MPA Escalates Pirate Site Blocking in Philippines, Targeting Sflix and Myflixer
It’s no secret that the Motion Picture Association (MPA) has anti-piracy tentacles all over the world. The group, which is backed by Hollywood, Netflix, and Amazon, is actively involved in enforcement and policy efforts in dozens of countries. The MPA’s work mostly takes place behind the scenes, but the results are hard to miss. This includes the Philippine pirate site blocking program, which officially launched in January this year....
Men Arrested For Transcribing Godzilla Minus One, Posting Details to a Website
The belief that somehow everything is free on the internet was widespread in the late 1990s. Sites were overwhelmingly free and if MP3 files were spotted by an alert surfer, it was almost considered rude not to download them, bandwidth permitting. Today’s social media users see copyright conflicts on a regular basis, but probably due to the way copyright is enforced, tend to view images and text as faiir game when compared to movies...
Livehd7 Sports Piracy Network Shut Down By ACE, But Not For the First Time
Since its inception in 2017, the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment has built a reputation for targeting online piracy operations regardless of scale and no matter where they operate. Obtaining pirated content, whether movies, TV shows, or live streams of broadcast TV, has been a global consumer phenomenon for years. Yet despite significant civil lawsuits, arrests, and criminal prosecutions, a well-financed and centralized...
Tech Companies Flag Piracy Blocking as Threat to the Open Internet & Digital Trade
Every year the office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) publishes the National Trade Estimate Report on Foreign Trade Barriers. The report is compiled based on input from key industry players. This includes submissions from copyright industry groups, such as the MPA, that frequently highlight piracy challenges. Most rightsholders would like foreign countries to strengthen their online piracy efforts and policies, by...
Shueisha Hunts Manga Pirates But Needs Google, PayPal & VISA to Assist
Identifying the anonymous operators of pirate sites and then locating them, wherever they are in the world, is rarely a straightforward matter. Even when that is achieved, filing copyright lawsuits and then winning those cases could take years rather than months to complete. Japan-based publishing giant Shueisha often utilizes courts in the United States to obtain information on mostly anonymous pirate site operators. These...
Mysterious “Theater” Rips Cause Excitement in Piracy Circles
Movie piracy continues to present problems for Hollywood. When films are released on streaming platforms, they are copied and shared online almost immediately. There’s one type of piracy that’s particularly concerning, however. That’s when a film leaks online before it’s widely available through commercial channels. The problem isn’t new. Since the early 2000s, leaked copies of Oscar ‘screeners’ would circulate on pirate sites at the...
