A man who leaked The Revenant online in advance of its theatrical release has been fined $1.1m. Former studio employee William Kyle Morarity stole copies of the movies while working on a studio lot and uploaded them to private tracker Pass The Popcorn. He also faces eight months’ home detention and 24 months’ probation.
New research published by economists from the European Commission shows that online movie piracy significantly hurts sales. However, the effects differ greatly between countries. And in some cases piracy may actually increase revenue due to a sampling effect.
The UK's IP Crime Report 2015/16 has just been published, revealing infringement trends gathered from both governmental and private anti-piracy groups. This year in the online piracy sector IPTV/Kodi, torrent sites and stream ripping are seen as the main threats. Meanwhile, the report reveals that pirating Internet subscribers will be receiving warning letters before the end of the year.
After more than four weeks the extradition appeal hearings of Kim Dotcom and his former Megaupload colleagues have concluded. In his closing arguments, Dotcom's lawyer urged the court to carefully weigh the facts and give his client a "fair go," which he says the District Court failed to do. However, even if the High Court sides with the defense, the case is still far from over.
BitTorrent Inc. has introduced a brand new feature for its uTorrent and BitTorrent clients. 'Altruistic Mode' is aimed at people who always want to share more than they download. While this is normal behavior for many users, Altruistic Mode has a strange quirk. Once enabled, downloads using the feature may never complete. But of course, altruism isn't about receiving.
Cloudflare has asked a California federal court to dismiss a broad copyright complaint lodged against the service by adult entertainment publisher ALS Scan. The CDN provider says that it can't shut down pirate sites, even if it wanted to, adding that it's not inducing piracy either.
Last month, the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected efforts by Kim Dotcom to regain control over millions of dollars in assets seized by the US Government. Yesterday, Dotcom's legal team petitioned the Court for a rehearing and rehearing en banc on the issues of forfeiture of assets and fugitive disentitlement.
A huge coalition of recording labels has sued the world's leading YouTube ripping site. The IFPI, RIAA, and BPI in the UK say they are taking legal action against YouTube-MP3 to protect the rights of artists and labels. The site has a reported 60 million monthly visitors and is said to be "raking in millions" in advertising revenues.
PM Studios, the developers behind the popular PlayStation Vita game SUPERBEAT XONiC, made quite a few new friends over the weekend. After finding out that links to cracked versions of their game were widely shared on Reddit they 'thanked' the pirates for their interest, offering a discount on top.