What Piracy? Removing DRM Boosts Music Sales by 10 Percent

DRM was once praised as the ultimate tool to prevent music piracy, but new research shows that the opposite is true. Comparing album sales of four major labels before and after the removal of DRM reveals that digital music revenue increases by 10% when restrictions are removed. The effect goes…

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…

MPAA Banned From Using Piracy and Theft Terms in Hotfile Trial

Leading up to the trial, Hotfile has scored several significant wins against the MPAA. The Florida federal court ruled on several motions this week, and many went in favor of the file-hosting service. Most prominently, Judge Kathleen Williams decided that the movie studios and its witnesses are not allowed to…

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…

‘Oldboy’ Poster Was Stolen From Freelance Designer

In an open letter to film director Spike Lee designer Juan Luis Garcia accuses the makers of “Oldboy” of stealing his artwork for the movie poster. Garcia explains that he was invited by an ad agency to create the designs. After putting two months of work into his designs were…

Publisher Promotes Homeland Book Via ‘Pirate’ Subtitles

A book publisher in Poland is using a rather unique strategy to promote David Kaplan's "Homeland" prequel "Carrie's Run." The company has teamed up with an Internet group that provides "pirate" subtitles for the popular TV-series to plug the book in the subtitles of several episodes. Both the publisher and…

Unpublished Salinger Books Leaked to Private File-Sharing Site

File-sharing sites and platforms of all kinds can be goldmines of unusual information and today fans of writer J. D. Salinger will be the ones getting particularly excited. Last evening three previously unreleased stories by the reclusive American author were uploaded to private BitTorrent tracker What.cd, including The Ocean Full…

U.S. Government Caught Pirating Military Software, Settles For $50 Million

For years the U.S. military operated pirated copies of logistics software that was used to protect soldiers and shipments in critical missions. Apptricity, the makers of the software, accused the military of willful copyright infringement and sued the Government for nearly a quarter of a billion dollars in unpaid licenses.…