The City of London Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit has been presented with the Intellectual Property Champions Award for Excellence in Enforcement from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Global Innovation Policy Center. The award, handed for the first time this year to an international player, is in recognition for the unit's work in anti-piracy enforcement.
The Association of Independent Music has teamed up with anti-piracy outfit MUSO to help its members remove infringing links from the Internet. The early results are promising, with five million takedown requests in a few months. However, on close inspection, it appears that they're all excited about nothing.
The Free Software Foundation's Defective by Design campaign today celebrates its 12th annual International Day Against Digital Rights Management. DRM is the controversial practice of restricting what consumers can do with legitimately acquired digital media. Given its pervasive nature, is it possible for you to completely avoid DRM for the day?
Unlike countries in Europe where legislation has already been tested, there is no legal basis in Japan to block 'pirate' websites and the country's constitution forbids censorship. Now, however, the Japanese government has presented a draft report which indicates that blocking websites on copyright grounds should be considered as a policy option.
An Australian court has issued a permanent injunction against the maker of the popular GTA V cheat 'African Engine.' The Brisbane man, a known figure in the Xbox 360 modding community, is ordered to halt all infringing activities. The injunction is part of a mutual agreement with Take-Two Interactive Software, which effectively ends the legal battle.
Last week NitroXenon, the developer of popular 'pirate' app Terrarium TV, announced he was shutting the project down for good. While that was a big enough blow to fans around the world, the developer has worrying news for former users. NitroXenon informs TorrentFreak that if required, he'll give up user data to the authorities.
The top 10 most downloaded movies on BitTorrent are in again. 'Skyscraper' tops the chart this week, followed by ‘Solo: A Star Wars Story'. 'Sicario: Day of the Soldado' completes the top three.
The US Government is recommending a six-month prison sentence for a California man who uploaded a pirated version of the movie Deadpool to Facebook. In just a few days the copy was viewed 6,386,456 times. A strong sentence is needed to deter the defendant, other Facebook users, and the public at large, the US argues.
Developers of 'pirate' apps that provide access to mainstream movies and TV shows face a catch-22 situation that's really difficult to escape. While success and indeed reward is measured by a large uptake and corresponding levels of adulation from users, rocketing popularity means that sleeping easy at night becomes increasingly difficult.