Every year copyright holders report their lists of notorious copyright-infringing markets to the US Trade Representative. Many submissions include classic pirate sites, such as The Pirate Bay, but there are unexpected mentions as well. Facebook and Amazon, for example, were recently called out for enabling the sale of copyright-infringing goods.
YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki has issued a stark warning over the amendments to copyright law recently voted on by the EU Parliament. Wojcicki says the current wording of Article 13 threatens to "shut down" the ability of millions of people to upload content to sites like YouTube, could prevent EU users from viewing content that is already live on the platform, while threatening "hundreds of thousands" of jobs.
Canadian ISPs are calling on the Government to prevent copyright holders from using the country's notice-and-notice scheme to forward piracy settlement demands. These notices can be intimidating to Internet subscribers and are seen as abusive by many. In addition, the ISPs would like to see a more standardized approach to the notices, which will save on processing costs.
The UK government says it will consider the possibility of introducing extrajudicial 'pirate' site blocking so that rightsholders will not have to go to the High Court every time they want a resource rendered inaccessible. Further work will also take place in the Android and Kodi app arena, to identify ways the supply of infringing content can be disrupted.
The top 10 most downloaded movies on BitTorrent are in again. 'The Spy Who Dumped Me' tops the chart this week, followed by ‘Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again'. 'Ant-Man and the Wasp' completes the top three.
OpenVPN is one of the biggest names in the VPN industry. Many providers use the trusted protocol and open source software which have been around for nearly two decades. Despite the good reputation, OpenVPN Inc's CEO came out with a rather surprising statement this week, stressing that it's "essential to choose a VPN that doesn’t allow the use of BitTorrent."
Companies including Sony have been doing their best to shut down developers who create Kodi add-ons that facilitate access to infringing content. Given this background, it's perhaps a little surprising that Sony Australia is recommending users of its Android TVs to download Kodi to access addons "that provide access to popular internet streaming media services."
Every year the major Hollywood studios report a list of the most notorious pirate sites to the US Government. While the listed targets usually don't respond, there is some serious pushback recently. After CDA.pl dismissed the piracy claims against it earlier this week, RapidVideo follows suit today, stressing that it has already taken several voluntary measures, including an upload filter to prevent pirated content from being reuploaded.
Steam users who want to keep up with the latest news in the file-sharing, copyright, and game cheating lawsuit arenas are not currently free to do so via Steam. For reasons best known to the gaming platform, all links to TorrentFreak.com news articles posted by users are banned by the platform and wrongfully labeled as "potentially malicious".