In their most recent filing the U.S. authorities have mentioned Grammy winning rapper/producer Swizz Beatz as a potential U.S. representative for Megaupload. In response to Megaupload's motion to dismiss based on lack of jurisdiction, the feds are trying to find a way to serve the company on U.S. soil. Beatz,…

Google has suffered a setback in its case against the music industry group SNEP. Last week the French Supreme Court ruled that Google can be required to censor the search terms 'Torrent', 'RapidShare' and 'Megaupload' from its Instant and Autocomplete services. The court argued that Google indirectly facilitates copyright infringement…

The New Zealand judge handling the extradition case of Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom has dramatically stepped down from the role. Speaking at the NetHui conference last week, Judge David Harvey had voiced his feelings on the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement, describing the United States as "the enemy". Accepting that…

Australian pirates hoping to emulate their European counterparts and elect a pirate have had their hopes dashed today. The Australian Capital Territory (ACT) Pirate Party had their bid to get on the ballot rejected. In a press release today the region’s electoral commission revealed that the pirate group fell short…

By indexing all copyright takedown requests online, Google is rapidly building the world's largest database of links to pirated content. Just last week, a record-breaking 719,415 new URLs were added to the takedown database. Copyright holders are responding to this effort with a comical display of meta-censorship, in which Google…

The over-use of takedown notices is a topic that Republican Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney might start mulling after a campaign video was pulled from YouTube. The video, showing President Obama singing “Let’s Stay Together” mixed with references to lobbyists, was hit with a DMCA notice from “BMG_Rights_Management”. The video was…

Five years ago a composer created music for use in a one-off anti-piracy video. However, without his permission it was used time and again on dozens of commercial DVDs such as Harry Potter. Even in the wake of a huge controversy over "corrupt" and "mafia-like" practices, the local music rights…

Last week, an online petition was started supporting former Pirate Bay spokesman Peter Sunde's request for a pardon from the Swedish government. However, in an interesting twist, the site is now polling its own users as to whether the petition should be removed on the basis it might be "offensive,…