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Music labels sue YouTube ripping site over piracy
With the downfall of the Pirate Bay and Kickass Torrents, users are turning to another way to get illegal songs: ripping YouTube streams. Record labels have taken note of the problem and sued the largest site, YouTube-mp3.org for $150,000 per violation. They say the site has up to 60 million users and and hosts tens or hundreds of millions of illegal downloads per month. "It should not be so easy to engage in this activity in the first place, and no stream ripping site should appear at the top of any search result or app chart," says RIAA president Cary Sherman.
Google Safe Browsing makes accessing The Pirate Bay harder
Guess what? There's another speedbump to browsing The Pirate Bay. Rather than internet providers blocking access to the URL (currently thepiratebay.org), certain web browsers are flagging torrent download pages with variations on the following message: "The site ahead contains harmful programs Attackers on thepiratebay.org might attempt to trick you into installing programs that harm your browsing experience (for example, by changing your homepage or showing extra ads on sites you visit.)"
Warner Bros. asks that its own sites be removed from Google
Warner Bros. is in the business of keeping its content from being pirated, and in the past has been working on ways to accomplish just that.
UK police bust 'significant' pirate pay-TV streaming ring
The City of London Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit (PIPCU) is claiming another small victory in the never-ending and probably unwinnable war against piracy. Following a series of dawn raids at several business and residential addresses in Lancashire, the fuzz has reportedly brought down a large-scale illegal TV streaming operation. While it's not unusual to hear about the seizure of modified set-top boxes that tap into pirate pay-TV streams, officers have landed themselves a much bigger fish this time around, also discovering 15 satellites and recovering over 30 servers.
Torrentz.eu quietly shuts down its torrent search engine
Popular Poland-based torrent meta-search site Torrentz.eu has removed its key functionality, effectively shutting down a major portal for finding pirated material on the web. According to a message on the site, which refers to itself in the past tense: "Torrentz was a free, fast and powerful meta-search engine combining results from dozens of search engines. Torrentz will always love you. Farewell." A click on the search box currently re-directs to a pop-up ad from Alibaba. The end of Torrentz comes after the world's biggest torrent site KickAssTorrents was shut down by the feds in July. The proprietor of KickAssTorrents, 30-year-old Ukrainian Artem Vaulin was arrested in Poland and charged with criminal copyright infringement and money laundering. Vaulin is accused of illegally reproducing and distributing more than $1 billion worth of pirated media. In 2014, the founders of the popular Pirate Bay torrent site were also rounded up and the site struggled to stay online as it was raided several times. As for Torrentz.eu, the site managed to stay in the game a little longer because it didn't host torrent links directly -- only made it easier to find them elsewhere. As Variety notes, the site was moved to the .eu top-level domain after its .com was seized by the US Department of Homeland Security. The domain is also blocked in the several countries, including the UK. Torrenting as a means of pirating material may generally be in decline, however. A study by a UK-based antipiracy firm found that most online piracy activity has shifted to streaming sites. And BitTorrent itself has already gone legit.
Google defends its anti-piracy efforts
If you believe Trent Reznor and a good chunk of the music industry, Google (particularly YouTube) is a giant piracy machine -- it's allegedly doing little to block stolen content, and knowingly profits from it. Google isn't having any of that talk, though. The search firm just published an updated report detailing its anti-piracy efforts, and it maintains that it's doing a lot to fight bootleggers. It's adamant that its Content ID system (which can automatically claim copyrighted material for licensing or takedowns) does wonders for the media business. The technology has paid over $2 billion to copyright owners since launch, and about 98 percent of copyright action uses it -- just 2 percent comes down to formal copyright removal notices.
Chrome exploit makes life easier for video pirates
Media giants insist on copy protection systems in browsers to prevent bootleggers from copying video streams, but these anti-piracy measures aren't foolproof. Security researchers have found a flaw in Chrome (and any Chromium-based browser) that circumvents Google's Widevine digital rights management. As the system doesn't check to make sure that decrypted video is playing only in the browser, it's possible to capture that video right as it's passed to the browser's media player. With the right software, you'd only need to hit play to start copying a Netflix movie.
Alibaba founder says fake goods have 'no place' on his site
Alibaba founder Jack Ma has written an editorial for the Wall Street Journal, restating his stance on pirated goods. Last week, while speaking at an investor conference, the WSJ quoted Ma as saying that counterfeit products are "of better quality and better price than the real names." However, the chairman has now taken to the paper to say that his statement was taken out of context, and that hooky goods have "no place on Alibaba." Indeed, Ma says that his company has "zero tolerance" for "those who rip off other people's intellectual property," adding that copycat goods is "akin to thievery."
Japan is deploying pirated anime-hunting human personnel
Japan's automated bootleg-hunting software isn't quite as effective as its government would like. So, it's boosting its anti-piracy campaign by hiring human employees to manually scour forums, torrents and video-streaming websites for illegally distributed anime and live video content. See, it's pretty easy to slip through the clutches of an automated system -- all people have to do is change the video a bit to make sure it's not an exact match to what Japan's computers are looking for. That tactic obviously won't work on human personnel.
Alibaba founder: Fake goods can be better than the real deal
If you use a contract factory in China to produce your goods, don't be surprised if high-quality fakes pop up online. That's the feeling of Alibaba founder and executive chairman Jack Ma, who stands accused of effectively endorsing counterfeit goods while speaking at an investor event. The Wall Street Journal quotes the executive as saying that "the fake products today are of better quality and better price than the real names." It's a big issue for Alibaba, since its consumer-facing retail portals have something of a reputation for being the place to go when you want a knock-off device.
