Google’s “Negligent” Piracy Response Prevented Critic Deindexing Its Own Site
For most of 2024, major football leagues in Spain and Italy have regularly used the media to criticize and then publicly threaten Google. Rightsholders have always criticized Google but this feels a bit different. More recently, flare-ups have coincided with rightsholders demanding that Google implements new, controversial anti-piracy measures, such as remotely deleting apps from users’ phones. Whether any discussions take place in...
Piracy Kingpin Behind ‘Noonoo TV’ and ‘TVWiki’ Arrested in Korea
Like most other countries, South Korea has a persistent piracy problem. Online streaming platforms in particular, have flourished in recent years. Up until a year ago, ‘Noonoo TV’ was one of the leading players. Despite welcoming millions of monthly visitors, the site shut itself down citing bandwidth costs and other ‘pressure’. Noonoo & TVWIKI The self-imposed shutdown was unexpected but it didn’t take long before other streaming...
Per-Song or Per-Album? Record Labels Challenge Court’s Piracy Damages Ruling
In late 2022, several of the world’s largest music companies including UMG, Warner and Sony Music prevailed in their lawsuit against Internet provider Grande Communications. The record labels accused the Astound-owned ISP of not doing enough to stop pirating subscribers. Specifically, they alleged that the company failed to terminate repeat infringers. The trial lasted more than two weeks and ended in a resounding victory for the...
DAZN’s Piracy Shield ‘Smart TV’ Block Revoked After IPTV Portal Complaint
While judicial oversight may be initially unavoidable when site-blocking is first introduced to a country, systems with less friction are strongly preferred. The law that supports Italy’s Piracy Shield system allows for blocking with no judicial oversight. An amendment passed quietly last year now allows rightsholders to block online resources without any input from telecoms regulator AGCOM. The system has almost no friction at the...
Key Pirate Bay Figures Don’t Recognize Themselves in TV Series
The long-awaited Pirate Bay TV series premiered in Sweden on Friday, through official channel and (eventually also) on The Pirate Bay. There’s no doubt that the notorious torrent site has made history, but getting everything down on paper and converting it into a TV-series is no easy task. TorrentFreak has seen the first two episodes. While reviews are not our thing, we requested input from two founding figures, both of whom were...
Nintendo Sues Emulator Gamer Who Streamed Pirated Games Before Release
When Nintendo sued the people behind Switch emulator Yuzu in February, the company knew that establishing certain facts would send the clearest possible message to those considering similar conduct. The conclusion of that lawsuit declared that an emulator like Yuzu, that circumvents Nintendo’s technical measures, decrypts Switch games using unauthorized copies of Switch cryptographic keys, allowing games to be played on anything other...
