Leading ISPs in the UK have confirmed they are being pressured by rightsholders to add two major file-sharing sites to their blocklists. EZTV is the leading public TV show-focused website online and YIFY-Torrents is a rapidly growing site and home of hundreds of popular YIFY video releases. The ISPs say that no further information will be released until a court order is received but it seems likely that Hollywood is behind the request.
The KAT.ph domain name is back in the hands of the KickassTorrents team after a temporary injunction ran its course. Meanwhile, the legal action initiated by the music industry continues and it’s doubtful whether the second largest torrent site on the Internet will return to its old domain. The dotPH registry, who were also named in the complaint, informs TorrentFreak that going after domains is an ineffective strategy, as the events of the past week have shown.
Megaupload’s former hosting provider Leaseweb has deleted all Megaupload user data from 690 servers without warning. Petabytes of data and backups, mostly from European users, are now lost forever. Kim Dotcom is outraged by the scandal and says this is what the U.S. Government was hoping would happen all along. “I’m furious about this betrayal, and extremely sad,” Dotcom tells TorrentFreak.
A brand new law designed to make it easier to chase down file-sharers and have sites blocked at the ISP level is set to be exploited to the full when it comes into effect in just a few days time. Rightsholders including IFPI and representatives from the music and publishing industries will team up to create a Norwegian anti-piracy group modeled on the infamous Antipiratbyran. Web blocking of all the major torrent sites, including The Pirate Bay, is high on the agenda.
As Russia braces itself for the introduction of a tough new anti-piracy law, the major labels have begun blitzing Russia’s Facebook equivalent with copyright takedowns. The music of popular artists is currently being removed en masse by the huge social networking site causing outrage among its users who are now attempting to ‘encrypt’ their music uploads. While that’s unlikely to stop deletions, the labels appear to be in the mood to exchange their stick for a carrot.
Pirate Bay founder Gottfrid Svartholm will be extradited to Denmark where he faces several new hacking charges. In Denmark, Gottfrid is accused of downloading a large number of files, including police records, from the mainframe of IT company CSC. The timing of the extradition is still unknown since among other things the Pirate Bay founder has to await the verdict in his Swedish hacking trial which is due later this week.
Tough new anti-piracy legislation that allows for sites to be quickly blocked by ISPs following allegations of copyright infringement has been passed by Russia’s State Duma. Opposition to the bill has been growing, not only from regular Internet users but tech giants including Google, who are alarmed that domains could be censored without the intervention of the courts.
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Left Quote“The Pirate Bay has been one of the most important movements in Sweden for freedom of speech, working against corruption and censorship.
Peter Sunde Left Quote
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