DMCA
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Nintendo lawsuit accuses Switch emulator creators of 'piracy at a colossal scale'
Nintendo argued that Yuzu violates the anti-circumvention and anti-trafficking provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) in its lawsuit.
Valve squashes Team Fortress 2 and Portal fan projects after years of leniency
Valve appears to have had a change of heart about fan-made tribute projects “borrowing” its IP. GamesRadar+ reported on the Steam maker’s DMCA takedown notice sent to the creators of Team Fortress: Source 2, an attempt to port TF2 to the more modern game engine.
How the meandering legal definition of 'fair use' cost us Napster but gave us Spotify
From DMCA takedowns to Content ID filters, record labels continue to crack down on online music sharing.
The NBA, NFL and UFC want instantaneous DMCA takedowns
Three major American sports leagues want to speed up Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) takedowns. In a letter posted and reported by TorrentFreak (via The Verge), the UFC, NBA and NFL urged the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) to make the removal process for illegal livestreams nearly instantaneous. The organizations say the global sports industry is losing up to $28 billion from fans watching pirated live feeds instead of paid ones.
YouTube restores Lofi Girl account after false copyright claims
The account featured continuous loops of calm music for studying or relaxing.
Bungie sues 'Destiny 2' YouTuber who issued almost 100 fake DMCA claims
The game maker is suing the individual for $7.6 million.
Bungie lawsuit aims to unmask YouTube copyright claim abusers
Bungie has filed a lawsuit against scammers who used bogus DMCA claims to target 'Destiny 2' creators, highlighting YouTube's flawed copyright system.
Twitch warns creators after receiving 1,000 DMCA claims from record labels
Twitch's copyright problem won't go away.
Twitch dubbed Metallica's BlizzCon performance to avoid a copyright claim
Twitch dubbed over Metallica's BlizzCon 2021 performance to avoid a copyright claim — to hilarious (and sad) effect.
Twitch urges streamers not to use copyrighted music
The service apologized for how it handled a huge influx of DMCA claims.
Twitch streamers receive a flood of music copyright claims for old clips
Twitch streamers have received a deluge of DMCA takedown requests over music in old clips, risking bans unless they take actions that may not be realistic.
YouTube sues user who extorted others through fake takedown requests
A lawsuit filed by YouTube yesterday claims that a user abused its copyright infringement reporting system to extort fellow YouTubers and carry out a swatting attack. YouTube alleges that Christopher Brady, of Omaha, Nebraska, filed dozens of Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) takedown notices, which falsely claimed that materials posted by other users infringed his copyrights. Not only were the takedown notices bogus, they were allegedly part of Brady's plan to extort money from those users.
Starz apologizes for pushing Twitter to remove tweets on online piracy
How about this for a comedy of errors. Last week, Twitter removed a tweet posted by TorrentFreak, for an article about how Starz shows were being pirated. The TV service Starz compounded matters over the weekend after issuing a DMCA takedown to remove other users' tweets that shared the article or even simply referenced the irony of the removal of the first tweet.
Governments are requesting more and more data from Reddit
Every year, Reddit receives subpoenas, search warrants and court orders from governments, law enforcement and private parties around the world. Often they want information on users -- perhaps in an investigation or public emergency -- or for Reddit to take down content. In 2018, Reddit received more than twice as many government requests for user data compared to 2017 -- 752 compared to 310 the previous year -- the site said in its latest transparency report. The vast majority of requests were to provide information on users, and the site complied with 77 percent of them, all of which came from the US. When the requests were subpoenas or search warrants, Reddit complied over 90 percent of the time.
'Fortnite' creator Epic Games sues YouTuber for selling cheats
Epic Games is no stranger to suing Fortnite cheaters, but now it's aiming at a particularly high-profile target. The developer has filed a lawsuit against YouTube personality Brandon Lucas (aka "Golden Modz") and his frequent partner Colton Conter ("Excentric") for using and selling cheats. Lucas, who has over 1.7 million subscribers, allegedly violated the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, breached contract and engaged in "tortious interference" by posting videos of his Fortnite cheating and selling the cheat tools through his website. Conter sometimes participated in those videos.
Sony sues California man for selling jailbroken PS4 consoles
There hasn't been much piracy in the PS4's five-year history, but that's been changing ever since users started discovering jailbreaks that would allow running unofficial software -- and Sony is eager to put a swift stop to it. The company has sued California resident Eric Scales for selling jailbroken PS4s on eBay and his own site with piracy in mind. Scales allegedly violated both Sony's copyrights and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act by circumventing the console's copy protection and loading systems with bootlegged games like Call of Duty: WWII and God of War.
Pepe the Frog creator gets neo-Nazi site to pull copyrighted cartoons
Pepe the Frog creator Matt Furie is enjoying more success in his copyright-based campaign to stop the "alt-right" from dragging his cartoon character's name through the dirt. Motherboard has learned that Furie's attorneys (Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr) used a Digital Millennium Copyright Act notice to force neo-Nazi website Daily Stormer to remove most instances of Pepe from its pages. The challenge wasn't so much getting the site to comply as having a stable target, according to the lawyers.
Microsoft shuts down a 'Halo Online' fan mod
Microsoft takes copyright violations as seriously as Nintendo does, it'd seem. The Xbox-maker has requested that a fan-made version of Halo Online stop production. Microsoft canned the Russia-only, free-to-play Halo Online back in 2016. From the sounds of it, things like textures and asset packs from the game made their way to the internet, where the "ElDewrito" team found and used them in their fan-made resurrection of the game.
The ESA says preserving old online games isn't 'necessary'
The video game industry as a whole does a poor job of preserving its history -- especially when it comes to online games. The Entertainment Software Association -- responsible for E3; counts Electronic Arts, Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo and Ubisoft as members -- is petitioning the US Copyright Office to not make DMCA exemptions for abandoned online multiplayer games. It's an effort to block the folks at the Museum of Art and Digital Entertainment in California who would like to see an exemption made to how the DMCA treats titles like the original Everquest.
YouTube took down FCC's 'Harlem Shake' video for 7 hours
Remember when "Harlem Shake" musician Baauer said he'd take down FCC chairman Ajit Pai's video marking (and really, trivializing) the death of net neutrality? He meant it... although his effort didn't last long. The Verge notes that Baauer's label Mad Decent successfully removed the video from Daily Caller's YouTube channel with a copyright notice for a whopping 7 hours -- not much more than a momentary blip. The brief success is highlighting the concerns about the "shoot first, ask questions later" approach to copyright takedowns at sites like YouTube.
