Anti-piracy outfit Group-IB has released data on what it took to protect Game of Thrones from online pirates in Russia. Across the last four seasons alone, the firm executed 180,000 successful takedowns, more than 43,700 since Season 8 began. The response from pirates was interesting, from creating mirror sites to reinstate search traffic to converting their pages to legitimate fan hangouts.
The final episode of Game of Thrones marked the end of one of the biggest piracy topics in history. The show made dozens of piracy headlines over the years, ranging from prominent leaks, to a mind boggling record that's unlikely to ever be broken.
Last Friday the text of the new EU Copyright Directive was published on the Official Journal of the EU. However, due to glaring error, the Italian translation of Article 17 (formerly 13) requires online platforms such as YouTube to prevent the availability of works "that do not infringe copyright", even in cases where such works are "subject to an exception or limitation".
The top 10 most downloaded movies on BitTorrent are in again. 'Shazam!' tops the chart this week, followed by ‘Avengers: Endgame'. 'Batman vs. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' completes the top three.
The popular magnet torrent search engine MagnetDL has closed its doors after seven years. With its clean and easy-to-use interface, the site was the go-to site for many torrent users. It's unclear why MagnetDL is closing shop, but former users will now have to find an alternative.
On April 24, 2019, within hours of Avengers: Endgame being released in China, at least two copies of the movie appeared online after being recorded in cinemas. The movie industry is determined to counter this 'camming' threat but is there really a technological solution? A China-based partnership claim they have the answer - but do they?
The Pirate Bay has been around since 2003 and is still going strong. The longest surviving torrents on the site recently turned 15 years old. While these torrent files are still being seeded after many turbulent years, the file-sharing world and the web itself have completely changed.
Rightscorp, the infamous anti-piracy company that hounded hundreds of thousands of alleged file-sharers for cash settlements, seems to be waiting for the grim reaper to arrive. At the time of writing, its shares are worth $0.0025 each and its website account has been suspended.
One of the most-visited movie piracy sites in the world shut down this week. Egy.best, which was extremely popular in Arabic speaking countries, threw in the towel without any further explanation, leaving millions of movie and TV-show fans behind.