U.S. Gov’t & Tech Giants Unite Against ISP Piracy Liability Ruling at Supreme Court
Nearly five years ago, a Virginia jury ordered Cox Communications to pay a billion dollars in damages to a coalition of record labels, including Sony and Universal. The jury concluded that the Internet provider was liable for the pirating activities of its subscribers, as it failed to terminate their accounts after multiple infringement notices. The liability ruling was upheld at the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, prompting Cox to...
‘Modded Hardware’ Agrees to Settle Nintendo’s Copyright Lawsuit for $2 Million
In June 2024, Nintendo filed a lawsuit against Modded Hardware and its alleged operator, Michigan-resident Ryan Daly. In a complaint filed at a federal court in Seattle, Washington, Nintendo accused Modded Hardware of copyright infringement and violating the DMCA by trafficking in circumvention devices, among other things. The case is part of Nintendo’s broader enforcement strategy to prevent the public from playing pirated games on...
Piracy Shield Study Reveals Massive Overblocking & Collateral Damage
From the perspective of rightsholders, blocking domains and IP addresses is necessary to counter a persistent threat from online piracy. In this context, they insist it is reasonable to force internet intermediaries to intervene, using blocking measures that also elevate the risk of unintended consequences and collateral damage. With blocking demands moving towards a ‘real time’ requirement as standard, increasingly unsupervised...
Dynamic Pirate Site Blocking Injunctions and the Transparency Illusion
Will the United States introduce a pirate site blocking program? Depending on who one asks, the answer could go either way. A slightly different and potentially more complex question isn’t whether the United States will adopt such a program, but whether it should. Is limiting communications absolutely necessary and the only option left? Is it still absolutely necessary after considering how quickly the UK is descending into...
U.S. Government’s Focus on Sports Piracy Puts Spotlight on Streameast Saga
Sports piracy made headlines this week when anti-piracy coalition ACE announced the shutdown of the world’s largest illegal sports streaming ring. The operation, carried out by Egyptian authorities at the end of August, resulted in two arrests and the seizure of roughly 80 domain names. A website carrying the ‘Streameast’ brand was one of the main targets. This was indeed one of the larger pirate sports streaming portals. However,...
Behind the Curtain: The Three-Year Journey to the Block BEARD Site Blocking Act
During the first half of 2022, U.S. Senator Thom Tillis was working on a proposal to put forward in a new pirate site blocking bill. The text of the No-Fault Copyright Remedy Act (NFCRA) was shared among stakeholders but wasn’t announced to the public. A decade had passed since the first attempt to introduce site-blocking legislation backfired in 2012. For NFCRA, copyright holders and Internet service providers were brought on board...
