" piracy

The major Hollywood film studios earlier this week said in court documents that they won't object if data is returned to MegaUpload users as long as the files were "legitimately acquired."

MegaUpload's representatives were unimpressed. They say the Motion Picture Association of America, the studios' trade group, knows that it's nearly impossible to determine for sure if a movie was legally purchased or not.

"Accept this as posturing," said Ira Rothken, the attorney leading MegaUpload's worldwide defense. Rothken said the MPAA's "illusory request for 100 percent certainty" on which … Read more

The Recording Industry Association of America's CEO, Cary Sherman, testified before Congress today on "The Future of Audio." Although the minutes of the hearing aren't yet available, Sherman did publish a statement of his speech, according to TorrentFreak, which first reported this news.

In Sherman's statement, he stresses that online piracy must be stopped and one of the ways to do this is by having search engines, like Google and Bing, censor any results that could lead users to sites with illegally obtained copyrighted material.

"Major advertisers and ad agencies announced a series of … Read more

With "Game of Thrones" now the most pirated show on the Internet, a site has sprung up calling for HBO Go to become available without a cable membership, but unfortunately it's unlikely to work.

The site, started by Web programmer Jake Caputo and called Take My Money, HBO!, is designed to convince HBO to sell individual memberships to HBO Go to reduce piracy.

In response, several sites have pointed out why this strategy is doomed to fail. Even the company itself seems happy with its current domestic situation: in response to my request for comment, a HBO spokesperson instead pointed me to this tweet, which links to a TechCrunch article detailing why "HBO doesn't want your money."… Read more

Reversing the trend of recent court upsets for the Web giant, Google had a notable success in French Court today. Siding with Google in its battle against French broadcaster TF1, the court ruled that the Internet company is not liable for filtering out pirated content on YouTube, according to Reuters.

The French media company brought the case against Google alleging that copyrighted sports and movies were easily accessible on YouTube, according to Reuters.

In this case, TF1 sought more than $176 million (141 million euros) in damages, but the French court ended up ordering the broadcaster to instead pay Google'… Read more

A New Zealand judge wants to see the evidence against MegaUpload's managers.

Judge David Harvey has given New Zealand law enforcement officials three weeks to provide documentary evidence against managers of the cloud-storage service accused of encouraging massive copyright infringement.

Harvey was responding to a request made by MegaUpload's lawyers to require New Zealand, which is pressing the case on behalf of the United States, to fully disclose the evidence against company managers. The U.S. government in January indicted MegaUpload's founder Kim DotCom and five others connected to the company on criminal copyright charges.

As part … Read more

The patience of Kyle Goodwin, a former MegaUpload user, has apparently run out.

The videographer, who stored clips of high school sports action at MegaUpload, filed a three-page motion today that asks a federal court in Virginia to figure out a way to return his clips to him.

Goodwin has waited for the company, the U.S. government, Hollywood film studios, and other interested parties to determine what to do with the data on MegaUpload's servers, which were seized by the United States in January. The district court overseeing the case told everyone with a stake in MegaUpload's … Read more

Google is removing URLs from its search function, but before anyone cries foul, it's letting people know about it.

The tech giant released a new edition of its Transparency Report today, which shows who is requesting URLs be taken down, the copyright owners, and all the targeted domains since July 2011. Everything that's being deleted is allegedly copyrighted or pirated material -- mostly from software and entertainment companies.

Google has been releasing the Transparency Report for the last two years, but before today the only available information was government requests to remove content and disruptions in the search … Read more

Kim DotCom isn't too big to cry.

In court yesterday, the MegaUpload founder choked up when he recalled how New Zealand police in January raided the Auckland mansion where he lived and when, as his lawyer said, he was "ripped him away from his family." The U.S. Attorney's office accuses MegaUpload of being a front for a massive piracy operation and lawyers there are trying to extradite him to this country to face criminal copyright, money laundering and wire fraud charges.

MegaUpload was one of the Web's most popular cyberlocker services before U.S. … Read more

First thing to know about the case involving acknowledged music pirate Joel Tenenbaum is that it will likely go on...and on.

Much is being made about a decision today by the U.S. Supreme Court not to hear Tenenbaum's challenge to a jury ruling against him, one that left him with a $675,000 penalty hanging over his head.

In 2007, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), the trade group of the top four record companies, filed a copyright infringement suit against Tenenbaum, a then-college student from Boston who was accused of illegally downloading 31 songs from … Read more