While millions of people were sending in comments urging the FCC to stop a looming repeal of current net neutrality rules, the MPAA focused on something else. In a recently submitted letter, the Hollywood group doesn't argue for or against the proposals. It merely wants to ensure that future net neutrality regulation doesn't hinder anti-piracy efforts.
A super-aggressive prosecution of a private torrent site operator which concluded with a relatively light sentence for the accused is now back on again at the court of appeal. The case against SwePiracy has been running for more than five years but neither side is happy with last year's verdict.
After filing a lawsuit against Giganews for alleged piracy, Perfect 10 has been continually defeated by the Usenet provider. Now, with a final throw of the dice, the company has filed an appeal with the Supreme Court, bemoaning the efforts of the courts, Justice Department and Congress, while claiming that Giganews offered 200 times more infringing movies than the infamous Megaupload.
Several EU member states are questioning whether plans to modernize copyright law in Europe are fully compatible with EU law. One of the main problems is the mandatory piracy filters Internet services could be required to use, which could violate existing case law and human rights.
Data published by piracy monitoring firm MUSO suggests that the seventh season of Game of Thrones was pirated more than one billion times. Most of the traffic was generated by unauthorized streaming services, with torrent and direct downloads accounting for just a small piece of the pie, roughly fifteen percent.
A new study has revealed the extent of the collateral damage caused by Russia's site blocking regime. Introduced in 2013, blocking legislation was designed to prevent piracy and has since blacked-out more than 4,000 sites. However, due to its cumbersome nature, an additional 41,000 sites have also been affected, raising questions over the effectiveness of the campaign.
Sci-Hub, which is regularly referred to as the "Pirate Bay of science," faces another setback in a US federal court. After the site's operator failed to respond, the American Chemical Society now requests a default judgment of $4.8 million for alleged copyright infringement. In addition, the publisher wants a broad injunction which would require search engines and ISPs to block the site.
A man who sold VPN software via a website has been sentenced to nine months in prison by a Chinese court. The decision, handed down earlier this year but only just made public, notes that the software supplied by the man allowed the public to circumvent China's Great Firewall while granting access to foreign websites.