4K copy protection removal shop settles for $5.2 million
Intel and Warner Bros. are still very much embroiled in a war on companies stripping copyright protection from 4K and Blu-ray videos. Hardware seller Ace Deal has agreed to pay the two industry giants $5.2 million to settle a lawsuit over alleged violations of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Supposedly, Ace Deal knowingly aided in piracy by selling devices that remove HDCP anti-copying measures, making it relatively easy to bootleg the latest 4K movie extravaganza. The shop has already pulled the offending gear from its online store and is barred from selling similar devices in the future, but the small outfit still faces a relatively big, potentially crippling payout.
Nintendo pulls a 3DS game to fight another homebrew exploit
Nintendo's cat-and-mouse game with homebrew exploits isn't over yet. The gaming giant recently pulled Terry Cavanagh's retro platformer VVVVVV from the 3DS eShop after Shiny Quagsire discovered a way to use the game to run your own code. It's not a direct method, as you need another exploit for this to work (such as in the browser or another game), but that apparently doesn't matter to Nintendo.
Android app pirates plead guilty to copyright infringement
One of the biggest Android app pirates has pled guilty to one count of criminal copyright infringement and one count of conspiracy to commit copyright infringement. Mississippi's Aaron Blake Buckley has admitted his role in distributing over four million unauthorized copies of Android apps with a total retail value of $17 million. Buckley was one of the people who ran Applanet, which made paid apps available to users for free without consent from their developers, from 2010 to 2012.
20th Century Fox will skip Comic-Con to avoid trailer leaks
One of Comic-Con's biggest draws is always the exclusive trailer screenings for upcoming superhero and science fiction flicks. But now more than ever, those teasers are being recorded and leaked online, much to the frustration of Hollywood studios. The situation is so bad that 20th Century Fox, according to TheWrap and the LA Times, has decided to pull out of this year's convention. That means no sneaky-peeks of upcoming projects like Wolverine (3?), Maze Runner: The Death Cure or Assassin's Creed.
Music industry pushes for digital copyright law reform
Think the Digital Millennium Copyright Act is broken, leading to all kinds of abuse? So does the American music industry... just not for the same reasons. The RIAA and other groups have responded to a US Copyright Office request for comment on the DMCA by calling for broad reforms of the "harmful" and "obsolete" law. They argue that the takedown notice approach doesn't work well given the sheer glut of pirated material -- all it takes is a slightly different web address to make that bootleg song available once again. They also claim that safe harbor provisions are too kind, letting some sites profit from piracy that they know is taking place.
Free Facebook and Wikipedia inadvertently foster piracy networks
Free-but-limited internet services can help communication and knowledge in countries where just owning a computer is a luxury, but they're not immune to abuse. Motherboard notes that some Angolans have created ad hoc piracy networks by hiding files in Wikipedia pages (which they can access through Wikipedia Zero) and sharing links to them in private Facebook groups (available in Facebook's Free Basics). Wikipedia has tried banning some of the connections used to plant those files, but that has been a double-edged sword -- it also ended up blocking people making legitimate contributions.
'Star Wars: The Force Awakens' Blu-ray rip leaks to torrents
After grossing over $2 billion in theaters, Star Wars: The Force Awakens has made its long awaited debut... on the piracy scene. The movie is scheduled for release via download until April 1st, and the Blu-ray arrives April 5th, but now that the discs are pressed one has inevitably leaked out. TorrentFreak estimated that in the first 12 hours over 250,000 people had already downloaded a copy, and it's currently topping trackers like The Pirate Bay and Kickass Torrents.
HBO won't send out advance 'Game of Thrones' screeners to avoid piracy
The public's appetite for all things Games of Thrones has cemented its rank as the most pirated show year after year, but HBO's going to try and change that with season six set to premiere at the end of April. For the first time, the network isn't going to send out any advance screeners of the show to critics for review -- they'll have to watch on Sunday nights along with everyone else. HBO programming president Michael Lombardo unequivocally told Entertainment Weekly that "there will be no copies for review."
Pirates hacked a shipping firm to find boats to raid
Seaborne pirates just borrowed a page from their land-based counterparts. A Verizon security report has revealed that raiders hacked a shipping company's content management system to determine which ships were worth boarding, and where the valuable cargo was located. They not only knew when to launch a raid, but the exact crates they had to pry open -- they could get in, steal the cargo they want and leave without the risk of a days-long, Captain Philips-style hostage situation.
Kanye West's Tidal exclusive could hurt both him and his fans
Kanye West spent the weeks leading up to the release of his long-awaited new album going wild on Twitter. He simultaneously reaffirmed his runaway ego and also gave an inside look at his thought process as he finalized The Life of Pablo before its Valentine's Day launch. Album titles changed at will and West continually added and dropped songs. He took so long to finish things up that he missed the promised February 12th release date. Whatever you think of West, he's an artist. Even if his personality or songs turn you off, he's one of the most creative and successful musicians of the last decade. That makes his stubborn insistence on making The Life of Pablo a Tidal exclusive even more puzzling, because he's putting his stake in the music streaming service over his art. Both West and his fans will likely suffer for the decision.
