false takedown notices, allegedly to advance their own commercial interests.
November 28, 2023 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — November 27th, 2023

Court: Cloudflare is Liable for Pirate Site, But Not as a DNS Provider
The Cologne Higher Regional Court in Germany has confirmed that Cloudflare's CDN must stop facilitating access to the (defunct) pirate music site DDL-Music. Failing to do so makes the company liable. The company doesn't have to take any measures on its public DNS resolver, however, since the Court ruled that the service operates in a purely passive, automatic and neutral manner.
November 27, 2023 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — November 24th, 2023

File-Sharing Giant Uloz.to Bans File-Sharing Citing EU's Digital Services Act
File-sharing and hosting giant Ulož has announced a radical change to its business model. The Czech site has been under fire for some time and was recently branded a 'notorious market' by the MPA. However, Ulož says that an imminent ban on file-sharing in favor of a private, cloud-based storage model, is due to the strict conditions imposed by the EU's Digital Services Act.
November 24, 2023 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — November 22nd, 2023

ISP Optimum Questions 'Evidence' For Billion Dollar Piracy Lawsuit
Internet provider Optimum faces a billion-dollar damages claim for allegedly turning a blind eye to pirating subscribers. These allegations are made by several music companies based on evidence provided by tracking company Rightscorp. Optimum is not convinced that the evidence is reliable and accurate; the ISP also questions Rightscorp's business practices.
November 22, 2023 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — November 21st, 2023

Cloudflare Blocks Abusive Content on its Ethereum Gateway
Cloudflare is a content-neutral Internet infrastructure service. The company aims not to interfere with the traffic of its clients and users but, in some cases, it has to take action. This means responding to DMCA subpoenas and takedown requests for hosted content, for example. In addition, Cloudflare now reports it has blocked access to 'abusive' content on its Ethereum gateway.
November 21, 2023 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — November 20th, 2023

Hollywood to UK Govt: Investigating Pirates "Increasingly Difficult"
The UK government's Culture, Media and Sport Committee is conducting an inquiry into the challenges faced by the film and high-end television industry. Submissions by the Motion Picture Association and member studios praise the UK for its "gold standard" IP framework but then complain that it's becoming "increasingly difficult" to identify pirates using services in the UK.
November 20, 2023 — Source

Star Trek Fan Blog Triggers New Entry in Automattic's DMCA "Hall of Shame"
For Star Trek fans, 'La Sirena' refers to the Kaplan F17 Speed Freighter that was prominently featured in the 'Picard' series. For people more interested in adult content, 'La Sirena' (69) is associated with a Venezuelan actress. The differences are clear but takedown company DMCA Piracy Prevention has trouble distinguishing between the two, which motivated Tumblr's parent company Automattic to add the outfit to its DMCA "Hall of Shame".
November 20, 2023 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — November 17th, 2023

Dozens of VPNs & Shadowsocks Named in Leaked Russian Blocking Document
A document originating from Russia's Ministry of Transport shines more light on the government's plans to crack down on encryption tools that help people to evade monitoring and censorship. The leaked document lists dozens of VPN service targets and, for the first time, open source encryption protocol Shadowsocks, best known for its ability to evade firewalls, one in China especially.
November 17, 2023 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — November 10th, 2023

BitTorrent Pirates Won't Receive ISP Warnings (It Will Be Something Worse)
As part of its overall strategy to reduce piracy in the Netherlands, local anti-piracy group BREIN announced a program to identify major or frequent uploaders by their IP addresses so that warnings could be sent via their ISPs. Under this system, user identities would not have been obtained by BREIN, but after a local ISP refused to cooperate and BREIN's request to proceed was denied twice in court, BREIN had a decision to make. (SPOILER: It's bad news for pirates)
November 10, 2023 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — November 9th, 2023

Police Arrest Pirate Site Operators Following 3-Year Investigation
Following a three-year investigation involving a prosecutor's office, a police economic crime unit, and a regional police force, three men linked to piracy portal Ogladaj (Watch) have been arrested in Poland. Police say they seized luxury cars, silver bars, cryptocurrency and cash. Other crimes that make the prosecution much more intriguing are mentioned in much less detail.
November 9, 2023 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — November 7th, 2023

Relentless Genshin Impact Leakers Face Cognosphere's Attorneys Yet Again
Genshin Impact publisher Cognosphere has gone to court in the United States multiple times hoping to obtain the identities of people who deliberately leak details of game updates ahead of the official schedule. The company went to court again yesterday, this time focusing on four Twitter accounts posting leaked content that went on to be viewed hundreds of thousands of times.
November 7, 2023 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — November 6th, 2023

Naver Webtoon: "150 Pirate Sites Shut Down" After Cloudflare DMCA Subpoena
In October we revealed details of a DMCA subpoena application filed by Naver Webtoon in the United States which listed over 350 'pirate' domains offering the company's comics illegally. Late last week, Naver suggested that after obtaining site operators' personal details from Cloudflare, around 150 sites with 2.5 billion annual visits subsequently shut down. While that's a huge claim, just one of those sites accounted for three quarters of a billion visits.
November 6, 2023 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — November 3rd, 2023

YTMP3 Wants Google to Identify Alleged DMCA Fraudsters
YTMP3.nu, one of the largest YouTube ripping sites on the web, has requested Google's help to identify senders of allegedly fraudulent takedown notices. The site's parent company CreativeCode hopes the search engine can provide additional information to identify the suspected fraudsters, who are being sued in a California federal court.
November 3, 2023 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — November 2nd, 2023

ACE & Georgian Govt. Shut Down Pirate Sites Already "Shut Down" Last Year
It's clear that the Eastern European country of Georgia must dramatically reduce its 90%+ piracy rates to have any chance of joining the EU. The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment has just announced that in partnership with local government, two of the largest pirate sites in Georgia were recently "shut down."
November 2, 2023 — Source

Police Dismantle Pirate IPTV Operation, Bogus "€366m Losses" Claim Goes Viral
Press releases published today by Spain's National Police and the Ministry of the Interior celebrated the dismantling of a pirate IPTV operation, the arrest of eight suspects, and alleged losses to rightsholders of €366.25 million. In dozens of local and international news reports, this 'official' figure is cited verbatim. We have zero faith in it, and we aren't alone.
November 2, 2023 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — October 31st, 2023

Russia Blocks 167 VPNs, Steps Up OpenVPN & WireGuard Disruption
The head of the Russian department responsible for identifying threats to the "stability, security and integrity" of the internet, has revealed the extent of the Kremlin's VPN crackdown. Former FSO officer Sergei Khutortsev, a central figure in Russia's 'sovereign internet' project, confirmed that 167 VPN services are now blocked along with over 200 email services.
October 31, 2023 — Source

State Attorneys General Warn Public About Piracy Scams and Malware
In a series of new public service announcements, several state attorneys general are warning the public that some very bad actors are exploiting pirate sites to distribute ransomware and steal credit card information. The Digital Citizens Alliance is a driving force behind the campaign, which aims to keep the public away from pirate sites and services.
October 31, 2023 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — October 30th, 2023

