Pirate Parties International (PPI), the international umbrella organization for dozens of Pirate Parties worldwide, has been granted observer status by the World Trade Organization. PPI will join a host of major international players during the upcoming conference in Bali next month. The WTO's decision is a major breakthrough for the…

Speaking to members of a U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Courts subcommittee, Amazon's vice president for global public policy has urged that potential barriers to digital content delivery should be addressed in order to ensure the development of distribution platforms. Exorbitant statutory damage awards for copyright infringement could chill innovation,…

The Supreme Court of Belgium has ordered local Internet providers to proactively search for Pirate Bay proxies, and block subscribers' access to these sites. The order is one of the most far-reaching decisions when it comes to website blocking based on copyright infringement grounds. A spokesperson for Belgacom, one of…

The largest online piracy case of its type ever initiated in Sweden has just concluded with a two day trial at a district court. A 28-year-old man, a former uploader and moderator at a private BitTorrent tracker, faced accusations that he had uploaded several thousands movies to the users of…

After being shut down last month isoHunt reappeared online this weekend, directing visitors towards legal platforms to enjoy movies and TV shows. However, the notice doesn't mean that isoHunt founder Gary Fung no longer supports file-sharing. On the contrary, "Freedom to Share" is one of the pillars and indeed the…

In a sign of just how far authorities are prepared to go in order to protect copyright, a court in Italy has ordered a nationwide blackout of massive Russian social network vKontakte. Issued by the Court of Rome, the order was handed down following complaints from a movie distribution company…

This summer the U.S. Government's Internet Policy Task Force published a Green Paper signaling various copyright issues that need to be addressed. Among other things, the group proposed a "recalibration" of penalties for file-sharers, which currently reach $150,000 per shared file. The MPAA and RIAA, among others, have now responded…

There is an increasing trend of companies using the DMCA to censor legitimate content, simply because they find it an embarrassment. In a sorry incident this weekend a self-confessed "little guy" with few resources was targeted with a strike on his channel, even though be broke no laws and made…