Nintendo Piracy Lawsuit Defendant Makes Dire Situation Even Worse
A Nintendo lawsuit filed last November targeted video gamer Jesse Keighin, aka EveryGameGuru. Given the scope of the allegations, narrowly focused on a single defendant, the action seems unusually punitive. Yet if the plan was to push Keighin into a corner, the Colorado resident hasn't read the script. Allegations of destruction of evidence, obstructing service, and abuse of Nintendo's legal team, combine to make a dire situation even worse. But not for Nintendo. From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

Posted On:2025-01-29 02:51:02 READMORE
LLM Taken Down Following Legal Pressure from Anti-Piracy Group
The use of copyrighted material in training large language models (LLMs) has sparked legal battles and takedown notices. In the Netherlands, anti-piracy group BREIN takes credit for forcing the popular 'GEITje' LLM offline, which in part was trained on copyrighted texts. The developer didn't necessarily agree with BREIN, but lacked the resources to fight back. From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

Posted On:2025-01-28 19:33:40 READMORE
U.S. Anti-Piracy Symposium Emphazises Need for Site Blocking
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) held an anti-piracy symposium last week to discuss the latest achievements, challenges, and solutions in combating piracy. Experts from the public and private sectors came together to discuss various topics, including the need to deploy balanced and effective site blocking measures in the United States. From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

Posted On:2025-01-28 04:45:57 READMORE
Pirates Surprise as Oscar-Nominated Movie Screeners Leak Online Again
'Screener season' used to make its annual appearance as reliably as the Oscars themselves. Copies of the most significant movies, intended for awards voters, would somehow end up online, for the unintended perusal of millions of pirates. A few years ago, screener copy leaks completely dried up, potentially forever. Then a few hours ago, a pair of Oscar-nominated movies, each with the same unusual feature, made their surprise entrance online. From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

Posted On:2025-01-27 20:34:09 READMORE
Top 10 Most Pirated Movies of The Week – 01/27/2025
Every week we take a close look at the most pirated movies on torrent sites. What are pirates downloading? 'Nosferatu' tops the chart, followed by 'Sonic the Hedgehog 3'. 'Kraven The Hunter' completes the top three. From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

Posted On:2025-01-27 07:09:40 READMORE
Appeals Court Affirms U.S. Navy Should Pay $154k in Piracy Damages, not $155m
Software company Bitmanagement has been dealt another blow in its piracy battle against the U.S. Navy. Instead of winning over $155 million in damages, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upheld a lower court's ruling, awarding a mere $154,400 for the Navy's unauthorized installations of the German company's software. From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

Posted On:2025-01-27 02:51:15 READMORE
Manga Publishers Maintain Pressure Despite Pirate Countermeasures
Japan's major manga publishers are facing perhaps the most complex set of piracy challenges ever seen online. With limited options to have a visible and sustainable impact short term, solid foundations below the surface seem destined to pay off in the future. Likewise, putting pirate sites under pressure, and maintaining it, regardless of countermeasures, is all in a day's work. From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

Posted On:2025-01-25 17:41:08 READMORE
PIPCU Uses UK IPO’s ‘Surplus Millions’ to Wage War on IPTV Pirates
City of London Police formed the Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit over a decade ago. Since then, the specialist anti-piracy unit has targeted pirates of all kinds. The Intellectual Property Office's latest Report and Accounts states that PIPCU is funded using millions of pounds from 'IPO surpluses.' That money appears to have been put to work; PIPCU reports reveal successes against large-scale IPTV pirates and in one case, a record-breaking restraint of ill-gotten gains. From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

Posted On:2025-01-24 18:11:00 READMORE
Supreme Court: Bank Can Terminate Contract Over Lacking Anti-Piracy Measures
The French Supreme Court has confirmed that Société Générale rightfully terminated a payment processing agreement with file-hosting service 1fichier. The cyberlocker failed to monitor and prevent the storage of pirated material, which it had contractually agreed to do. When Mastercard raised red flags, the bank was therefore was within its right to take action. From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

Posted On:2025-01-23 18:27:19 READMORE
Tech Industry Urges EU to Halt Italy’s Overreaching Anti-Piracy Measures
The CCIA, which represents global tech firms including Amazon, Cloudflare and Google, is sounding the alarm over Italy's "Piracy Shield" blocking scheme. The group's European branch urges the EU Commission to step in to prevent overblocking and to promote transparency. Additional measures requiring Internet services to actively report illegal activity on their networks are seen as problematic too. From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

