TorrentFreak

In a letter to the U.S. Trade Representative Nintendo urges the Government to put pressure on foreign countries to do a better job at tackling online piracy. The game company says it’s suffering “huge losses” due to the unauthorized distribution of their games. Among other things, Nintendo calls for blocking of file-sharing websites and criminal prosecution against those who pirate games or facilitate copyright infringement.

Within days the UK music industry will head back to the High Court with demands that the country’s leading Internet service providers should begin blocking three of the world’s largest torrent sites. Today, the owner of one of them describes the action as an attack on file-sharers and questions whether the process will be as straightforward as the one previously carried out against The Pirate Bay.

This week the Swedish Pirate Party and one of its bandwidth suppliers were told that they must stop servicing The Pirate Bay or face legal action. It now appears similar threats were extended to Portlane, another Internet provider even further up the connectivity supply chain. TorrentFreak has learned that in a move designed to protect Portlane, The Pirate Bay is no longer utilizing bandwidth from this provider. This shows that even if Portlane had complied, the site would have remained online.

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).

The Pirate Bay has asked the Economic Crime unit of the Finnish police to investigate the alleged criminal actions of anti-piracy group CIAPC. Last week the group copied The Pirate Bay’s design, violating the site’s usage policy. In their complaint TPB cite a similar case where the owner of a parody site was prosecuted recently. “We will not stand by and watch copyright enforcing organizations disrespect copyright,” TPB comments.

A panel of prominent scholars and academics have added their voices to an important case that was referred to the Court of Justice of the European Union. The paper published by the European Copyright Society aims to answer the question of whether publishing a hyperlink to content amounts to a communication to the public and therefore a breach of the creator’s copyright under European law.

A UK High Court ruling has just handed Hollywood a defeat in a battle against a now-defunct file-sharing site. The MPA argued that when Usenet indexing site Newzbin2 generated profits from piracy, that money should be handed over to the studios. The MPA argued that copyright infringement is theft but the Court said it was more like trespass, noting that any award would have a “chilling effect on innovation and creativity.”