Bungie Targets Bitcoin Wallet in Effort to Expose ‘Destiny 2’ Cheaters
Over the past several years, Destiny 2 creator Bungie has pursued legal action against several cheat sellers and cheat makers. This has resulted in a number judgments and settlements in Bungie’s favor, but the gaming company isn’t done just yet. Furthering its efforts to protect the integrity of its games, last year Bungie filed a second lawsuit against numerous individuals allegedly involved in cheat maker and distributor operation...
ACE Seizes Sports Piracy Domains including Crackstream and Streameast Clones
In August, Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) seized several domain names linked to Streameast, a popular live sports piracy site with millions of users. The seizures were carried out by the book but did not achieve the desired effect, as Streameast remains available through alternative domains. According to the site’s operators, they won’t stop until sports streaming is more affordable to the public. That message appeals to...
Japan Plans AI Pilot Program to Fight Manga & Anime Piracy
With the arms race between pirate sites and rightsholders showing no obvious signs of cooling down, the online piracy landscape is becoming increasingly complex. The existing toolbox of legal measures, such as action against domain names, site-blocking, search engine penalties, even whole-site deindexing, has led to the emergence of a new breed of shape-shifting, measure-evading, pirate sites. Seemingly able to rebrand almost at will,...
Apple Stealth Piracy App Trio, Combined Age 215 Years, Face $18.5m Damages Claim
Apple’s position on obviously infringing movie and TV show streaming apps is that they’re not allowed on the App Store, period. Hoping to reach a massive but restricted audience, so-called ‘stealth piracy’ apps employ trickery to circumvent Apple’s vetting process. Over the past couple of years, stealth apps have made the headlines on a number of occasions and even attracted the attention of an Expert Group at the EU Intellectual...
MP3.to Successfully Challenges Music Industry’s ‘False’ DMCA Circumvention Takedown
In recent years, music industry groups have become increasingly concerned by tools that allow users to download MP3s from online streaming services, including YouTube. These so-called ‘stream-rippers’ violate the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provision; they argue. This position resulted in thousands of circumvention takedown requests, which prompted Google to remove millions of stream-ripper URLs from its search engine. These removals...
UK Police and FACT Continue IPTV Piracy Whack-a-Mole
Those who follow mainstream tabloid media in the UK should be familiar with the risks of online streaming piracy by now. There’s no country in the world where more ‘pirate box’ or IPTV resellers have been prosecuted. Meanwhile, the number of suspects who have received official warnings runs in the hundreds. Local police, in collaboration with anti-piracy group FACT, carry out many of these enforcement actions. This practice dates back...
