In recent months, copyright holders have sent over a quarter million takedown requests targeting pirated videos on Google's servers. The notices point to a wide variety of infringing movies and TV-shows, all served from Googlevideo.com URLs. This recent surge shows that Google has a hard time stopping pirate streaming sites from exploiting its servers.
Today we bring you the next episode of the Steal This Show podcast, discussing renegade media and the latest file-sharing and copyright news. In this episode, we talk to Rand Miller, creator of the Myst and Riven adventure games.
Disney chief Bob Iger recently announced that hackers had obtained one of the company's movies and were holding it to ransom. This Wednesday, TorrentFreak concluded it was a hoax, and on Thursday, Disney admitted that was indeed the case. When the 'hack' had so little credibility from the beginning almost a month ago, why debunk it so late?
If Napster co-founder Sean Parker has his way, people will soon be able to watch the latest Hollywood blockbusters in their living room as soon as they premiere at the box office. New details laid out in a series of patent applications reveal that the platform will likely be equipped with advanced anti-piracy technologies, including a "P2P polluter."
A witness for the world's most notorious copyright trolls appears to have time-traveling abilities. Guardaley's "expert" sent a declaration to the court claiming to have witnessed BitTorrent infringement more than a week before the offenses allegedly took place. Marty McFly's colleagues subsequently dropped the case.
Pirate streaming site Pubfilm is not impressed by the lawsuit filed by major Hollywood studios earlier this year. The site has already lost several domain names following a court order. However, Pubfilm continues to taunt the studios by offering its service from new locations, as if nothing ever happened.
Facebook has updated its Commerce Policy to include a ban on "products or items" that facilitate or encourage unauthorized access to digital media. The new rule has almost certainly been put in place to stop the further spread of "fully loaded" set-top devices running modified Kodi and similar software.
Last week, Disney boss Bog Iger revealed that one of his company's movies had been stolen and was being held hostage for a bitcoin ransom. With press speculation that it might be the latest 'Pirates' movie, TF has spent more than a week trying to find out more. The whole thing seems highly questionable.
Just days after ExtraTorrent closed its doors, various sites popped up claiming to be the popular torrent site resurrected. Some even go as far as stating they're operated by former staffers, which was quickly picked up by the press. In reality, however, the widely covered copycat appears to be a Pirate Bay mirror with an ExtraTorrent skin.