RIAA Ramps Up Efforts to Remove Music Download Apps from Google Play
Google’s Play Store offers a vast library of millions of apps, in pretty much every category imaginable. Most of the software is perfectly legitimate but there are some problematic apps too, including those that can be abused by pirates. Over the years, rightsholders have reported many thousands of apps, often for copyright infringement. While some of these takedown notices are questionable, most pirate apps quietly disappear from the...
US Justice Department Urged to Investigate Gunshot Detector Purchases
A civil liberties group has asked the DOJ to investigate deployment of the ShotSpotter gunfire-detection system, which research shows is often installed in predominantly Black neighborhoods. Powered by WPeMatico
Disclosure of Pirates’ Identities “Compatible With EU Privacy Laws”
Following the creation of its Hadopi anti-piracy agency over 13 years ago, France monitored and stored data on millions of users suspected of infringing copyrights. The majority were BitTorrent users and the plan was to use evidence of their piracy activities as a basis for escalating actions including warnings, fines, and ultimately, internet disconnections. Operating the program for a decade cost French taxpayers 82 million euros...
Authors: OpenAI’s Fair Use Argument in Copyright Dispute is Misplaced
Generative AI models such as ChatGPT have captured the imaginations of millions of people, offering a glimpse of what an AI-assisted future might look like. The new technology also brings up novel copyright issues. For example, several rightsholders are worried that their work is being used to train and exploit AI without any form of compensation. These concerns have triggered numerous AI-related lawsuits in the United States, many of...
Two Pirate IPTV Sellers Sentenced Following Sky Investigation
Despite widespread publicity and overt campaigns warning of the criminal consequences, there’s still no shortage of people prepared to openly sell piracy-configured set-top boxes and pirate IPTV subscriptions. In broad terms, awareness has improved over the last couple of years but, for those who got involved many years ago, historic perceptions may have been somewhat different. In the case of two men from Northern Ireland, an...