Brazil Regulator Claims "80% of Pirate TV Boxes" Were Blocked Last Week
Brazil's telecoms regulator Anatel claims that during an operation last week, it successfully blocked around 80% of pirate 'TV boxes' in the country. Estimates from early 2023 suggest that seven million were active in Brazil. The operation, claimed to be the most significant ever carried out, arrives just weeks after Google & Cisco were criticized for "turning a blind eye" to the IPTV piracy problem.
October 30, 2023 — Source

Dutch Fiscal Police Win "Anti-Piracy Award" for Shutting Down IPTV Datacenter
The Audiovisual Anti-Piracy Alliance has announced the winner of its annual "Anti-Piracy Award." At this year's Europol IP Crime conference, the honors went to the Dutch fiscal police (FIOD) for its efforts to combat IPTV piracy. FIOD took down a large-scale IPTV operation earlier this year which impacted over a million subscribers and took an entire datacenter with more than 1,200 servers offline.
October 30, 2023 — Source

The tides have turned: there's been a post-pandemic piracy revival
But don't blame Covid
October 30, 2023 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — October 27th, 2023

Lithuania's Media Watchdog Fines Over Two Dozen 'Private' Torrent Tracker Users
Lithuania's Radio and Television Commission (LRTK) is using newly gained legal authority to penalize online pirates. This new power has resulted in several rulings already and this week the media watchdog upped the ante by issuing more than two dozen monetary fines. All targets were identified through their IP-addresses and linked to the private torrent tracker Linkomanija.
October 27, 2023 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — October 26th, 2023

Record Labels Shut Down FileWarez, Brazil's Oldest Pirate Forum
When FileWarez appeared online in 2004, MySpace was about to become the next big thing. Two weeks ago FileWarez was suddenly gone; no forum, no Discord, no Telegram. Even the site's moderators seemed confused. Global music industry group IFPI now confirms that with their assistance, Brazil's Cyber Gaeco unit forced FileWarez to shut down after more than 19 years online.
October 26, 2023 — Source

WatchWrestling.ai Taps Outs Due to ACE/DAZN Tag Team Piracy Piledriver
The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment, in close cooperation with broadcaster and ACE member, DAZN, say they have shut down pirate streaming platform, WatchWrestling.ai. According to ACE, the ring of related wrestling sites generated over a quarter billion visits over the past year, but after their owner was tracked down in India, he was forced to tap out.
October 26, 2023 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — October 24th, 2023

Naver Webtoon Targets Hundreds of Piracy Sites Ahead of Public Listing
Kim Junkoo, CEO of Webtoon Entertaiment, a division of South Korean tech giant Naver, recently said that rivals such as Amazon and Apple will struggle to compete with his company in the short-form comic sector. Ahead of a potential U.S. listing, Kim told Reuters that if 'Big Tech' is serious, "they'd have to buy us out." In parallel, Webtoon appears to be quietly laying the groundwork to tackle less-discussed competition; hundreds of pirate sites offering the company's content for free.
October 24, 2023 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — October 23rd, 2023

Gaming Companies Flag 'Highly Skilled Hackers' as Emerging Piracy Threat
The Entertainment Software Association, which represents several major gaming companies, has compiled an overview of Notorious 'Pirate' Markets. The group lists a variety of problematic sites and services, including 1fichier.com, unknowncheats.me, and 1337x.to. In addition, highly skilled hackers, repackers, and abuse of cryptocurrency are flagged as emerging piracy problems.
October 23, 2023 — Source

Sky Asked Govt. to Target Pirate IPTV Resellers via New Dedicated Police Unit
The chief executive of Sky TV in Ireland met with a government minister in May 2023 requesting the formation of a "dedicated anti-piracy unit" to crack down on the sale of pirate IPTV subscriptions. Correspondence seen by local media indicates that Sky advised that "at least two detectives" would be needed to tackle dozens of subscription resellers across Ireland.
October 23, 2023 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — October 20th, 2023

Shopify Files Lawsuit over Illegal DMCA Takedown Abuse
E-commerce platform Shopify is suing a 'John Doe' defendant for sending numerous false copyright complaints. The DMCA takedown notices have targeted a variety of vendors, who had their legitimate products taken offline as a result of the fraudulent actions. In addition, these vendors risked losing their entire accounts due to multiple false claims.
October 20, 2023 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — October 19th, 2023

Bad Pirate IPTV User! Mandatory PSA Targets Uninformed "Common Man"
In addition to preventing pirate IPTV services from being watched anywhere in the country, a new Italian law requires authorities to run educational anti-piracy awareness campaigns. Released this week, the first PSA uses a famous Italian footballer to inform the "common man" that piracy has consequences. As things stand, he has absolutely no idea what he's doing.
October 19, 2023 — Source

Kiwi Farms' Copyright Battle Could Spell Bad News for DMCA Transparency
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit has concluded that Kiwi Farms operator Joshua Moon can be held liable for copyright infringement. The highly controversial site previously refused to remove links to infringing content in response to DMCA notices. While this inaction doesn't automatically lead to liability, the appeals court concludes that posting and mocking the notices can.
October 19, 2023 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — October 18th, 2023

Popular Torrent Tracker FileList Saved From Demise
Last weekend, popular torrent tracker FileList announced that it would soon shut its doors forever. A change in life priorities and an absence of trusted and skilled successors were mentioned as the main reasons. The decision triggered an outpouring of support and two people have stepped forward to keep the site going. This includes "God", one of FileList's original founders.
October 18, 2023 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — October 17th, 2023

Court Orders Torrent Site Operators to Pay €489 Million in Piracy Damages
Two people connected to T411, once France's most-visited torrent site, have been handed prison sentences by a Criminal Court in Rennes. The pair, who were tracked down through PayPal records and IP-addresses, are also on the hook for 489 million euros in piracy damages. One of the defendants, a Ukrainian sysop living in Sweden, informs TorrentFreak that he will appeal the judgement.
October 17, 2023 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — October 16th, 2023

Private Torrent Tracker FileList to Shut Down After 16 Years
One of the world's largest private BitTorrent trackers, Filelist, has announced it will shut down soon. The site has been in operation for sixteen years and enjoys millions of monthly visits, mostly from Romania. Site admin EboLLa has chosen to devote time to other parts of life and without a trusted successor, it's best to close the doors.
October 16, 2023 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — October 13th, 2023

Pirate Sites Exploit 'Interplanetary File System' Gateways, Publishers Warn
The Association of American Publishers has shared its overview of notorious piracy markets with the U.S. Trade Representative. The organization sees shadow libraries, including LibGen and Sci-Hub, as key problems, with the relatively new meta-search engine Anna's Archive also getting a mention. Third-party intermediaries pose problems too, the publishers note, with abuse of the Interplanetary File System (IPFS) as a growing concern.
October 13, 2023 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — October 12th, 2023

