Takedown Galore: 10 Years of Google DMCA Notice Transparency

Exactly ten years ago, Google expanded its transparency report with a new section dedicated to DMCA takedown requests. For the first time, outsiders were able to see what URLs copyrights holders targeted and in what quantity. The decision to make this information public was in part triggered by a rapid increase in removal requests. This was having...

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New Copyright Lawsuit Targets Uploaders of 10-Minute Movie Edits

When YouTube first got off the ground in 2005, most of its users would’ve been oblivious to how closely copyright law would govern their online activities moving forward. Seventeen years later, with billions of internet users now both consumers and creators of content, people are becoming more educated. Terms such as DMCA, copyright strike and fair...

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Bungie Takes Another Shot at Cheat Seller AimJunkies in Court

Last summer, Bungie filed a complaint at a federal court in Seattle, accusing AimJunkies.com of copyright and trademark infringement, among other things. The same accusations were also made against Phoenix Digital Group, the alleged creators of the software. The parties initially entered settlement negotiations but the process was derailed when the...

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Spanish Police & LaLiga Carry Out Nationwide Pirate IPTV Crackdown

In 2018, top-tier Spanish football league LaLiga caused widespread uproar with a clever yet intrusive anti-piracy tool. In common with its counterparts overseas, LaLiga’s premium content is widely pirated in both homes and commercial premises such as bars and restaurants. Since LaLiga couldn’t hope to visit them all, the football league added a new...

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Bogus DMCA Notices Sent to Google By Fake Google….To Protect Google?

DMCA takedown notices give copyright holders the ability to remove copies of their content from websites that have no right to distribute them. Billions of similar notices target search engines that carry links to similarly infringing content. Numerous scandals over the years have highlighted how sloppy notices have wrongfully targeted legitimate content...

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Records Labels and ISP Seek Summary Judgments in Piracy Lawsuit

Under US copyright law, Internet providers must terminate the accounts of repeat infringers “in appropriate circumstances.” This requirement has been in place for more than two decades but only over the past few years have ISPs been held to the standard. Billion Dollar Lawsuits Several major music industry companies including Artista Records, Sony...

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U.S. Megaupload Judge Was Replaced Due to Disney Stake, Dotcom Says

More than ten years after the shutdown of Megaupload, there have been some major developments relating to the criminal prosecution recently. Two of the three remaining defendants, Mathias Ortmann and Bram van der Kolk, signed an agreement with authorities to be charged in New Zealand instead of the United States. Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom wasn’t...

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BREIN Seizes Crypto and Cash from Twice-Caught Pirate IPTV Seller

As part of its endless quest to disrupt the unauthorized distribution of copyrighted content, in March 2021 Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN said it had successfully targeted yet another pirate IPTV seller. The subscriptions sold by the man provided access to more than 6,000 TV channels and in excess of 10,000 movies and TV shows via a VOD service. These...

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Court: Foreign Torrent Site Operator Can Be Sued in the US

In 2019, the makers of the superhero film “Hellboy” (HB Productions) filed a lawsuit against torrent site MKVCage at a Hawaii federal court. The movie company accused the site and its operator of promoting and distributing pirated copies of the movie, demanding to put an end to the activity. The lawsuit had an almost immediate effect as MKVCage became...

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Megaupload Pair Face 10 Years in Prison on New Organized Crime Charges

Eary 2022, after more than a decade of legal uncertainty following the Megaupload raids in 2012, Kim Dotcom and co-defendants Mattias Ortmann and Bram van der Kolk were still fighting to prevent their extradition to the United States. With copyright infringement, racketeering and money laundering charges looming overseas, earlier this month Ortmann...

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