As one of the most iconic gaming manufacturers in the world, Nintendo has been fighting piracy for many years.
The company has an in-house anti-piracy division that signals the latest threats to steer enforcement actions in the right direction.
This has resulted in high-profile lawsuits against ROM sites as well as site blocking efforts. For example, earlier this year the company obtained an injunction from the UK High Court which ordered local ISPs to block sites that enable Nintendo Switch piracy.
This included the homes of the infamous Team-Xecutor, as well as sites that sell R4i flashcard adaptors which allow Switch owners to load custom firmware.
The problem for Nintendo is that this blockade is limited to the UK. However, in recent months the company has used another strategy to limit the availability of these sites worldwide, with minimal effort. Instead of going to court, it went to Google.
The gaming company has sent hundreds of takedown notices to the search engine, targeting thousands of URLs. These requests are not standard copyright takedowns. Instead, Nintendo flags the sites for violating the DMCA's anti-circumvention provision.
This includes many pages from Team-Xecuter's site, which offers software to jailbreak the Switch console and bypass other protection measures.
"Nintendo's technological protection measures ('TPMs') ensure that only official copies of its game software can be played on Nintendo's video game systems," Nintendo writes.
"The circumvention devices, products or components offered at the reported links bypass Nintendo's TPMs so that users can play unauthorized copies of Nintendo's game files that are offered unlawfully via the Internet," the notice adds.
Some of the URLs
Nintendo notes that some of the URLs offer circumvention devices and tools directly, but it also highlights pages that "promote and direct" visitors to resellers of the circumvention components.
While Team-Xecuter is one of the main targets, Nintendo is also going after legitimate stores that offer R4i and R4S dongles. This includes Newegg, a well-known electronics retailer based in California.
At the time of writing, Newegg no longer lists any R4i dongles on its .com site but the Canadian version still has some, including the one below. Nintendo also asked Google to remove this page, but for now, it's still listed in the search results.
The same isn't true for many other pages. Most well-ranked Team-Xecuter URLs, including the homepage, have been removed from Google. The same is true for other sites such as usachipss.com, mod-switch.com, mlgames.net, and funnyplaying.com.
Whether the site operators agree with the takedowns or not, they are generally irreversible. Google says that unlike regular DMCA copyright takedowns, there is no counternotice process. The DMCA doesn't prescribe a takedown and counter-notification scheme for DRM circumvention.
While Google has voluntarily chosen to take the URLs offline, it is not required to offer a counter-notice option. This puts targeted sites at a severe disadvantage.
This means that for rightsholders this takedown route can be quite effective. Just a few weeks ago we showed that the RIAA uses the same grounds to remove the URLs of YouTube download platforms, and even scammers have previously used the anti-circumvention route as well.
Private Internet Access, commonly known as PIA, is one of the largest VPN providers in the world.
In recent years it's become a well-established brand that has had its no-logging policy tested in court, with success.
This week the company announced that some changes are afoot. PIA's parent organization LTMI Holdings is in the process of a merger acquisition by the publicly traded Kape Technologies, which also owns the Cyberghost and Zenmate VPN services.
As part of the planned deal, Kape will pay $95.5 million. Part of this will be paid in cash, Vox reports, and Kape is also planning to pay the $32.1 million in existing debt PIA has on the books.
With the planned merger acquisition Kape hopes to become a dominant force in the VPN industry.
"In one acquisition, I believe we have positioned Kape to fast become one of the leading digital privacy service providers in the world, empowering consumers to manage their own data and digital security," Kape's CEO Ido Erlichman comments.
PIA's CEO Ted Kim is also pleased with the deal and notes that it will help to improve the digital privacy and security of PIA's subscribers worldwide.
There are no changes planned in the short term. The Private Internet Access name will remain in use for now, just as Cyberghost and Zenmate are still using their original brands. However, the acquisition has raised questions among some users.
Some have pointed at Kape's history. The company had previously operated under the name Crossrider and was active in the advertising space. Among other things, it installed toolbars with 'potentially unwanted software.' While the company has since switched to a focus on cybersecurity, this past has made some people suspicious.
In an article addressing some of the questions, PIA assured its subscribers that its course is not going to change. According to Chief Communications Officer, Christel Dahlskjaer, privacy and security remain the top priority.
"From day one, we have been clear that your privacy is our policy and that the Private Internet Access VPN and our other privacy products exist to bring power to the people.
"The people are our stakeholders, and it is to you all, collectively, that we must remain accountable," Dahlskjaer adds. She points out that PIA worked with Kape's to establish a shared mission and guiding principles, which reflects the core values.
It's inevitable that any corporate deal in the VPN industry will be watched closely and that's a good thing. VPN providers rely on trust and should be judged by their actions. The company that protects its customers the best way it can, will ultimately be the most successful.
PIA believes that, by teaming up with Kape, it has the best shot at achieving this goal and asks users to give it the time to prove itself.
—–
Disclaimer: PIA is one of our sponsors. This article was written independently, as all of our articles are. We generally don't report on VPN business news but felt that it was good to mention this development.
No comments:
Post a Comment