Tag Archives: copyright

While Disney has successfully prolonged its copyrights to the original, silent version of Mickey Mouse for decades, that time has finally come to an end. The original version of the character shown in Steamboat Willie is now public domain and film and game makers are already lining up to take …

Nintendo doesn't have the strictest policies when it comes to its eShop content on the Switch. There are plenty of digital titles available on the system of dubious quality and on occasion, these titles also play fast and loose with copyright rules. Recently, a clone of The Last of Us …

Earlier this year, Bungie found itself in hot water with the Destiny content creator community after a number of music channels began getting spammed with DMCA strikes. Bungie swiftly confirmed it was not behind this and worked with YouTube to get things reversed. So who was behind the false bans? …

Bungie found itself in the hotseat recently when a wave of copyright takedown requests were sent out against Destiny 2 content creators on YouTube. Bungie quickly admitted that it was just as confused about the situation as the rest of us and now, the studio is suing a number of …

The past few years has seen the relationship between game streamers and the music industry get increasingly strained. Now more than ever, streamers are unable to play games with licensed music without the entire stream being taken down. In an odd decision, Twitch has now struck a deal to make …

YouTubers are well aware of the issues that the DMCA system imposes and recently, Twitch streamers have been dealing with similar headaches, in large part due to music licenses. After months of lengthy discussions, Twitch appears to have now reached a deal with the music industry, but details on how …

Earlier this year, Blizzard began closed playtests for Diablo II: Resurrected and sure enough, some people took those files and modified the game to be playable offline. These offline patches were hosted on GitHub, but a DMCA wave has taken them all down. As reported by TorrentFreak, Activision Blizzard has …

While YouTubers have been dealing with music-related copyright strikes on gaming content for years, the issue is fairly new to live streamers on Twitch. Recently, thousands of Twitch streamers had to wipe content from their channels due to a mass wave of DMCA claims from the music industry. Fortunately, some …

For years now, many YouTube creators have encountered issues with the copyright system and DMCA takedowns. Now, those same issues appear to be impacting Twitch too, with thousands of videos removed this week over takedown notices. Initially reported by Rod Breslau, known online as Slasher, Twitch partners have been bombarded …

Earlier this month, an independent group shadow-dropped a PC port of Super Mario 64 online, avoiding copyright legal issues by not announcing the project beforehand. Of course, plenty of buzz has spread around about the game since then, so Nintendo's copyright lawyers have caught up on the situation. The fan-made …

Any time a creative game like Dreams is released, you run the risk of opening up for fan creations that breach copyright. Since launch, many fan projects have flown under the radar for Dreams on PS4 but now, some publishers are starting to catch on, with Nintendo reportedly starting to …

Back in 2016 to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Duke Nukem, the Duke Nukem 3D: 20th Anniversary World Tour was released. That re-release is now causing some legal issues as composer, Bobby Prince, is suing Gearbox, Randy Pitchford and even Valve claiming that his music was used without permission. Court …

Nintendo might be taking a more relaxed approach when it comes to content creators, but that doesn’t mean the company shies away from legal action when it needs to protect its intellectual properties. The Japanese video game firm is cracking down on hacked consoles that allow for pirated versions of …

Two weeks ago, European Parliament sent the media world into a frenzy by pushing legislation that threatened to dismantle the internet as we currently know it. Fortunately, the all-important vote has seen both Article 11 and 13 thrown out, meaning copyright laws are to remain as they are for the …

European Parliament has sent the tech industry into a frenzy this week as the JURI committee voted to pass Articles 11 and 13 of the EU Copyright Directive legislation. If enacted, the pair could dismantle the internet as we know it, filtering out uploaded content against copyrighted material. Article 11 …

Since its 2016 debut, developer Hi-Rez has defended its hero shooter, Paladins, from accusations that it is a copy of Blizzard’s Overwatch. This would be much easier, however, if the title hadn’t been caught red handed recycling official Overwatch artwork within an advertisement for mobile-centred Paladins Strike. Featuring a brand …

Getty Images might be facing a potentially $1 billion lawsuit after it allegedly breached a photographer's copyright, but it won't be rolling over any time soon. It's now warned that if the dispute cannot be settled, it will hit back hard. With a worth in the low billions, it has …

A photographer has targeted Getty Images with a business ending $1 billion (£760 million) lawsuit, after it mistakenly attempted to extort compensation from her for using one of her own images. Getty initially demanded she pay up $120 for illegal use of the image, despite the fact that the original …

Two is company, but three's a crowd according to dating/hook-up app Tinder, as it's going after rival smartphone application owners 3nder, which is designed to help those looking to hang out with more than just one person. It's using trademark law to do it too, claiming that the names are …

Rightscorp is one of the world's most prolific letter senders when it comes to chasing after pirates. Over the past few years it's sent out thousands of demands for money to alleged illegal downloaders, but that model may no longer be viable, as the organisation has reported a quarterly loss …

Apple ran into some difficulty with the courts in China recently, when it was ruled that its iPhone brand wasn't “widely known,” enough for it to hold copyright on it. In comparison though, Facebook has fared far better, achieving ownership of its own name against a local Chinese firm, which …

Over the last couple of years, YouTube's Content ID copyright system has been a bit of a pain for quite a few YouTubers, particularly those that rely on Fair Use. Currently, if a claim is made on a video, monetization immediately stops, which means the creator isn't making any money …

Can you own a language? That might seem like a bizarre question to ask but it's one that lawyers will have to figure out the answer to, as it's become rather important in the case of Paramount Pictures vs a crowd-funded team, who want to make a Star Trek spin-off. They …

It has been known for some time that blanket piracy takedown notices are becoming a bit of an issue, Google on its own gets hundreds of takedown requests per minute but after further digging, most of these takedown requests don't hold up to scrutiny. A new study published by researchers …

In an about face from the usual reporting we do on anti-piracy lobby groups, BRIEN, a Dutch organisation is being sued by the Free Subtitles Foundation, a group that creates fan-made subtitles for movies. Its claim, is that what it does is protected by freedom of speech and it wants …

A German court has just made it harder for copyright lobbyists to sue content platforms for what their users post, after it ruled that Youtube was not responsible for the content published on its site by its members. It reinforced that by stating that this was the case even if …

Since Google's acquisition of it back in 2006, Youtube has always been a bit of an opaque organisation. Getting through to support has never been easy and often changes are made without much consultation with the content creators. Lately that lack of transparency is causing real problems for some video …

A Czech man found guilty of pirating various pieces of software faced upwards of half a million dollars in fines from the court, after Microsoft, 20th Century Fox and Sony Music demanded compensation for his sharing. However since he couldn't pay it, the courts came up with a novel solution: …

Media companies have lumped Google with a lot of responsibility when it comes to fighting piracy, so much so that Google now handles two million takedown requests every single day. According to Google's own transparency report, the company received 65 million takedown requests in the last month alone. The math …

Over the years, YouTube has become a huge platform for content creators. Over the years, it has seemed like the copyright system on YouTube was stacked against creators, with no real fair use protection against bogus copyright claims. Now, YouTube is finally doing something about it with a new fair …