TorrentFreak

Following mounting pressure from international rightsholders, last year Google finally caved in and said it would start making ‘pirate’ sites more difficult for its users to find. But, according to the RIAA, this was a false promise. The music group says that sites for which Google receives thousands of DMCA notices still outrank legitimate services. To correct this problem the RIAA is now urging the search engine to “immediately make the necessary changes so its pledge becomes a reality.”

One of the Internet’s largest indexes for streaming movie and TV show content is locked in a dispute over the removal of the site’s homepage from Google’s search engine results. Movie2K, the 240th most-popular site in the world according to Alexa, had its main page delisted following a copyright complaint from Paramount Pictures and efforts to have it reinstated have failed. Google says it will not review the situation, even though the infringing material in question is no longer present.

Google is being criticized by copyright holders for the limits it puts on the number of “pirate” links that can be removed per day. The Hollywood -funded anti-piracy organization BREIN wants to increase the daily DMCA cap from 10,000 to 40,000 and eventually remove the restrictions altogether. The RIAA further wants the ability to do more queries to find illegal content and previously said that the current limits are “miniscule.”

The former administrator of one of Italy’s largest file-sharing sites has been handed a record-breaking fine. The individual, known online as Tex Willer, managed the large ItalianShare forum which together with sister sites allegedly serviced around 300,000 members. For his activities on the sites and criminal behavior including fraud and tax evasion the 49-year-old has now been ordered to pay a fine of 6.4 million euros ($8.56m).

Hollywood’s war against The Pirate Bay website continues in Europe with yet another legal battle. Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN is taking the operator of the popular proxy site Kuiken.co to court, demanding the shutdown of the service as well as a ban on encouraging others to circumvent court-ordered blockades. Tristan, the operator of the proxy, is prepared to fight in court and is running a crowdfunding project to support his legal battle.

In an act of either genius or madness an anti-piracy outfit turned the tables on The Pirate Bay this week by pirating parts of their website in order to show that piracy should be avoided. TPB responded by threatening to sue. But rather than back down, the boss of the anti-piracy group now says that being taken to court by the site is something they would encourage and look forward to. Sharpen the cutlasses and bring out the plank, this could get interesting.

A Finnish anti-piracy group has copied the design of The Pirate Bay website for their latest anti-piracy campaign. The Pirate Bay is outraged by this move and says it will sue the group for breaking their site policy, which clearly states that organizations are not permitted to steal the site design for nefarious purposes. “People must understand what is right and wrong,” The Pirate Bay says.