-
+11 +5
Photographer wins $1.2 mln from companies that took pics off Twitter
A federal jury on Friday ordered two media companies to pay $1.2 million to a freelance photojournalist for their unauthorized use of photographs he posted to Twitter. The jury found that Agence France-Presse and Getty Images willfully violated the Copyright Act when they used photos Daniel Morel took in his native Haiti after the 2010 earthquake that killed more than 250,000 people, Morel's lawyer, Joseph Baio, said.
-
+13 +3
Pirate Bay Founder’s Imminent Extradition Raises Big Questions
On Wednesday 27 November, Pirate Bay founder Gottfrid Svartholm will be removed from prison in Sweden and extradited to neighboring Denmark on hacking charges, despite already being cleared of similar charges in his home country. Speaking with TorrentFreak, Gottfrid’s mother Kristina raises a number of serious concerns over her son’s deportation to a country that has not formally indicted him.
-
+5 +2
US govt caught using pirated software for military, settles for $50mn
The Obama administration has agreed to pay Apptricity US$50 million for pirating the company’s logistics software the US Army used beyond contracted parameters.
-
+26 +1
Court Orders Google, Microsoft & Yahoo to Make Pirate Sites Disappear
While its common for search engines to receive DMCA takedown requests for specific URLs, events in France have taken things to a whole new level. In order to protect the copyrights of film producers, the High Court of Paris has concluded a 2011 case by ordering Google, Microsoft and Yahoo to completely de-list 16 video streaming sites from their search results.
-
+13 +2
Study shows removing DRM increased music sales
Evidence from the Recorded Music Industry, a new working paper from University of Toronto Strategic Management PhD candidate Laurina Zhang documents the rise in sales experienced by the music industry following the abandonment of DRM in digital music offerings.
-
+10 +5
ISPs Say They Will Block KickassTorrents Without a Court Order
Several of the world's largest recording labels will next week recommence legal action to have file-sharing sites blocked in Ireland. The first case, against popular torrent site KickassTorrents, is scheduled for the High Court on Monday. Several ISPs are listed as respondents but in a sign that they are prepared to accept the almost inevitable, other providers have given assurances to the labels that they will block the site without being forced to do so by the court.
-
+16 +1
MPAA to Settle With Pirates For $2 Billion Plus Blood of First Born Child
Following historic and gigantic cash settlements in recent weeks, starting in the new year the MPAA will take the out-of-court piracy settlement game to a whole new level. According to sources close to the group, the first U.S.-based torrent or file-hosting service to incur Hollywood's wrath will have to cough up around $2 billion in cash and hand over the blood of their first born child. And play along with the lie that this has any basis in fact, of course.
-
+16 +5
The Pirate Bay Moves to .AC After Domain Name Seizure
Following pressure from the entertainment industry the domain registry of Sint Maarten appears to have seized The Pirate Bay's .SX domain name. The torrent site itself hasn't been taken down and has quickly relocated to a new address on Ascension Island's .AC ccTLD. The Pirate Bay team informs TorrentFreak that this UK-controlled domain isn't their final destination and they will sail to a safer haven in the near future.
-
+6 +2
Pirate Bay switches address for the sixth time this year
Peer-to-peer network Pirate Bay has been forced to change its domain name for the sixth time this year after being shut down by the authorities in multiple countries. The file-sharing service actively campaigns against copyright law and provides links to illegally copied films, music and games, making it the subject of determined lawsuits for copyright infringement.
-
+20 +3
Measures to Black Out Pirate Sites Unanimously Approved
Measures proposed by Italy’s independent Electronic Communications Authority to tackle 'pirate' sites and their owners have passed with unanimous approval. The new system, which mandates the speedy removal of copyrighted content by hosts and the blocking of file-sharing sites by ISPs, will come into force on March 31 2014. Uploaders of infringing content and service providers who fail to take action face penalties of up to 250,000 euros.
-
+23 +3
AT&T Invents New Technology to Detect and Ban Filesharing
Internet provider AT&T has expanded its portfolio of anti-piracy patents with a new technology that can detect file-sharers on its network. Based on a network activity score users are assigned to a so-called “risk class,” and as a result alleged pirates may have their access to file-sharing sites blocked. Whether AT&T has plans to implement the technology in the real world remains unknown.
-
+4 +2
Thousands of Germans get warning letters for watching copyrighted porn
It is the kind of letter that might well lead to a distinctly uncomfortable conversation around the breakfast table: this month, between 20,000 and 30,000 German households received legal warnings for having viewed copyrighted pornographic films via the streaming website RedTube.com.
-
+25 +6
Kim Dotcom Ratted Out Rival File-Sharing Sites, Court Documents Claim
Three months before federal authorities shuttered Megaupload and indicted its top seven executives, the file-sharing site’s founder, Kim Dotcom, urged PayPal not to do business with rival sites because of their “criminal activity,” according to a 200-page document Virginia federal prosecutors unveiled today.
-
+20 +5
U.S. Releases More Evidence of Megaupload’s ‘Mass Infringing Use’
The U.S. Department of Justice has released a new 191-page filing in which Megaupload is portrayed as a massive piracy hub. The Government is using data obtained from Megaupload’s seized databases to back up and expand several of the allegations against Kim Dotcom and his co-defendants. Among other things, the evidence suggests that “repeat infringers” drove a lot of traffic to Mega’s sites.
-
+15 +2
Using copyright to keep repair manuals secret undermines circular economy
Electronics manufacturers are denying consumers access to repair manuals, and it's working against the environment
-
+18 +4
You'll never guess where this FBI agent left a secret interrogation manual
In a lapse that national security experts call baffling, a high-ranking FBI agent filed a sensitive internal manual detailing the bureau's secret interrogation procedures with the Library of Congress, where anyone with a library card can read it.
-
+18 +7
'Game of Thrones,' 'Breaking Bad' Most Pirated TV Shows of 2013
HBO’s “Game of Thrones” and AMC’s “Breaking Bad” have the dubious distinction of being the most-downloaded shows of 2013 on illegal file-sharing services, according to piracy news site TorrentFreak.
-
+16 +4
Google Discarded 21,000,000 Takedown Requests in 2013
Google discarded 9% of the 235,000,000 allegedly infringing links copyright holders asked the company to remove from its search engine this year. This amounts to 21 million URLs for which Google took no action, either because the requests were illegitimate or were duplicates already submitted in previous notices. NBC Universal, Fox and Lynda.com have the worst track record in this regard as more than a quarter of their requests were discarded.
-
+21 +6
What Could Have Entered the Public Domain on January 1, 2014?
Under the law that existed until 1978 . . . works from 1957.
-
+19 +5
Pirate Bay Uploads Surge 50% in a Year, Despite Anti-Piracy Efforts
Over the past year copyright holders have worked hard to stop The Pirate Bay from operating, but without success. Despite several domain changes and ISP blockades in various countries the resilient torrent site keeps on growing. This growth is reflected in the number of uploaded torrents, which increased by 50% over the past year. The Pirate Bay now lists over 2.8 million files, with video being the most shared content.
Submit a link
Start a discussion