TorrentFreak

In a comical display of meta-censorship several copyright holders including 20th Century Fox and NBC Universal have sent Google takedown requests asking the search engine to take down links to takedown request they themselves sent. Google refused to comply with the movie studios requests and the “infringing” DMCA notices remain online. Meanwhile, the number of takedown notices received by Google is nearing 20 million per month.

Earlier this week we ran an article showing how Fox encouraged people to pirate their shows. Fox stopped offering free access to its TV-shows the day after they air on television, and put in an 8-day delay before these appear on Hulu and Fox.com. “The decision goes directly against the wishes of the public but [...]

It’s been a week since Fox stopped offering free access to its TV-shows the day after they air on television. The TV-studio took this drastic step in the hope of getting more people to watch their shows live and thus make more revenue. TV-viewers, however, are outraged by the decision and have massively turned to pirated sources to watch their favorite shows.

Starting in two weeks, Fox will no longer offer free access to its TV-shows the day after they air on television. For TV-fans the decision to limit the availability of these show is a step backward, and all the signs indicate that TV-show piracy will once again surge in the United States. But whether Fox will care much about this piracy increase remains to be seen.

An unfinished copy of the upcoming Vampires Suck movie has been making the rounds on BitTorrent recently. Despite’s efforts from Fox to prevent people from taking a sneak peak at this upcoming Twilight parody, a leaked and possibly unfinished workprint version has been downloaded tens of thousands of times already.

Operators of BitTorrent sites are used to receiving takedown requests from Hollywood, it is part of their daily business. Usually the notices concern rips of DVD quality or leaks that were camcorded in theaters. Twentieth Century Fox, however, has surprised several site administrators with a notification for a film that is far from finished.

Avatar is doing great at the box office so it will come as no surprise that it is also very popular on BitTorrent. However, rather than the usual overreaction to piracy, Fox is playing down the leak and saying it will have a much smaller effect on profits. In the meantime, a lesser-known release blog is thrust into the spotlight.