TorrentFreak's Latest News

Spain's Ongoing Pirate Site-Blocking War Targets Thousands of SubdomainsAndy Maxwell, 31 May 11:05 AM Amendments to Spain's Copyright Act (Law No. 2

Spain's Ongoing Pirate Site-Blocking War Targets Thousands of Subdomains Andy Maxwell, 31 May 11:05 AM Amendments to Spain's Copyright Act (Law No. 2/2011) in 2011 led to the formation of an administrative body known as the Second Section of the Intellectual Property Commission (S2CPI). S2CPI launched in 2012 under the Spanish government's Ministry of Culture and Sports and has the authority to instruct the country's internet service providers to block subscriber access to confirmed pirate sites and services. Data just published, covering the first quarter of 2024, begins with an overview of the number of blocking applications filed by rightsholders since records began in 2012. Even though three-quarters of the year remains, it seems unlikely that 2024 will see as many applications as 2023 or 2022. The blocking process is triggered when rightsholders file an application with S2CPI to block a domain operated by a pirate site or service. From 2012 to Q1 2024, 909 applications were submitted, although just 11 of those during the first three months of 2024. Over a Third of Applications ...Read More Court Denies Filmmakers' Renewed Attempt to Get Redditors' IP Addresses Ernesto Van der Sar, 30 May 10:00 PM Reddit has gone head-to-head with a group of filmmakers over the past year, aiming to protect the privacy of its users. In three separate cases, the filmmakers subpoenaed Reddit for details of users who commented on various piracy related topics. The movie companies said they were not planning to go after these people in court but wanted to use their comments as evidence in ongoing piracy liability lawsuits against Internet providers. Reddit viewed the requests as intrusive. The company objected to the initial attempt, arguing that handing over the requested information would violate its users' right to anonymous speech. Reddit later responded similarly to a second and third subpoena request. The movie companies took these cases to a federal court, asking it to compel Reddit to comply. The court refused to do so, three times already. Filmmakers Request 'De Novo' Review The film companies were not happy with the denials and refused to give up. When U.S. Magistrate Judge Thomas Hix...Read More Are you looking for a VPN service? TorrentFreak sponsor NordVPN has some excellent offers. ©2024 TorrentFreak | Office 21338 PO Box 4336 Manchester, North West M61 0BW United Kingdom Web Version   Preferences   Forward   Unsubscribe     Powered by Mad Mimi®A GoDaddy® company

TorrentFreak's Latest News

FBI Carries Out Fresh Round of Z-Library Domain Name SeizuresErnesto Van der Sar, 30 May 10:35 AM Z-Library is one of the largest shadow libraries o

FBI Carries Out Fresh Round of Z-Library Domain Name Seizures Ernesto Van der Sar, 30 May 10:35 AM Z-Library is one of the largest shadow libraries on the Internet, hosting millions of books and articles that can be downloaded for free. The site defied all odds over the past two years. It continued to operate despite a full-fledged criminal prosecution by the United States, which resulted in the arrest of two alleged operators in Argentina. According to the latest available information, these two defendants are still fighting their extradition. Meanwhile, the Z-Library service has continued to operate as if nothing ever happened, serving books to millions of people all over the world. FBI Seizes More Domains The feds are not standing idly by and have seized hundreds of domain names belonging to the site. The first wave of seizures took place in November 2022, shortly before the criminal case was made public. Another round followed in the spring, and a third wave came last November. With these seizures, the FBI aims to frustrate Z-Library's operations. Thus far, however, the lib...Read More Activision Wins $14.5m Judgment After EngineOwning Cheat Makers Bailed Out Andy Maxwell, 29 May 08:19 PM In a lawsuit filed at a U.S. district court early January 2022, video game giant Activision targeted German company EngineOwning UG, plus a number of individuals associated with the cheat-making and distribution business. With a flood of similar cases, some filed by competitor Bungie, providing a template, Activision's complaint alleged, among other things, that the defendants trafficked in circumvention devices, in violation of the DMCA's anti-circumvention provision. Warring Parties Come Out Fighting For more than a year, the EngineOwning defendants played to their strengths, characterizing Activision as a fifty billion dollar corporate bully targeting a handful of under-resourced, overseas defendants, with little means of fighting back. Yet fight back they did. After retaining counsel in the United States, defendants including Valentin Rick, Alex Kleeman, Bennet Huch, Leon Frisch, Leon Schlender, Leonard Bugla, Marc-Alexander Richts, Pascal Claβen, and Remo Löffler, filed a moti...Read More Are you looking for a VPN service? TorrentFreak sponsor NordVPN has some excellent offers. ©2024 TorrentFreak | Office 21338 PO Box 4336 Manchester, North West M61 0BW United Kingdom Web Version   Preferences   Forward   Unsubscribe     Powered by Mad Mimi®A GoDaddy® company

