With 2017 more than half way done, the battle against Internet piracy continues at a significant pace, with the world's largest entertainment companies still flexing their muscles. The big question, however, is whether those who engage in the practice are still likely to get caught and punished for their actions.
A district court in Florida has ordered the operators of 19 pirate websites to pay $1 million each. The default judgment was ordered in favor of media giant ABS-CBN, which has managed to score several victories in US courts this year. The sites in question are mostly smaller streaming portals that offer access to 'Pinoy' content in the US and abroad.
The popular movie streaming site Gomovies has relocated to a new domain name once again. Going forward, the site will be operating from gostream.is and will no longer list any infringing links on the homepage. The change comes right after the site's previous homepage was removed from Google following a takedown notice.
Pirate Bay co-founder Peter Sunde likes to innovate to improve people's lives, but with his latest project, he wants to save them too. Currently under development by members of the former Flattr team, the app is a digital version of traditional early warning siren-based systems that alert the public to fire, floods, gas leaks, or even war.
Copyright holders have leveled some quite outrageous accusations over the years, but Malibu Media is taking it to the next level. The company is trying to convince a Texas woman to settle a piracy lawsuit over 15 downloads while accusing her of a further 54,000 downloads of content belonging to other rightsholders' to increase the pressure.
Following a report that Chinese authorities had ordered state-owned ISPs to block VPNs, the government has published a statement. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said no such notice had been issued and "legitimate access" to the global Internet, by businesses and general users, will be permitted.
In a prolonged legal action over copyright, Usenet provider Giganews retaliated against adult publisher Perfect 10 and beat it through every step of the legal system. Now Perfect 10 owes Giganews $5.6m, but the publisher hasn't paid up. That's prompted a new $20 million lawsuit from Giganews which alleges serial acts of fraud.
Today millions of people are standing up for net neutrality and an open internet. The "Battle for the Net," backed by companies including Amazon, Google, and Netflix, hopes to stop a looming repeal of current net neutrality rules. While the whole debate was kickstarted ten years ago when torrent users couldn't download their favorite TV-shows, it's no longer a pirate's fight today.