YouTube Ripper Seeks IP-Addresses of ‘Threatening’ & ‘DMCA-Abusing’ Competitors
Like many other stream-ripper services, YTMP3.nu had many of its search results removed from Google’s search engine. DMCA notices sent by legitimate music industry groups such as the BPI and RIAA contain claims that the site violates the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provision. However, the YouTube-ripping service also views itself as a victim of bogus takedown notices sent by one or more competitors. The site previously asked Google to...
French Torrent Giant YggTorrent Goes Private
Most of the larger pirate sites serve a global audience, but many countries have their local favorites too. In France, that’s YggTorrent, Ygg for short. The torrent site is not a typical torrent indexer. Ygg sees itself as a community instead, one with a dedicated tracker, something that’s quite rare these days. The site was founded in 2017, to fill the gap left behind when T411 shut down. With millions of monthly visits, the site...
Shueisha DMCA Subpoena Targets Two Dozen Manga Piracy Sites
Any content that can be digitized is immediately vulnerable to being pirated. The speed and scale at which that happens is ultimately governed by two key factors; how easily the content can be obtained, copied, and distributed, and how popular the content is with consumers. In this respect, Japanese comics, better known as manga, effortlessly earn top marks across the board. That has led to unprecedented levels of piracy on what...
Internet Archive Fails to Dismiss Record Labels’ Copyright Lawsuit
The non-profit Internet Archive (IA) aims to preserve history in a digital format for generations to come. The organization literally archives key parts of the Internet, copying older versions of websites to preserve them for future generations. This information becomes more and more valuable as time passes by. IA’s archiving work is not limited to websites either; it also helps to permanently archive video, software, games, and...
Piracy Block Reversed For Tech Site That Reported Site-Blocking Workarounds
The Piracy Shield blocking controversy on the boil since February has shown that overblocking in Italy either doesn’t exist, is someone else’s fault, or was too brief to be considered important. To that background, news this week that Italian telecoms regulator AGCOM has nullified one of its own piracy blocking orders is somewhat unexpected. The finer details reveal that the background to the original blocking order gives cause for...
VPN, DNS, Give Up, or Go Legal: Aussies’ Reactions to Pirate Site-Blocking in 2023
As reported yesterday, the Australian government has just released the 2023 edition of its Consumer Survey on Online Copyright Infringement. The survey found that 41% of respondents consumed at least one item of pirated content (TV, movies, music, games, or live sports) from an illegal source in 2023, up from the 39% reported in the previous year. When compared to how many citizens resorted to pirate sources in 2015, the figures for...
