MPA Awards U.S. Lawmakers for Their Anti-Piracy Efforts
Every year, the entertainment industry celebrates its stars in various award ceremonies. From the Oscars, through the Grammys, to the Emmys, there’s no shortage of spotlights for the finest performers. Hollywood is abuzz this week leading up to the Oscars ceremony on Sunday. At the same time, the leading movie industry group, the MPA, announced its own annual awards. These celebrate creative achievement too, but mostly IP-related...
U.S. Government Seizes Dozens of Pirate Sports Streaming .Dev Domains
Earlier this month, U.S. authorities quietly initiated a new round of domain name seizures, targeting dozens of pirate sports streaming sites. The timing of the law enforcement actions coincided with the Super Bowl, presumably to establish maximum impact. Additional domain seizures were carried out in the days after, and then continued this week. These actions did not focus on a specific pirate streaming site but targeted popular...
Second U.S. Pirate Site-Blocking Bill Incoming: MPA, Google, Verizon Met to Discuss
Over 12 years in the making, the Foreign Anti-Digital Piracy Act was introduced by Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) late last month. Carefully crafted to avoid the controversies of the failed SOPA bill in 2012, FADPA’s central aim is to provide a framework to facilitate mass site-blocking measures in the United States, targeting foreign pirate sites. Importantly, FADPA seeks legal amendments to shield subjected ISPs from liability. After...
Telegram Shuts Down Z-Library Download Bot and Backup Communication Channel
With roughly a billion active monthly users, Telegram is one of the most used messaging services. The communication platform connects people worldwide and with optional end-to-end encryption, provides enhanced security compared to some other market players. Telegram can also be an excellent medium to broadcast messages to a wider audience. Through dedicated one-way channels, people can share news, status updates, and emergency alerts,...
Pirate Sites Eye Profit as Russian Bill Imposes Moral Values on Streaming Services
Decentralized peer-to-peer (P2P) networks offer network participants (peers) the means to communicate or otherwise interact with each other directly. Since each peer acts as both a client and a server, central servers or no longer required. Removing this potential point of network failure makes P2P systems more robust. And by removing the central point of control, distributed networks become more difficult to shut down. As a result,...
VPN Providers Consider Exiting France Over ‘Dangerous’ Blocking Demands
Copyright holders see pirate site blocking as an effective and proportional tool to combat widespread online piracy. Over the years, courts and lawmakers in dozens of countries have agreed, resulting in a patchwork of blocking regimes around the globe. Initially, these efforts focused on residential ISPs as the key intermediaries. While these companies were not blamed directly, they were the go-to parties to implement blocking. That...
