Vietnam’s Pirate Site Blocklist Quietly Adds Torrent Sites
In recent years, Hollywood has played close attention to major pirate sites and services with connections to Vietnam. Representing rightsholders, MPA and ACE visited Vietnam last year to discuss piracy-related challenges with local authorities. The focus on Vietnam resulted in some progress. Anti-piracy coalition ACE previously shut down popular video piracy library 2Embed following negotiations with its Hanoi-based operator. Anime...
Sky’s Industrial-Scale Pirate IPTV Blocking Becomes a War of Attrition
Last summer, UK broadcaster Sky obtained a High Court injunction that requires local ISPs to block pirate IPTV services illegally offering its content. Blocking injunctions aren’t new or unusual but since limited information is made available to the public, anyone interested in the mechanisms involved and whether blocking is working must find out for themselves. We were able to determine the names of at least some of the targeted...
Publishers Target Z-Library Domains With Millions of DMCA Takedowns
With more than 14 million digital books in its archive, Z-Library is one of the largest shadow libraries on the Internet. Two of its alleged operators were arrested as part of a criminal crackdown by the United States, but the site seems largely unaffected. The Russian defendants are currently fighting an extradition battle. While their involvement with Z-Library is apparent to U.S. law enforcement, they don’t appear to be crucial to...
Copyright Parody Exception Denied Due to Defendant’s Discriminatory Use
Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc. is one of the most interesting cases in history to rely on a fair use defense, arguing that the alleged infringement qualifies as a parody. Acuff-Rose sued members of hip hop group 2 Live Crew, claiming that their track “Pretty Woman” infringed the label’s copyright in the Roy Orbison song, “Oh, Pretty Woman.” 2 Live Crew had previously sought to license the track from Acuff-Rose to be used as a...
Nigerian Police Bust Pirate Site Operators After Actress Suffers Panic Attacks
Dubbed “Nollywood,” Nigeria has a flourishing film industry which generates billions of dollars in revenues while creating new stars in the process. In tandem, a flourishing piracy market serves parts of the population that either can’t or won’t pay for films. Local authorities and anti-piracy organizations are trying to get a grip on the problem, but that’s not easy. Aside from investigative challenges, there’s also a shortage of...
JW Player Suffers Severe Traffic Loss After Dynamic Piracy Blocking Blunder
JW Player was born around 2005 as an open source project, taking its name from the initials of main developer, Jeroen Wijering. During the mid to late 2,000s, most people who consumed video online encountered JW Player at least once; before Google bought YouTube, JW Player was YouTube’s video player of choice. According to the GitHub repo for the non-commercial version of JW Player, it can now be found on two million sites with a...
