Russia has found a creative way of taking down pirates by using old legislation. Online gambling is forbidden in the country so sites carrying such advertising are breaking the law. Around 250 pirate sites were spotted carrying gambling ads by tax authorities who ordered telecoms watchdog Rozcomnadzor to have them all blocked at the ISP level.
Coalitions representing more than 670 companies and 240,000 members from the entertainment sector has written to Congress urging a strong response to the Facebook privacy fiasco. The groups, which include all the major Hollywood studios and key players from the music industry, are calling for Silicon Valley as a whole to be held accountable for whatever appears on their platforms.
Cloudflare has terminated its services to the anime torrent site NYAA.si. According to Cloudflare, the pirate site tried to interfere with and thwart the operation of the company's abuse reporting systems. The site's operator, however, says he's not aware of any wrongdoing.
Acting on behalf of various copyright holders, anti-piracy group BREIN has shut down the private torrent tracker Snuffelland. The group tracked down the site's operators, a middle-aged married couple and a 60-year-old uploader. All agreed to a pay a modest settlement.
Discerning distributors and consumers of pirated content are lambasting Amazon for an unannounced drop in video quality from its Prime service this week. In a move that affects paying customers as well as those on the high seas, one release group has colorfully described Amazon's efforts as a choice between a "turd sandwich" and a "giant douche".
As founder of the now-defunct torrent search engine isoHunt, Gary Fung was one of the early BitTorrent pioneers. Nearly five years after his search engine was shut down by the MPAA, Fung releases a new search tool this week. Not a torrent-specific site, but he aims to create a revolution in mobile search instead.
The Swedish Pirate Party is calling on Justice Minister Morgan Johansson to put a halt to the wave of threatening piracy letters that have swept the country in recent months. The party likens the so-called copyright trolling campaigns to extortion and wants local courts to raise the evidence bar.
A massive wave of action to block messaging service Telegram resulted in widespread collateral damage yesterday after Russian authorities ordered millions of IP addresses blocked across the country. But the efforts have only lit a fire under Telegram founder Pavel Durov, who has pledged to donate millions of dollars in bitcoin to VPN providers as part of his "Digital Resistance".
Hollywood continues to expand its blocking efforts around the globe. Most recently, several major studios including Disney Enterprises and Warner Bros obtained a blocking order against the popular torrent site Rarbg in India. More than twenty ISPs must block the site, while the Government is instructed to help enforce the measures.