Posted On:2025-01-23 01:19:36 READMORE
Telegram ‘Suspends RuTracker’s Channel’ For Copyright Infringement
Following the surprise arrest of founder Pavel Durov in France last year, Telegram's suddenly improved attitude towards content complaints was unexpected, and appears to be holding. After channels operated by Z-Library and Anna's Archive were shut down recently, Russian media outlets are reporting the suspension of a channel operated by RuTracker, one of the most resilient torrent trackers in history. From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

Posted On:2025-01-22 16:44:17 READMORE
Reddit and Film Companies Clash in Appeals Court Over Sharing Users’ IP Addresses
Reddit finds itself in court once again as movie companies continue to seek information on the site's users. After several rejections, the case is now before the Ninth Circuit Courts of Appeals. The rightsholders argue that the IP addresses of six users who discussed piracy related matters are key evidence in a lawsuit against ISP Frontier. Reddit counters, stressing that the users' First Amendment right to anonymous speech is at stake. From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

Posted On:2025-01-21 22:15:58 READMORE
Authors Seek Meta’s Torrent Client Logs and Seeding Data in AI Piracy Probe
Meta is among a long list of companies being sued for allegedly using pirated material to train its AI models. Meta has never denied using copyrighted works but stressed that it would rely on a fair use defense. However, with rightsholders in one case asking for torrent client data and 'seeding lists' for millions of books allegedly shared in public, the case now takes a geeky turn. From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

Posted On:2025-01-21 01:57:02 READMORE
Man Jailed For Pirate IPTV Used By “Hundreds of Thousands” Had 2,000 Users
A man who ran an IPTV piracy operation from his home in Birmingham, UK, has been sentenced to two years and nine months in prison for fraud offenses. The case is a rare example of a seller sourcing their own content but may have been slightly overhyped. Following raids in 2021, "hundreds of thousands" were said to use the service, a figure quietly rounded down to just 2,000. From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

Posted On:2025-01-20 16:09:38 READMORE
‘Piracy Shield’ Fails to Convert Pirates to Paying Subscribers, Data Suggest
Despite blocking thousands of illegal streaming sites, Italy's 'Piracy Shield' anti-piracy program has failed to deliver increased viewership for legal services like DAZN. This revelation appears in data provided by telecoms regulator AGCOM, which oversees the blocking regime. It adds fuel to the already heated discussions, which divide stakeholders and copyright representatives. From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

Posted On:2025-01-19 22:38:18 READMORE
MAME Devs Spent 628 Years Cracking Protection on 712 Retro Games
Those capable of quickly bypassing video game copy protection are revered by impatient pirate players. On average, games protected by anti-tamper tech Denuvo enjoy 68 days crack-free before succumbing to piracy. Yet new research focused on MAME (Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator) and video game preservation, reveals that a sample of 712 protected games, released as far back as 1979, took an average of 10.6 months each to crack. Total cracking time: 628 years. From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

Posted On:2025-01-18 21:12:33 READMORE
Telefónica & LaLiga’s Anti-Piracy Collaboration Runs in Both Directions
In 2024, legal action taken by Spain's top-tier football league led to telecoms giant Telefonica disclosing the identities of alleged pirates among its own subscribers. Telefonica's cooperation was to be expected, as it just obtained the rights to broadcast LaLiga matches for 1.2 billion euros. In contrast, details of an anti-piracy agreement between the two companies, one that seems to operate in the opposite direction, wasn't expected at all. From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

Posted On:2025-01-18 03:59:16 READMORE
Court Orders Pirate Site MissAV to Pay $4.5m in Damages, Domains Seized
This week, several domain names of the Japanese adult pirate website MissAV were redirected to seizure banners. The legal basis for these confiscations wasn't initially clear, but new information ties the action to a U.S. court order. In addition to losing their domain names, the MissAV defendants must pay $4.5 million in damages. From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

Posted On:2025-01-17 18:52:03 READMORE
Poppy Playtime Sues Google for Failing to Remove Copyright Infringing ‘Scam’ Apps
Poppy Playtime is a massively popular horror game released by the indie studio Mob Entertainment. The game is available across various platforms, including the Google Play Store, where copyright-infringing versions are also available. Despite several complaints, Google allegedly failed to remove these unauthorized apps, which prompted the game developers to take legal action. From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

Posted On:2025-01-16 21:05:15 READMORE