From the moment the first people came online, the Internet has been used to share information. Over the years this evolved from simple text-based commands, to point-and-click uploads of hours of video. Pirates are often at the forefront when it comes to finding new ways to share content, eager to expand their horizons. But how much has really changed over the years?
With thousands of websites blocked all around the world on copyright grounds, pirates are continuing to innovate. The rise of apps designed to provide free content represents a fairly recent development but one the entertainment industries are keen to stem. The CEO of Warner Music Russia now says his company has infringing apps firmly on the anti-piracy agenda.
Following years of increases in the volume of takedown requests, the tide appears to be turning at Google search. The number of received DMCA notices for alleged pirate links has dropped 25% compared to 2016. That's the first downward trend since Google started counting.
A federal court in Virginia has granted Megaupload's request to place the cases filed by the RIAA and MPAA on hold for another six months. The lawsuits have been frozen for years now, as the parties are waiting for progress in the criminal case against the defunct file-sharing service.
A Swedish ISP has landed an interesting win against a UK-based company acting for international copyright trolls. In 2016, Tele2 was ordered to hand over the personal details of customers behind around 240 IP addresses after they were accused of movie piracy. Tele2 appealed, claiming it doesn't hold the data, and now a court has ruled in the ISP's favor.
More than half a decade ago a unique FBI operation took down several pirate Android app 'stores' and arrested their operators. One of the accused men was just a teenager at the time. While he admitted to criminal copyright infringement, the Georgia District Court has agreed to a lower sentence without prison.
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) will come into effect next month, evolving the current system for protecting personal data of individuals in the EU. As a result, data presented in the WHOIS database will be limited, something of great concern to anti-piracy groups who say tackling pirates will become much more difficult.
This week several Windows users noticed that the popular BitTorrent client uTorrent was suddenly being flagged as a threat. While details are scarce, Windows Defender and some other anti-virus vendors list the application as "Potentially Unwanted Software." BitTorrent Inc. sees the warnings as false positives but also stopped serving what it believes to be the problematic release.