This is a guest post by BitTorrent defense lawyer Blair Chintella. More news on the case here. — I have been practicing in the area of copyright infringement and specializing in bittorrent cases essentially since they started in the District of Columbia. I wanted to write this short anecdote to…
Despite not owning a computer or even a router, a retired woman has been ordered by a court to pay compensation to a movie company. The woman had been pursued by a rightsholder who claimed she had illegally shared a violent movie about hooligans on the Internet, but the fact…
The US Government has classified some of the largest websites on the Internet as examples of sites which sustain global piracy. The list released by the United States Trade Representative draws exclusively on input from rightsholders. It includes popular torrent sites such as The Pirate Bay, file-hosting service Megaupload and…
November last year, the Swedish Court of Appeal found three people behind The Pirate Bay guilty of criminal copyright infringement offenses. Fredrik Neij, Peter Sunde and Carl Lundström were handed prison sentences and ordered to pay millions of dollars in damages. A fourth defendant, Pirate Bay co-founder Gottfrid Svartholm, was absent from…
A few days ago we reported that no less than 6 IP-addresses registered to the RIAA had been busted for downloading copyrighted material. Quite a shocker to everyone - including the music industry group apparently - as they are now using a defense previously attempted by many alleged file-sharers. It…
At TorrentFreak we have a habit of ignoring commentary on other sites, but sometimes we make an exception. Especially when it comes from the esteemed Dan Mitchell, who has written for Fortune, the New York Times, Slate, Wired, National Public Radio, the Chicago Tribune and his school paper. Commenting on…
The IFPI has told Google it must try harder with its copyright enforcement activities. In its patronizing teacher/student style "Report Card", the music industry group says the search giant profits from digital piracy, puts up barriers to make life difficult for rightsholders, engages in destructive rhetoric and raises alarmist, self-serving…
The pending Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) continues to inspire opponents to come up with creative solutions to circumvent it. A new anti-SOPA add-on for Firefox, titled “DeSopa,” is such a counter measure. When installed, users can click a single button to resolve a blocked domain via foreign DNS servers,…