Pirate IPTV Owners Sentenced to 36 Months in Prison & $18m Damages
Two men who operated a pirate IPTV service have been handed 36-month prison sentences by a specialist IP court in Sweden. Anonymous tips led to an investigation, police surveillance including wiretapping, and subsequent raids which netted 47 gold bars and sufficient evidence for two convictions. The men were also ordered to pay broadcasters over $18 million in damages.
October 12, 2023 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — October 11th, 2023

Hollywood and Netflix Flag 'Priority' Piracy Threats
The Motion Picture Association (MPA) has submitted its latest overview of 'notorious' foreign piracy markets to the US Trade Representative. The Pirate Bay and other usual suspects secured entries and for the very first time, the MPA also highlights priority concerns; streaming site Fmovies, video hosting service DoodStream, plus IPTV software WHMCS Smarters.
October 11, 2023 — Source

RIAA wants AI voice cloning sites on government piracy watchlist
The recording association suggested the US government add the website Voicify to its list of potential piracy markets
October 11, 2023 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — October 10th, 2023

Genshin Impact: Major Private Server Dev Faces DMCA Subpoenas
The developer of Genshin Impact has filed DMCA subpoena applications against GitHub, YouTube, and Spartan Host, hoping to unmask an individual connected to the largest private server provider in China. Since player progress gained unofficially upsets Cognosphere's business model, a crackdown isn't unexpected. The fact that the developer could be identified over five allegedly infringing screenshots comes as much more of a surprise.
October 10, 2023 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — October 6th, 2023

Encrypted Client Hello (ECH) Effectively Defeats Pirate Site Blocking
Cloudflare has enabled Encrypted Client Hello for all customers on free plans, which includes many pirate sites. The new privacy feature makes it impossible for Internet providers to track which websites subscribers visit. As a result, it also renders pirate site-blocking efforts useless, if both the site and the visitor have ECH enabled.
October 6, 2023 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — October 5th, 2023

"€25m Profit" Pirate IPTV Group Dismantled, 10 Arrested, 12 Vehicles Seized
Greek police say they have dismantled a criminal organization behind an illegal IPTV operation that caused broadcasters over €100m in losses. Over eight years it's alleged the operators generated over €25 million in profits, laundered money through a network of companies, while investing in real estate and other luxuries. Ten men were arrested and a dozen cars plus €100k+ in cash was seized.
October 5, 2023 — Source

Popular "AI Hub" Discord Taken Down Following Copyright Complaints
In just a few months, "AI Hub" became a massively popular Discord server with over half a million members. While copyright infringement was strictly forbidden, not all users stuck to the rules. This previously raised the attention of the RIAA, and now appears to have caused the server's downfall after it was suddenly shut down.
October 5, 2023 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — October 3rd, 2023

Anna's Archive Scraped WorldCat to Help Preserve 'All' Books in the World
Anna's Archive scraped WorldCat, the world's largest library catalog, in an effort to help preserve digital copies of every book in the world. The meta search engine is well aware of the legal risks but believes that these are well worth taking to preserve the written legacy of humanity. In addition, the archive's database has gained interest from AI developers and LLM teams too.
October 3, 2023 — Source

BeStreamWise: New IPTV Anti-Piracy Campaign Begins With Fake Site 'Scam'
A new awareness campaign to deter use of pirate IPTV services has launched with curiously little fanfare. The BeStreamWise portal opens with the statement "Illegal Streams Let Criminals In" and even has its own fake IPTV service called MalStreams. The campaign is being orchestrated by Sky, Premier League, FACT, ITV, CrimeStoppers, and the UK Intellectual Property Office, among others.
October 3, 2023 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — October 2nd, 2023

"Mission Impossible" Leak with Chinese Connection Floods Pirate Sites
The latest installment of the Mission Impossible franchise has its digital release scheduled for next week, but high quality copies of the film are already circulating on numerous pirate sites. After the movie's theatrical release was previously pushed back by the COVID-19 pandemic, this pirate leak also comes with a prominent Chinese connection.
October 2, 2023 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — September 29th, 2023

Disclosure of Pirates' Identities "Compatible With EU Privacy Laws"
The top legal advisor to Europe's highest court says that the retention and disclosure of suspected pirates' identifying information is compatible with EU privacy laws. Advocate General Szpunar's opinion is presented as a legal solution to a long-running legal complaint that accuses France of violating fundamental rights as part of its graduated response anti-piracy program.
September 29, 2023 — Source

RIAA Ramps Up Efforts to Remove Music Download Apps from Google Play
Over the past month, the RIAA has sent dozens of takedown notices to Google, asking the company to remove problematic apps from its Android app store. The targeted apps advertise themselves as music download tools. This includes the popular "Video and Music Downloader" app that was downloaded more than five million times.
September 29, 2023 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — September 26th, 2023

Filmmakers Distribute Fake Movie Leak to Tease Pirates
The Indian media is buzzing over a 'leak' of the comedy movie "Fukrey 3," which is scheduled for an official premiere later this week. While several news outlets are in on the joke, prospective pirates will be disappointed. The two-and-a-half hour release turns out to be an anti-piracy campaign, complemented with movie trailers.
September 26, 2023 — Source

Russia's Manga Pirates Face Publisher's Lawsuit & Increasing State Censorship
After failing to take action following complaints from a new manga platform established in Russia by South Korea, manga piracy site ReManga will reportedly face legal action. With around 18 million visits each month, ReManga is certainly popular, but copyright lawsuits aren't the only threat. Rising state censorship means that illegal and legal platforms alike face potential ISP blocking.
September 26, 2023 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — September 25th, 2023

Romi's Revenge: Notorious Manga Pirate Launches Explosive Book, Demands Retrial
In 2021, Romi Hoshino was sentenced to three years in prison for operating Mangamura, the world's most notorious manga piracy site. Freed last year, the 31-year-old will release a book tomorrow which promises to tell the real story of his prosecution while exposing Japan's judicial problems. Twenty-four hours later, Hoshino will demand a retrial: "This time, we're aiming for the world."
September 25, 2023 — Source

X Clearly Profits from Widespread Music Piracy, Labels Argue
A group of major music publishers insist that Elon Musk's X is liable for the widespread music piracy that takes place on its platform. X asked the court to dismiss their lawsuit, but the music companies say the social media platform is clearly in the wrong. With roughly $250 million in damages on the line, this legal battle should run its course, they argue.
September 25, 2023 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — September 22nd, 2023

Terminate Future Piracy? You're Talking About Things I Haven't Done Yet
Sites subjected to a DMCA takedown notice should consider removing the content in question or contesting the claim. But consider this scenario. To reduce piracy, Google accepts DMCA takedown notices for URLs that don't yet exist in its indexes. So what happens if you receive a 'future piracy' notice that's clearly bogus?
September 22, 2023 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — September 21st, 2023

