Fines For Greek Pirate IPTV Users €750-€5,000, Double For Repeat Infringers
Earlier this year when discussing ongoing work to block pirate sites and services, Minister of Culture Lina Mendoni said that a system of fines targeting end users in Greece would complement these efforts. As part of an administrative system, fines would be issued against people who “illegally obtain access to audiovisual media” from an illegal source, such as a website or pirate IPTV subscription, with penalties increasing depending...
Publishing Giants Escalate War on ‘Shadow Libraries’ With Broad Cloudflare Subpoena
Online piracy is a constant headache for copyright holders; one that’s particularly difficult to shake. Academic publishers are also grappling with this issue and have recently ramped up their enforcement actions. One key strategy is to issue takedown notices to intermediaries, including the billions of requests sent to Google. Publishers have also obtained site blocking orders in several countries and, when possible, they go after...
MovieBox is Still Alive and Preparing to Fight Intellectual Property Thieves
Four weeks ago in the wake of a Netflix price hike in Nigeria, the third in two years, there were fears that the persistent struggle between affordability and legality had reached a critical point once again. With reports that Nigerian movie lovers were simply dealing with economic realities as they flocked to a local MovieBox-branded platform, urgent questions concerning piracy and the future of an entire movie industry came to the...
French Court Orders VPNs to Block More Pirate Sites, Rejects EU Court Referral
The frontline of online piracy liability keeps moving and core internet infrastructure providers are increasingly finding themselves in the crosshairs. Since last year, the Paris Judicial Court has ordered Cloudflare, Google and other intermediaries to actively block access to pirate sites through their DNS resolvers, confirming that third-party intermediaries can be required to take responsibility. These blockades are requested by...
Police Raid IPTV Pirates, Freeze $6m in Assets, Seize Vehicles & Real Estate
Many countries are currently tackling above average piracy rates, usually with a mix of education, site blocking, civil action, and criminal enforcement, but not necessarily in that order. Typically, members of the public are warned that purchasing a pirate TV box risks fueling organized crime. With the threshold for criminality seemingly lower than ever, they could even step over the line themselves. Greece, for example, seems intent...
Piracy Shield Widens Scope to Protect Movie & TV Premieres & Live Music
There hasn’t been much to report on the Piracy Shield front in recent weeks. After Napoli walked away with the title back in May, the Serie A season began winding down ahead of preparations to do it all over again in August. Unlike Serie A’s football players, Piracy Shield didn’t immediately disappear on a luxury vacation. Records show hundreds of fully qualified domains being blocked every two or three days until the second week of...
