In an effort to improve transparency, Google began publishing reports on the DMCA takedown requests it receives. According to Google, removal requests are now up from 250,000 weekly in May, to 2.5 million requests weekly today. Un...
We have seen examples of dumb DMCA takedown requests before, such as the requests Microsoft sent to Google in July of this year. But movie studios asking Google to take down links to their own websites and/or websites that contain...
What do you think is a fair amount to fine a person for illegally sharing copyrighted content? The MSRP (retail value) of the shared copyrighted content times the number of people who downloaded it? More? Less? Legally speaking, i...
Remember that 9-year-old-turned-pirate girl in Finland who’s home was raided and laptop was confiscated? Yeah, well, that saga has come to a close. The father of the girl, who is the one held responsible by Finland’s C...
The “six strikes” anti-piracy “education” program, the program where internet service providers (ISPs) in the United States take action against people accused of pirating copyrighted content, was originally...
Megaupload was taken down by the FBI (and New Zealand authorities) on January 19, 2012. One of the accusations leveled against Megaupload by the Feds was (is) Megaupload ignored Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) take down re...
Megaupload was shutdown by New Zealand and American authorities in January 2012. No one, even Kim Dotcom, denies Megaupload was used, to some degree, to store and share illegal copies of movies (among other copyrighted content). I...
There is a fierce and ongoing debate regarding online file sharing, popularly known as piracy. One component of the debate many people tend to ignore is the vast advantages of pirating content. As the artist of the following comic...
What happens when a 9-year-old girl illegally downloads some songs off the The Pirate Bay? Her home is raided by the police and her laptop is confiscated. Yep, that is what recently happened to a family in Finland. As the story go...
A new study by researchers from Boston’s Northeastern University and the French Eurécom claims that uploaders of pirated content (aka copyrighted content) to cyberlockers (or file sharing sites — like MegaUpload) aren’t doin...
SOPA and PIPA are dead. But anti-piracy measures by the entertainment industry are not. In collaboration with big entertainment, internet service providers (ISPs) in the United States will soon be implementing significant anti-pir...
What was Kim Dotcom’s response to the United States government disrupting this budding Megaupload enterprise? Give the feds the middle finger and open a new and improved service, Mega. As part of his plan to circumvent anti-...
Okay, be honest: how many of you pirate stuff (aka take part in file sharing aka peer-to-peer activity aka torrenting aka call it whatever the hell you want), whatever that stuff maybe? On second thought, don’t be honest ...
So you like your daily (hourly?) dose of porn. Cool, have fun. Just remember to not share it via peer-to-peer channels… otherwise you may end up with a multi-million dollar fine, not to mention public embarrassment. Flava Wo...
Ever since MegaUpload was taken down by the authorities in a raid (which has actually now been declared illegal by New Zealand’s courts) on Kim Dotcom’s mansion in New Zealand, Dotcom has been talking about how he is g...