Sports Streaming Domain Sidelined Following Court Order
The domain names of several sports streaming sites stopped resolving yesterday. According to domain privacy company Njalla, an Indian court order forced its hand. However, the aftermath of the action isn't as broad as it initially appeared. As time passed by, Freestreams-live1.top is the only remaining target we were able to identify.
September 21, 2023 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — September 20th, 2023

Advertising on Pirate Sites Outlawed in Ukraine Under New Law
Under a new law set to be enforced early October, placing advertising on pirate sites will be outlawed in Ukraine. Signed earlier this year by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the legislation targets sites that appear on the World Intellectual Property Organization's WIPO Alert blacklist for systematically ignoring takedown demands.
September 20, 2023 — Source

Uptobox Goes Dark Following Police Raids on French Datacenters
In a tweet posted this morning, file-hosting platform Uptobox said that it was investigating a technical problem that had "seriously disrupted" its network. News of police raids at two French datacenters followed shortly after. According to an early report, a French court authorized the operation in response to a complaint filed by major Hollywood studios, StudioCanal, Apple and Amazon.
September 20, 2023 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — September 19th, 2023

Piracy Shield: 'Insane' IPTV Blocking System Revealed (and Easily Located)
Given the scale of the hype, Italy's upcoming pirate IPTV blocking system seems unlikely to meet expectations. Although late and reportedly nowhere near ready, it has been given a name. Screenshots of 'Piracy Shield' obtained by an Italian website are interesting but deliberately give little away for security reasons. 'Luckily', what appears to be the platform's web portal can be located in seconds.
September 19, 2023 — Source

The Pirate Bay Celebrates Its 20th Anniversary
Founded in 2003 by a collective of hackers and activists, the small Swedish BitTorrent tracker grew to become a global icon for online piracy. The rebellious torrent site has a turbulent history and clashed with law enforcement authorities on multiple occasions. Despite these setbacks, it remains online today.
September 19, 2023 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — September 15th, 2023

Publishers' Lawsuit Accuses Libgen of "Staggering" Copyright Infringement
Cengage, Macmillan Learning, McGraw Hill and Pearson Education have filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Library Genesis, a major 'shadow library' also known as Libgen. The publishers can't currently identify the site's operators but believe they are likely based overseas. Citing "staggering" levels of infringement, the companies are seeking damages and an order that will allow them to seize the site's domains or put them out of action.
September 15, 2023 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — September 14th, 2023

'Home Confined' Z-Library Defendants Deny They Are Fugitives
Last year, the U.S. indicted two Russians who stand accused of operating the book piracy site Z-Library. Anton Napolsky and Valeriia Ermakova were arrested in Argentina, where they are currently 'home confined' pending their extradition battle. Meanwhile, their lawyers are trying to convince a New York federal court to dismiss the case for a myriad of reasons.
September 14, 2023 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — September 13th, 2023

Bungie's Copyright Infringement Claim Against AimJunkies Fails to Convince Court
Game developer Bungie has failed to convince the court that cheat seller AimJunkies infringed its "Destiny 2" copyrights and trademarks. Judge Thomas Zilly denied the motions for summary judgment, which means that the issues are now ripe for trial, if the case gets that far. According to AimJunkies' lawyer, the day of reckoning is near.
September 13, 2023 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — September 12th, 2023

ACE Takes Aim at Zoro.to Successor Aniwatch.to
Earlier this year, the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment shut down one of the largest piracy sites, Zoro.to. The anti-piracy group struck a deal with its Vietnamese operator, who also ran the popular 2Embed service. Shortly before shutting down, Zoro.to was 'acquired' by Aniwatch.to, which now finds itself at the center of a new ACE investigation.
September 12, 2023 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — September 7th, 2023

DAZN's Early Piracy Targets May Include U.S. Govt. Domain Seizure Survivors
As sports rightsholders scramble to launch their new site-blocking system in Italy, after missing the start of the local football season, telecoms regulator AGCOM has announced the successful blocking of 45 pirate sports streaming sites following requests filed by DAZN. Two of the sites may be survivors of a U.S. law enforcement domain seizure campaign carried out last year.
September 7, 2023 — Source

Hollywood's Latest Pirate Site Blocking Injunction Covers 'Future Content'
The Delhi High Court in India has approved a new type of pirate site-blocking order, requested by Netflix, Disney, Warner Bros, and other Hollywood studios. The novel 'Dynamic+ injunction' requires Internet providers to block access to 'hydra-headed' pirate sites, and covers copyrighted content that doesn't yet exist.
September 7, 2023 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — September 6th, 2023

ACE Shuts Down Three Piracy Rings in Egyptian Whack-a-Mole
Anti-piracy coalition ACE reports that Egyptian law enforcement authorities have shut down three anti-piracy rings, which operated sports, TV, and movie piracy sites. These successes are the result of close cooperation between rightsholders and the local authorities. While these successes should not be understated, most brands live on, as copycat sites thrive.
September 6, 2023 — Source

RARBG Shut Down in the Middle of a Bulgarian Piracy Crackdown
When RARBG shut down at the end of May 2023, Bulgaria was conducting a piracy crackdown. A major IPTV operation was carried out with EU assistance and the United States was helping out too. In the same month, USPTO delivered an IP workshop to 40 Bulgarian judges while the country's Prosecutor General met with officials at the US House of Representatives.
September 6, 2023 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — September 5th, 2023

How Afripods is trying to grow the podcast market in Africa
A Kenya-based platform is striving to become the podcast player of choice for 1.2 billion people.
September 5, 2023 — Source

Spotify reportedly locks white noise podcasters out of an ad program
The move will impact podcasters' earnings and boost the company's bottom line.
September 5, 2023 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — September 4th, 2023

'News Media are a Useful Tool to Educate the Public on Piracy Risks and Threats'
Tackling online piracy isn't an easy task. In addition to dismantling illicit sites and services, the public at large should be made aware of the associated risks and threats. According to the Premier League, news media can be helpful to spread these messages. However, the lines between reporting news and serving as a simple mouthpiece can sometimes find themselves blurred.
September 4, 2023 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — September 1st, 2023

YouTube Defeats Mexican Movie Tycoon's Piracy Lawsuit
YouTube has landed a major legal victory after defeating a copyright infringement lawsuit filed by movie tycoon Carlos Vasallo. According to a Florida federal court, Google's video platform complies with the DMCA and has no legal obligation to use its piracy filtering tools to remove all potentially pirated videos.
September 1, 2023 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — August 31st, 2023

Lithuania's Media Watchdog Issues First-Ever 'Fines' to Torrenting Movie Pirates
Since the summer, the Radio and Television Commission of Lithuania (LRTK) has had the legal authority to fine online pirates. This week, the media watchdog announced that it has used its newly gained power to fine three users of popular private torrent site Linkomanija.net, which appears to be actively monitored.
August 31, 2023 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — August 30th, 2023

