Record Labels Rebuff U.S. Government in Landmark ISP Piracy Liability Showdown
After a Virginia jury ordered internet provider Cox to pay $1 billion in damages for failing to take appropriate actions against pirating subscribers, shockwaves rippled through the ISP industry. The verdict, in favor of major record labels including Sony and Universal, was a catalyst for many other ‘repeat infringer’ lawsuits. This resulted in yet more multi-million dollar claims and awards, with more still in the pipeline today....
France Escalates War on Sports Piracy with Real-Time IP Blocking
Traditional site-blocking measures that require local ISPs to block subscriber access to popular pirate sites, have been utilized by rightsholders in France for years. The aim is to deter piracy by making sites more difficult to find, but these measures are only partially effective. More recently, site blocking requests have targeted other intermediaries. DNS providers including Google and Cloudflare, plus several of the largest VPN...
Piracy Giant Mangajikan’s “Website Closed” After 185m Visits in May Alone
The extraordinary online popularity of Japanese manga comics shows no sign of retreat, with pirate site-based consumption at unprecedented levels fueled by billions of visits. Japanese publishers are pursuing pirate site operators all around the world but no matter where they’re physically located, the majority have some kind of infrastructure directly behind a reverse proxy at Cloudflare. All rightsholders have to do is obtain a DMCA...
European ISPs Complain About ‘Disproportionate’ Pirate Site Blocking
Earlier this month, dozens of rightsholders and copyright groups urged the European Commission to pave the way for more robust measures to tackle live-streaming piracy. Two main themes in many of these submissions were broad pirate site blocking powers and effective Know-Your-Business-Customer (KYBC) requirements for online service providers. Ideally, this would enable rightsholders to swiftly block pirate sites while allowing them to...
Pirate Sites’ Takedown Compliance Beats YouTube, Facebook, TikTok
In countries where protection is granted automatically, it’s possible for ordinary people to become copyright owners in a matter of minutes. For the lucky few with a sudden viral video on their hands, a general understanding of the ‘rules’ governing what can, can’t, or should be done next, could be of benefit. What those ‘rules’ cannot do is prevent 500, 1000, or 5,000 unauthorized copies appearing in a matter of minutes. The best on...
Pirate Site Visits Dip to 216 Billion a Year, But Manga Piracy is Booming
Despite the widespread availability of legal options, online piracy remains rampant. Every day, pirate sites are visited hundreds of millions of times. Website visits are only part of the full piracy picture, as IPTV streaming is popular too. Nonetheless, traffic trends can provide valuable insight, especially when there are clear divergences across content categories. 216 Billion & America First Fresh data released by piracy...
