Google Victim Blamed For Piracy Shield Blunder, Warning Over Infiltration Risk
After blocking Cloudflare in February, the reputation of Italy’s Piracy Shield IPTV blocking system found itself on life support; it wasn’t actually dead, though, at least not yet. Acceptance by those responsible that things needed to improve, with an olive branch extended to the experts previously ignored, would’ve been viewed as a positive step. Instead, initial denial led to reluctant acceptance that something had indeed happened,...
MPA’s Piracy Claims are ‘False’ and ‘Misleading’, Streaming Platform Says
Every year, the US Trade Representative (USTR) asks interested stakeholders to identify ‘notorious’ foreign piracy markets. Responses typically list the Pirate Bays of this world, but they also mention websites and services that don’t see themselves as pirate markets. Polish video-on-demand (VOD) platform CDA.pl falls in the latter category. The video platform has been flagged as a notorious pirate service by the MPA since 2018. While...
Google Drive Blackout in Italy After Another Major Anti-Piracy Blunder
Italy has an administrative blocking mechanism and a technical blocking platform, Piracy Shield, operated by rightsholders in the private sector. Up until now, AGCOM, Italy’s independent telecoms regulator, has been Piracy Shield’s greatest supporter, at least of those not already benefiting financially from the activities of football league Serie A, currently the only beneficiary of Piracy Shield blocking. To the extent there’s much...
Game Companies List ‘FitGirl-Repacks’ as a Key Piracy Threat
The Entertainment Software Association (ESA) has submitted its latest overview of “Notorious Markets” to the Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR). These submissions serve as input for the USTR’s yearly overview of piracy ‘markets’ which helps to shape the U.S. Government’s global copyright enforcement agenda going forward. The ESA, which represents video game companies including Electronic Arts, Epic Games, Microsoft,...
Court Orders Cloudflare to Block and Identify ‘Pirate Site’ Customer
Internet infrastructure company Cloudflare provides a range of connectivity and security services to millions of customers around the globe. In addition to Fortune 500 companies and governments across various continents, the American company also provides its services to pirate sites. In recent years, rightsholders have urged Cloudflare to take a more proactive stance against piracy. Their primary concern is that Cloudflare ‘hides’...
Sony Loses as CJEU Rules Datel’s RAM Data ‘Cheat’ Non-Copyright Infringing
The legal battle in Germany between Sony Entertainment Interactive and cheat cartridge seller Datel has been ongoing for well over a decade. Sony had hoped to end sales of Datel’s Action Replay PSP and Tilt FX. These products enabled users of Sony’s PSP console to modify gameplay by tweaking code, thereby obtaining extra ‘lives’ and similar ‘cheat’ features. According to Sony, Datel’s software intervened in the ‘program flow’ of its...