Google Removes 'Pirate' URLs from Users' Privately Saved Links
To date, Google has processed more than seven billion copyright takedown requests for its search engine. The majority of the reported links are purged from Google's search index, as required by the DMCA. Recently, however, Google appears to gone a step further, using search takedowns to "moderate" users' privately saved links collections,
August 30, 2023 — Source

Putin's Cinema Fund Rejects Movie Piracy, Fuming Cinema Boss Demands Barbie
In Russia, where various factions are in disagreement over the best way to permit piracy of Hollywood movies, new wildcards have entered the equation. The government-backed Cinema Fund says piracy carries "reputational risks" and that would be "inappropriate" right now. A furious cinema chief has accused the fund and government of protecting Western copyright holders. He says that Russia needs pirated copies of Barbie in cinemas, sooner rather than later.
August 30, 2023 — Source

The UFC, NBA, and NFL ask the government for "instantaneous" DMCA takedowns of illegal streams
The leagues say processing current DMCA takedown requests takes too long
August 30, 2023 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — August 29th, 2023

OpenAI Asks Court to Dismiss Authors' Copyright Infringement Claims
Several authors including comedian Sarah Silverman are suing OpenAI for using pirated copies of their books to train language models. This unauthorized use gives rise to several copyright infringement claims and also violates the DMCA, they argue. OpenAI disagrees and this week asked the California federal court to dismiss all claims but one.
August 29, 2023 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — August 28th, 2023

"Insane" IPTV Blocking System "Will Solve Digital Piracy" But Not Yet
Faced with warnings that the survival of top-tier football was at stake, in July lawmakers urgently signed off on tough legislation to block pirate IPTV services in Italy. On the first day of the new season this month, around 100 pirate service 'violations' were reportedly identified, but none were blocked. According to an inside source, Italy's "insane" blocking system isn't quite ready, but will "solve digital piracy" early October latest.
August 28, 2023 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — August 25th, 2023

Rightsholders Urge U.S. Govt to Pave the Way for Pirate Site Blocking
Responding to an inquiry on future anti-piracy strategies, Creative Future CEO Ruth Vitale calls on U.S. lawmakers to consider site blocking as a much-needed solution. Blocking foreign pirate sites could be a "game changer", she argues. The Association of American Publishers also sees site blocking as an ideal tool to fight piracy more effectively and efficiently.
August 25, 2023 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — August 24th, 2023

Fmovies Gets Huge Visitor Boost, Users Spooked By Surge in Malware Warnings
Fmovies is one of the most popular pirate sites on the internet yet over the last three months the site has still managed to grow at an extraordinary rate. In May, Fmovies serviced around 98 million visitors but in July, in excess of 122 million called in for the latest movies and TV shows. How many users are affected isn't clear but over the past 48 hours a sudden flurry of malware alerts have had some site users spooked.
August 24, 2023 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — August 11th, 2023

IP Address Blocking Banned After Anti-Piracy Court Order Hit Cloudflare
In 2022, rightsholders obtained permission in Austria to block several pirate site domains and a list of IP addresses that actually belonged to Cloudflare. ISPs had no choice but to comply with the court's instructions which took out countless Cloudflare customers in Austria.
August 11, 2023 — Source

Z-Library Petitions U.S. and Argentina to Cease 'Illegal' Criminal Prosecution
Z-Library has launched a petition calling on the U.S. Attorney General and Argentina's Minister of Foreign Affairs to stop the criminal prosecution, labeling it as illegal. The shadow library asks its supporters to sign a petition which stresses that the site is essential to ensure freedom of information and the progress of science.
August 11, 2023 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — August 9th, 2023

Pirate Site Survives 'Operation: Sunstroke' But Massive Lawsuit Awaits
As part of their years-long yet largely unsuccessful mission to bring down TV piracy site, Sdarot, in 2022 several Israeli entertainment companies obtained a court injunction in the U.S. which required every ISP in the country to block the site. While that never happened, action against Sdarot has now reached boiling point; international raids, server seizures, and a full-blown lawsuit in Israel targeting 14 people. And a site that remains up and taunting its rivals.
August 9, 2023 — Source

Youtube-dl Site Goes Offline as Hosting Provider Enforces Court-Ordered Ban
Hosting provider Uberspace has taken down the website of YouTube-ripping software, youtube-dl. The removal is the result of a German court order in a copyright infringement lawsuit, filed by Sony, Warner and Universal. While Uberspace didn't host the open source software, it was held responsible for the website linking to the software hosted on developer platform GitHub.
August 9, 2023 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — August 8th, 2023

Judge Gives MindGeek 'Pirate' Domains After Porn Pirate Violates Injunction
In 2022, MindGeek subsidiary MG Premium prevailed in its legal battle against the operator of Daftsex and several other pirate sites. MG was awarded $32m in damages and permission to seize domain names but to date, nothing has been paid, and the sites are still in business.
August 8, 2023 — Source

Lead YouTube Content-ID Scammer Requests Reduced Prison Sentence
By masquerading as legitimate music rightsholders, two men managed to extract over $23 million in revenue from YouTube's Content ID system. Both were arrested and pleaded guilty. The first defendant was previously sentenced to 70 months in prison. The second defendant, who reportedly initiated the scheme, now requests a lower 46-month term, promising to stay out of trouble.
August 8, 2023 — Source

Warning: TorrentFreak's Twitter / X Account Has Been Hijacked
Earlier today someone managed to hijack our Twitter / X account. The original @torrentfreak handle was deleted and the new account now appears as @ethereumfdn with all of our followers still attached. Obviously it can't be trusted.
August 8, 2023 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — August 7th, 2023

Google Search Asked to Remove One Billion 'Pirate' Links in 9 Months
In a period of less than nine months, Google received requests to remove over a billion links to pirate sites from its search engine. This is a significant increase compared to recent years, but not necessarily a new trend. More than a quarter of all reported links, relating to a single website, were sent by MindGeek, the parent company of PornHub.
August 7, 2023 — Source

PayPal launches its own stablecoin, PayPalUSD (PYUSD), for payments
PayPal has announced the launch of its own stablecoin cryptocurrency called PayPalUSD (PYUSD). The new digital coin is pegged to the U.S. dollar and fully backed by USD deposits held by PayPal.
August 7, 2023 — Source

Premier League Wins 2-Year Pirate IPTV Blocking Order as Sky Targets Identified
Following a report last week that UK broadcaster Sky had obtained a High Court piracy-blocking order, it transpires that the Premier League obtained a similar order just days later.
August 7, 2023 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — August 4th, 2023

Z-Library Rolls Out Browser Extensions in Anticipation of Domain Name Troubles
Pirate eBook repository Z-Library has launched browser extensions that should make it easier for users to find the site if its current domains are seized in the future. While the site doesn't explicitly mention the U.S. Government crackdown, it likely plays a key role in the decision to make these extensions available.
August 4, 2023 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — August 3rd, 2023