TorrentFreak's Latest News

'Mastermind' Arrested After Pirate Site 'Ads' Were Painted on 630-Yr-Old PalaceAndy Maxwell, 29 May 11:57 AM In today's throwaway society, there can

'Mastermind' Arrested After Pirate Site 'Ads' Were Painted on 630-Yr-Old Palace Andy Maxwell, 29 May 11:57 AM In today's throwaway society, there can be a tendency to undervalue. Expensive smartphones are carelessly dropped and replaced, while an intermittent fault is seen as an excuse to buy better TV, rather than as a signal to check the batteries first. Yet, things that have true worth, due to their history and other intangible qualities, are not so easily replaced. Last December, when the city of Seoul, South Korea, got out of bed to nationwide news reports of graffiti being sprayed on the walls of the ancient Gyeongbokgung Palace, it wasn't difficult to see why people were so upset. Built in 1395, Still Incredible Gyeongbokgung dates back to the Joseon dynasty, making it very nearly 630 years old. It's had a lot of restoration work done over the years, including a rebuild in 1867 after being destroyed 270 years earlier. But as the news report shows, culture and history aren't valued by everyone. Images in the media revealed that the graffiti was sprayed in several locations, together ...Read More Cox Appeals Billion Dollar Piracy Verdict Over 'Concealed Evidence' Ernesto Van der Sar, 28 May 10:34 PM Late 2019, Internet provider Cox Communications lost its legal battle against a group of major record labels, including Sony and Universal. Following a two-week trial, a Virginia jury held Cox liable for its pirating subscribers. The ISP failed to disconnect repeat infringers and was ordered to pay $1 billion in damages. Cox challenged the verdict through several routes and, earlier this year, booked a partial victory. The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals confirmed that the ISP was contributorily liable for pirating subscribers, but reversed the vicarious copyright infringement finding. A new trial will determine the appropriate damages amount given these new conclusions. Meanwhile, Cox has another angle to work at. This week, the company filed its opening brief, appealing the District Court's denial of its relief from judgement (Rule 60[b]) motion, as well as the court's conclusion that Cox's defense wasn't hampered by the music companies 'concealment' of evidence. Rehashed Infring...Read More Are you looking for a VPN service? TorrentFreak sponsor NordVPN has some excellent offers. ©2024 TorrentFreak | Office 21338 PO Box 4336 Manchester, North West M61 0BW United Kingdom Web Version   Preferences   Forward   Unsubscribe     Powered by Mad Mimi®A GoDaddy® company

TorrentFreak's Latest News

Serie A Legal Action Claims Cloudflare Helps Pirates Evade Piracy ShieldAndy Maxwell, 28 May 09:09 AM During the first week of April 2024, the CEO o

Serie A Legal Action Claims Cloudflare Helps Pirates Evade Piracy Shield Andy Maxwell, 28 May 09:09 AM During the first week of April 2024, the CEO of top Italian football league Serie A was brimming with confidence. Luigi De Siervo said that Piracy Shield, Italy's brand new anti-piracy blocking system, was having such an effect that "No pirate can sleep peacefully." Those who doubted its capabilities, he implied, should note what Serie A investigators were seeing on pirate Telegram channels after the system's launch; 'excitement' apparently, but of what kind wasn't made clear. Piracy Shield Had an Exciting First Two Months It's certainly possible that when AGCOM finally admitted that weeks earlier Cloudflare had indeed been blocked in error, that may have caused a little excitement. Maybe Piracy Shield code leaking online helped to get pulses racing too, or perhaps a third party site, publishing blocking data that the authorities should've published, but did not, could be somewhat responsible? It's not out of the question that the figures released in the first week of April played...Read More NVIDIA Denies Copyright Infringement Claims in Authors' AI Lawsuit Ernesto Van der Sar, 27 May 09:56 PM Thus far, chip giant NVIDIA has been the main financial beneficiary of the Artificial Intelligence boom. The company published its latest quarterly results last week, reporting $26 billion in revenue; a 340% increase compared to two years ago. The staggering revenue numbers over the past year have significantly raised the value of the company, which is now worth more than all public companies in Germany combined. At the same time, however, the AI revolution presents the semiconductor giant with new legal challenges. NVIDIA Faces Copyright Infringement Claims Earlier this year, several authors sued NVIDIA over alleged copyright infringement. The class action lawsuit claims that the company's AI models were trained on copyrighted works taken from the 'pirate' site Bibliotik. Since this happened without permission, the rightsholders demand compensation. This lawsuit doesn't exist in isolation. Previously, authors and other rightsholders filed similar cases against OpenAI, Google, Met...Read More Are you looking for a VPN service? TorrentFreak sponsor NordVPN has some excellent offers. ©2024 TorrentFreak | Office 21338 PO Box 4336 Manchester, North West M61 0BW United Kingdom Web Version   Preferences   Forward   Unsubscribe     Powered by Mad Mimi®A GoDaddy® company