Tag Archives: piracy

Most people know that Game of Thrones is the most pirated TV show around at the moment, including HBO, who have sometimes seemed proud of the amount of downloads its hit show generates. However, it looks like the network is now looking to dissuade those possibly downloading its TV show …

The Australian Productivity Commission has completed a new study of piracy and the reasons people have for taking part in it, and found that “sheer frustration from poor access,” was the most common. It then took the unprecedented step to call on all authorities to end geoblocking, claiming that it …

With the official debut of this season's episode one of Game of Thrones, millions of people around the world have been eagerly watching to find out what is set to happen to some of their favourite characters. Not everyone did so through official channels though. Indeed, more than a million …

Following on from an almost year-long consultation on the matter, the UK government has decided that two-year maximum prison sentences for those caught sharing copyrighted material online might not be enough, and now wants to push for a ten-year maximum sentence instead. According to an Intellectual Property Office report, this …

Over the years, plenty of sites that simply link to pirated content have been slammed with legal action despite not actively hosting. However, that could change over here in the EU as a court adviser has spoken out to say that simply linking to copyright infringing content publicly available on …

Although most pirates that organisations like the Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit (PIPCU) go after tend to be uploaders, seeders and platform providers, there is a more real world group that they want to crack down on too: the sellers of pirating hardware. Boxes that give you free access to …

A Spanish theme park operated by Warner Bros., called Parque Warner, has been found guilty of playing unlicensed music to its customers for over six years. Despite the fact that Warner has in the past demanded huge settlements from pirates and sites that facilitated it for infringing its copyright, courts …

Kodi is a pretty well-known media player, used by millions across the world to view content. However, it also doubles as a popular tool for piracy, with many third-party packs available that grant access to streaming sites, torrent trackers as well as streams to live TV channels like Sky Sports. …

Video game cracking group, 3DM has revealed that it is going to be running an experiment, they won't be working on cracks for single-player games for around a year in order to assess any genuine impact piracy has on game sales. This follows on from recent comments that game piracy could …

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 …

When you get a letter through the post informing you that you are to be charged by the authorities for operating a platform that facilitates copyright infringement, a positive response is not expected – just ask Kim Dotcom. But that's exactly how the Czech Pirate Party reacted, suggesting that it …

Even if movie studios might like to paint the world as unanimous in their hatred of piracy, cultures and politicians have different opinions depending where you look. In Russia for example, Vladimir Putin's recently appointed internet advisor has strong links with a torrent site and has a much more relaxed attitude …

Although its much less of a common tactic today than it once was, some movie distributors still like to target individual downloaders and attempt to have them pay through the nose for pirating a single movie. Considering defending yourself can be an expensive practice, one judge in the U.S. has …

The British public has almost unanimously rejected a call from the government to extend the maximum prison sentence for media pirates from two years to ten, following a consultation on the matter. The results suggest that the public just doesn't see piracy in the same way the government does. To …

Although stopping game-pirates has seen developers get creative with their methods, it often seems about as futile as copyright protections on movies and music. That may not be the case for much longer though, as a Chinese cracking group has warned that if DRM protections continue to increase in complexity, …

Earlier this month, pirates rejoiced when screener DVD copies of several movies leaked on to the web shortly after their theatrical release, or in the case of The Hateful Eight, before its official release date. At the time, the release group behind the leaks claimed that they would slowly be …

Although the music and movie industry have largely stopped going after individual pirates with lawsuits – unless you're the makers of Dallas Buyers Club – it hasn't stopped trying to take down those responsible for uploading content. In the finale of arrests made in early 2013, four men from the UK …

The UK High Court has once again ordered internet service providers to expand its list of blocked sites, with a new wave of 85 sites set to be blocked this week on the likes of Sky, Virgin Media, BT and TalkTalk. This will be one of the larger ban waves …

When it was announced back in 2012 that the Utorrent BitTorrent client was going to begin serving adverts, it wasn't a particularly popular move. Despite that though, to this day they continue to be served in monstrous numbers. The latest count has the software's parent company BitTorrent Inc., serving upwards …

The UK has been home to some wonderfully mocked anti-piracy campaigns. The “you wouldn't steal a car,” campaign birthed many memes and the push for letters warning of piratical activity hasn't had much of an effect on the sharing landscape. Still, they're trying and a new campaign, titled: “Get it Right …

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 …

Although hardly the biggest country or even the one with a historic number of pirates, Sweden has been at the heart of the debate about online file sharing for as long as it has existed. As the home base of the Pirate Bay, the founding point for the now Europe …

We've had a few notable TV leaks over the last few years. One season premier of Dexter leaked online weeks before schedule, this year we saw several episodes of Game of Thrones leak ahead of the season 5 premier and now today, people are downloading a new episode of Arrow, …

As much as many media groups around the world have attempted to combat media piracy with the aid of legal action, take down tools and threatening letters in the post, more often than not it's been shown that legal alternatives to piracy have had the greatest impact and now the …

Popcorn Time for the web brought the torrent streaming service to web browsers, removing the need to download and use the app. However, following legal threats, the service went down. Then 24 hours later, new developers picked up the project and brought the service straight back to life. The original …

The RIAA was much faster than anyone anticipated this week, launching a lawsuit against new music streaming service, Aurous almost immediately following its launch. Aurous has adopted the Netflix model, much like Popcorn Time, offering songs on demand for streaming across devices, without any adverts, as featured in Spotify. The …

Media companies are constantly trying to gain access to user information in their fight against online pirates and from time to time, courts do sympathize with them. This week, a Dutch court has ordered Google to hand over the personal details of a user who put pirated eBooks up on …

One of the most hotly contested aspects of film, tv and games piracy, is whether it leads to a drop in sales or not. Some argue that those that downloaded would have bought it if there was no illegal source, whilst others suggest that the reason they pirate rather than …

Torrent uploaders – and to a lesser extent downloaders – face the ever present threat of being discovered. If they're prolific, the knock at the door may come from a SWAT battering ram, but casual seeders may just receive a letter or email from a music lobby group or copyright …