DataCamp: Pirate IPTV "Scam Judgment" Worth Millions Aimed to "Terrorize" Hosting Companies
In an extraordinary filing at an Illinois court this week, a pirate IPTV-related lawsuit filed by DISH Network last year was slammed by hosting company defendant, DataCamp.
August 3, 2023 — Source

Pirate Site Not Impressed by Global DNS Blocking Order
Sony Music's legal efforts have produced a major breakthrough. As the result of a German blocking order, DNS provider Quad9 now blocks global access to music piracy site CannaPower. The operator of the site doesn't appear to be impressed so far, noting that it doesn't really hurt traffic.
August 3, 2023 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — August 1st, 2023

Putin Outlaws Anonymity: Identity Verification For Online Services, VPN Bypass Advice a Crime
President Putin has signed off on legal amendments that threaten to destroy online anonymity, crush free speech, and stifle innovation. Starting this year, internet platforms must verify new users' identities via state-approved systems, before granting access. VPN circumvention advice will constitute a crime, certain Gmail use will be banned, and non-state-approved hosting companies will be rendered illegal.
August 1, 2023 — Source

YTMP3 Sues Competitors for Sending Google Fraudulent DMCA Notices
With 40 million monthly visits, YTMP3.nu is one of the largest YouTube ripping sites on the web. Copyright holders regularly send takedown notices hoping to remove the site from search engines, but they're not alone. In a new lawsuit filed at a California federal court, YTMP3.nu is suing several competitors for sending false DMCA notices to Google.
August 1, 2023 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — July 28th, 2023

Italian Pirate IPTV Customers Risk a 5,000 Euro Fine Starting August 8, 2023
Italy's brand new anti-piracy law has just received full approval from telecoms regulator AGCOM. In a statement issued Thursday, AGCOM noted its position "at the forefront of the European scene in combating online piracy." The new law comes into force on August 8 and authorizes nationwide ISP blocking of live events and enables the state to issue fines of up to 5,000 euros to users of pirate streams .
July 28, 2023 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — July 27th, 2023

Samsung puts Galaxy Z Fold 5 and Flip 5 to reliability test in a new video
It is oddly satisfying to watch a $1799.99 smartphone getting pushed, dropped, drowned, washed, or, in other words, tested for reliability. Samsung just unveiled the Galaxy Z Fold 5 and Flip 5, and in a new video, the company demonstrated the thorough tests the phones underwent before hitting the market.
July 27, 2023 — Source or Watch Video

Sky Targets Sky Go & Now TV Decryption Key Software as Piracy Wars Continue
Early this week, an anti-piracy company working for Sky TV spotted two pieces of software being made available online and immediately rushed to take them down. Targeting streaming services Sky Go and Now TV, the tools allow users to log in to the platforms via a terminal window, browse the available content, then extract decryption keys for both live TV channels and VOD titles.
July 27, 2023 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — July 25th, 2023

Quad9 Blocks Pirate Site Globally After Sony Demanded €10,000 Fine
Following another setback in its legal dispute with Sony Music, Quad9 has decided to block pirate site Canna worldwide. The court-ordered block was initially restricted to Germany but the music label complained that VPNs and a mobile network still allowed Germans to access the pirate site. Quad9, meanwhile, has appealed the underlying court judgment.
July 25, 2023 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — July 21st, 2023

'Digital TV' Raided By Cybercrime Unit Following DirecTV IPTV Piracy Complaint
A complaint filed by DirecTV in Argentina has led to raids on the alleged operators of Digital TV, a pirate IPTV platform servicing an estimated 85,000 customers. A specialist cybercrime unit led by a local prosecutor identified a 22-year-old IT technician as the service's founder and now the general public knows him too.
July 21, 2023 — Source

Popular Torrent Site Taunts Anti-Piracy Boss and Investigators
Most pirate sites do everything they can to avoid getting noticed by anti-piracy groups and investigators. Spanish torrent site DonTorrent is clearly playing in a different league. The site's operators openly taunt the most effective anti-piracy coalition ACE, while ridiculing OSINT investigators that approach them.
July 21, 2023 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — July 20th, 2023

70% of Russian Gamers Are Pirates Following Western Publisher Exodus
Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the exodus of Western businesses from the country is having a profound effect on the videogame market, a new study has found.
July 20, 2023 — Source

Cheat Seller Appeals $3.6m DMCA Violation Loss Against Bungie
The legal battle between game developer Bungie and cheat seller AimJunkies is far from over. In addition to unresolved copyright infringement claims, AimJunkies has just appealed the $4.4 million in damages and fees that were awarded in arbitration earlier this year.
July 20, 2023 — Source

P2PInfect: New Peer-to-Peer Worm Targeting Redis Servers
The Rust-based peer-to-peer worm 'P2PInfect' is targeting a Lua sandbox escape vulnerability in internet-accessible Redis servers.
July 20, 2023 — Source

Internet — Peer to Peer (P2P) — July 19th, 2023

Highly Anticipated Movie Piracy Lawsuit Settled On The Eve of Trial
Strike 3 Holdings and an alleged BitTorrent pirate were scheduled to appear before a jury in a Florida federal court this week. These types of lawsuits rarely make it to a full trial and this case did nothing to upend the status quo.
July 19, 2023 — Source

Telefónica & Nagra Team Up to Identify & Disrupt Pirate IPTV Networks
Telefonica is recognized as one of the largest telecoms companies in the world but as owner of Movistar and 50% owner of Virgin Media, it also has significant subscription TV rights to protect.
July 19, 2023 — Source

Peer to Peer (P2P) — Numbers

2.5 Billion Visits: ACE Targets 9anime Among Several Pirate Anime Sites
Despite offering only one type of content, 9anime is one of the most-visited sites in the world, period. Since that amounts to over 2.5 billion visits per year, it was no surprise to see anti-piracy coalition ACE back in court this week hoping to obtain information on the site's operators.
May 26, 2023 — Source

Peer to Peer (P2P) — A

ACE Shuts Down Another 'Cuevana' But the Whac-a-Mole Persists
The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) has shut down 22 domains linked to the popular South American pirate streaming site, Cuevana. The anti-piracy group tracked down the Peruvian operator of the site that served hundreds of millions of visits over the past several years. While this Cuevana variant is a big fish, another popular Cuevana site remains online.
July 11, 2023 — Source

Anti-Piracy Program Accused of Violating Citizens' Fundamental Rights
Since 2010, France has monitored and stored data on millions of internet users as part of anti-piracy scheme featuring warning letters, fines, and ISP disconnections. Europe's highest court will soon decide whether the program is permissible under EU law. Digital rights groups insist that as a general surveillance and data retention scheme, it violates fundamental rights.
May 19, 2023 — Source

Authors Accuse OpenAI of Using Pirate Sites to Train ChatGPT
Generative AI is a revolutionary technology that's expected to change society as we know it but, in parallel, it raises many copyright infringement concerns. This week, book authors Paul Tremblay and Mona Awad filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, accusing the company of using pirated books to train its ChatGPT models.
June 30, 2023 — Source

Peer to Peer (P2P) — B

Bungie Wins $6.7 Million in Damages From LaviCheats
Game developer Bungie has won a default judgment against the Indian operator of cheat reseller LaviCheats, who failed to appear in court after being sued two years ago. A federal court in Washington awarded over $6 million in copyright infringement and trademark damages related to various Destiny 2 hacks sold by LaviCheats.
May 9, 2023 — Source

Peer to Peer (P2P) — C

Controversial Pirate IPTV Supplier Investigated After Bell Complaint
Following reports of a complaint by Bell and other media companies, several searches were carried out in Canada this week as part of a TV piracy and money laundering investigation. Known locally as the Quebec Hugh Hefner, the alleged owner of a targeted IPTV service was previously sentenced in the U.S. after the DEA swapped 10kgs of cocaine found in a computer, with another white powder worth considerably less.
June 2, 2023 — Source

Copyright Claims Board Celebrates First Anniversary Without a Troll Party
The US Copyright Claims Board allows rightsholders to file damages claims outside of the federal court system. Since its official launch last year, hundreds of cases have been presented to the board. Typical copyright trolls were noticeably absent and thus far there's been just one award for damages, as the vast majority of all claims are dismissed.
June 20, 2023 — Source

Court Denies Grande's Challenge of $47 Million Music Piracy Verdict
Internet provider Grande Communications' challenge of a $47 million music piracy verdict has failed to achieve the desired result. A federal court in Texas denied Grande's request for judgment as a matter of law or a new trial. This means the company will now take its dispute with the major music labels to the Court of Appeals.
May 12, 2023 — Source

Peer to Peer (P2P) — D

DAZN Joins ACE: IPTV Piracy & Billions in Losses Challenge 'Netflix of Sport'
After a limited launch in 2016, DAZN's promise to provide affordable access to live and on-demand sports content was hotly anticipated. When DAZN announced the death of PPV, fans were ecstatic, and piracy was rendered less relevant. After introducing PPVs and doubling its prices, DAZN was unveiled this week as the latest member of ACE, the world's leading anti-piracy coalition.
May 9, 2023 — Source

Dodgy RARBG Knockoffs Thrive as Former Users Seek Refuge
While the shutdown of RARBG is bad news for former users, scammers are happily exploiting the confusion to boost their own traffic. One copycat in particular, which has been around for years, has sneakily managed to convince some people that the site hasn't been shut down. RARGB is working just fine! Oh, wait...
June 6, 2023 — Source

Dutch Police Take Down Massive Pirate IPTV Operation With a Million Users
Dutch fiscal police have carried out a large-scale raid that appears to have taken down one of Europe's largest IPTV operations servicing more than a million users. No services or companies are being named but according to local anti-piracy outfit BREIN, the targeted organization sold access via third-party resellers. Meanwhile, Dutch data center Globe went completely dark.
May 23, 2023 — Source

Peer to Peer (P2P) — E

Egyptian Authorities Shut Down Movizland and Arrest Operator
With help from anti-piracy coalition ACE, Egyptian law enforcement authorities have shut down Movizland, one of the larger pirate sites in the Middle East. The operation, which was purportedly operated out of Cairo, Egypt, had over 10 million monthly visits and offered access to roughly 34,000 pirated movies and series.
June 30, 2023 — Source

Peer to Peer (P2P) — F

Flawless IPTV: Men Behind UK's Largest Pirate Service Jailed For 30+ Years
Operating from 2016 until 2018, the Flawless IPTV service copied subscription TV broadcasts from official (and unofficial) sources and then restreamed that content to tens of thousands of customers, at a dramatically cut down price.
May 30, 2023 — Source

Former Anti-Piracy Boss Becomes Sony Music's AI Chief
After heading UK music industry trade organization BPI for years, Geoff Taylor will now take on the role of Vice President of AI at Sony Music. The switch from the anti-piracy frontlines to this newly created AI position is noteworthy and Taylor's former reflections on how the industry dealt with Napster could prove relevant to AI today.
June 27, 2023 — Source

French Govt. Wants to Inject Domain Blocking Lists Directly Into Web Browsers
A coordinated effort to associate online piracy with malware, identity theft and banking fraud, is well underway. As a result, legislation beyond copyright infringement is likely to play a key role in tackling piracy moving forward.
June 30, 2023 — Source

Peer to Peer (P2P) — G

Google Bans 'Downloader' App: TV Outfits Claim Browser Violates Injunction
After almost seven years online and more than 50 million installs, Android app 'Downloader' has been removed from Google Play. A complaint filed by several TV companies claims that when a pirate site's URL is entered into Downloader's basic web browser, the pirate site appears, violating an injunction.
May 23, 2023 — Source

Peer to Peer (P2P) — H

Hollywood Steps Up Anime Piracy War and Battles Domain-Hopping Evaders
The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment will increase pressure on sites contributing to rampant piracy of Japanese anime running to billions of illicit views per year.
July 7, 2023 — Source

Peer to Peer (P2P) — I

ISP Must Forward Warning Notice to eBook Pirate, Dutch Appeals Court Rules
Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN is eager to send warnings to persistent pirates but doing so isn't straightforward in the Netherlands. The issue has been at the center of several lawsuits and a mass notice-forwarding scheme was shelved recently over privacy concerns.
May 2, 2023 — Source

Peer to Peer (P2P) — M

Major Labels Need an Anti-Piracy Sleuth to Probe Pirate Apps
A brand new job listing hopes to recruit a new investigator to the Content Protection & Enforcement department at global recording industry group IFPI. The successful candidate will investigate everything from pirate apps, streaming platforms and the metaverse, to emerging technologies such as AI.
June 27, 2023 — Source

Movie Studios Win Australian Piracy Blocking Injunction in Record Time
Netflix, Disney, Columbia, Paramount, Universal, Warner Bros., and Village Roadshow have obtained a new pirate site-blocking injunction in Australia. The Federal Court order currently targets 22 sites and 36 domains but is intentionally flexible to deal with any pirate countermeasures. The notable aspect is how quickly the injunction was obtained; just 35 days from start to finish.
July 11, 2023 — Source

Music Pirates are Not Terrorists, Record Labels Argue in Court
Internet provider Cox Communications wants a court of appeal to reverse the $1 billion piracy liability verdict, handed down by a jury four years ago. As supplemental evidence, the ISP submitted a recent Supreme Court ruling which found Twitter not liable for aiding and abetting terrorism.
June 2, 2023 — Source

Peer to Peer (P2P) — O

Our Right To Challenge Junk Patents Is Under Threat
The U.S. Patent Office has proposed new rules about who can challenge wrongly granted patents. If the rules become official, they will offer new protections to patent trolls. Challenging patents will become far more onerous, and impossible for some.
June 2, 2023 — Source

Peer to Peer (P2P) — P

Piracy Bots Channels Are Rampant on Telegram, But For How Long?
Telegram is an essential communication tool for millions of people. For some, it's a source of the latest piracy releases too, with channels reaching hundreds of thousands of pirates each. Chasing Telegram pirates remains a cat-and-mouse game but behind the scenes, progress is being made.
May 19, 2023 — Source

Pirate IPTV: 24 MEPs Demand Action From EC President Ursula von der Leyen
This week the European Commission is expected to publish its recommendation for combating live sports piracy in the European Union. A draft leaked to the media last month revealed that despite rightsholders' calls for urgency, the EC envisions a three-year review period.
May 2, 2023 — Source

Pirate IPTV: Running Costs of UK's Largest Service Revealed
Last month five men behind pirate IPTV service 'Flawless' were sentenced to more than 30 years in prison. While the service generated millions in revenue, operations like this also cost a lot to run. So how much does it cost to buy pirate streams wholesale?
June 8, 2023 — Source

Potential Impact on Major Pirate Sites as Vietnam ISPs Face New Responsibilities
Major pirate sites, including Fmovies, 9anime, BestBuyIPTV, Abyss.to, Fembed, and 2embed, are reportedly linked to or directly operated from Vietnam. Enforcement efforts have faced challenges but things may be about to change.
May 12, 2023 — Source

Peer to Peer (P2P) — R

Reddit Asks Court to Protect Users Right to Anonymous Speech in Piracy Case
As part of ongoing piracy liability lawsuits against Internet providers, a group of film companies are focusing on Reddit once again. The filmmakers believe that public comments posted by Reddit users could lead to breakthrough evidence. Reddit clearly disagrees and asks the court to deny the request, as it did in a similar case earlier this year.
July 7, 2023 — Source

RIAA Counters Yout.com Stream-Ripper Brief at U.S. Court of Appeal
Hoping to have his stream-ripping service declared legal, in 2020 the operator of Yout.com proactively took on the RIAA. After the court ruled in favor of the recording labels in 2022, Yout took the case to appeal and in February filed its opening brief. This week the RIAA filed a 62-page response; it concedes not even a single, solitary inch.
May 5, 2023 — Source

Rightscorp Taps Indie Labels to Fuel New Wave of Piracy Settlement Action
After somehow managing to survive years of losses that pushed the company ever closer to bankruptcy, Rightscorp's piracy settlement model suddenly underpinned recording industry lawsuits against ISPs in the United States. After joining the American Association of Independent Music (A2IM), Rightscorp hopes that the Indie sector will reinvigorate its fortunes.
June 6, 2023 — Source

Record Labels and RCN Open to Settling Piracy Liability Lawsuit
Internet provider RCN and several major music companies are exploring options to settle their piracy liability dispute. A mediator was assigned this week to help the parties reach a deal but the same can't be said about a lawsuit filed against the ISP by a group of filmmakers. That battle only appears to have intensified, with a new law firm and evidence provider joining the case.
June 9, 2023 — Source

Peer to Peer (P2P) — S

Soap2Day Shut Down By Federal Court Following Hollywood Legal Action
The operators of Soap2Day, one of the world's most popular pirate streaming sites, offered no reasons when they suddenly shut down the site mid-June but a very credible explanation has emerged in Canada.
July 3, 2023 — Source

Peer to Peer (P2P) — T

The Supreme Court's Warhol decision could have huge copyright implications for 'fair use'
The justices decided that Warhold's work was not 'transformative' enough to prevent copyright claims.
May 19, 2023 — Source

Twitch-Streaming Destiny 2 Teen Cheater Fails in Bid to Shake Bungie Lawsuit
A teenager who live-streamed himself cheating in Destiny 2 while evading multiple bans, has failed in his bid to have a Bungie lawsuit dismissed. The then 17-year-old, who today faces fraud and copyright infringement claims, hit the headlines last year following allegations he threatened Bungie employees, among a series of other alleged offenses.
May 11, 2023 — Source

Peer to Peer (P2P) — U

U.S. Govt Launches Consultation on Future Anti-Piracy Strategies
The U.S. Government's Patent and Trademark Office will host a public roundtable to discuss future anti-piracy and counterfeiting strategies. The agency notes that piracy causes billions of dollars in losses to the U.S. economy each year. No concrete proposals are mentioned but rightsholders will likely suggest pirate site blocking as an option.
May 30, 2023 — Source

U.S. Hits Z-Library With New Domain Name Seizures
The U.S. Government's crackdown against Z-Library continues. After a few months of relative silence from law enforcement agencies, a new round of domain name seizures has begun. These efforts have taken out the shadow library's main login panel but the site is not planning to throw in the towel.
May 5, 2023 — Source

U.S. Seeks 70-Month Prison Sentence for YouTube Content ID Scammer
By pretending to be legitimate music rightsholders, two men managed to extract over $23 million in revenue from YouTube's content-ID system. Both were arrested, pleaded guilty, and now face multi-year prison terms. This week, the U.S. requested a 70-month sentence against the 'number two' of the operation, in part to deter future fraud.
June 23, 2023 — Source

Peer to Peer (P2P) — W

What the Supreme Court's Decision in Warhol Means for Fair Use
The Supreme Court has issued its long-awaited decision in Andy Warhol Foundation v. Goldsmith, a fair use case that raised fundamental questions about rights and obligations of commercial artists. The Court's opinion did not answer many of those questions, but happily it affirmed both important fair use precedents and the role of fair use as a crucial element of the copyright system. EFF filed an amicus brief in the case.
May 23, 2023 — Source

Peer to Peer (P2P) — Y

YouTube Orders 'Invidious' Privacy Software to Shut Down in 7 Days
The developers of Invidious, a privacy-respecting alternative front-end for YouTube, have received a cease-and-desist notice from YouTube's legal department. The free and open source software, which provides a YouTube experience minus advertising and user tracking, has been instructed to shut down within seven days.
June 9, 2023 — Source

Peer to Peer (P2P) — Z

Z-Library Warns Against 'Fraudulent' and 'Unsafe' Copycats With Millions of Users
The Z-Library crackdown and related domain seizures haven't put an end to the site, but the knock-on effects are causing confusion among the public. The action has fueled the popularity of several copycat sites, some of which have millions of monthly visitors. According to the Z-Library team, these "fraudulent" sites are dangerous and should be avoided.
May 11, 2023 — Source

Database of U.S. Internet Pirates will be Decentralized
Starting in a few months, millions of online 'pirates' will be monitored as part of an agreement between the MPAA, RIAA and all major U.S. Internet providers. Alleged infringers will be notified about their misbehavior, and repeat offenders will eventually be punished. Thus far the details on the operation have been very slim, but TorrentFreak has learned that unlike in France, the U.S. database of Internet pirates will be decentralized.
Provides Products — Source

UTorrent
is an efficient and feature rich BitTorrent client for Windows sporting a very small footprint.
Provides a Service — Source