The European VOD Coalition, which represents video-on-demand (VoD) companies active across the entire EU, has suggested the EU legal regime needs further strengthening to help us protect its members’ content, arguing that the increasingly important role that VoD platforms play within the entertainment industry is threatened by the growing risk of piracy. “As such, we […]

Research conducted for the Attorney-General’s Department has revealed the rate of Australians accessing online content unlawfully remains extremely high. In November 2022, the country’s government announced a review of copyright enforcement mechanisms to ensure Australia’s copyright laws remain fit-for-purpose and better able to adapt to evolving technologies and behaviours. The 2022 Consumer Survey on Online […]

Pro-copyright consumer education body The Industry Trust for IP Awareness and trade body the British Association for Screen Entertainment (BASE) are calling for a joined-up whole society approach to champion the audiovisual industry and the importance of copyright. The Trust has released an overview of the current infringement landscape with supportive measures set out to […]

In related cases, a federal district court and a federal bankruptcy court, both in Florida, have ordered Hisham Manse Ibrahem and Nezar Saeed Hammo, US-based sellers of the pirate service ATN, to pay $32,100,000 (€29.8m) in combined damages for wilful copyright infringement. The cases were filed by DISH Network, a member of trade body the […]

Film and television content security initiative the Trusted Partner Network (TPN) is launching an enhanced programme with a new membership model, application and cloud content security assessments, and the TPN+ platform. TPN, which is fully owned by the Motion Picture Association (MPA), is leveraging the updated MPA Content Security Best Practices v5.0 to expand its […]

A police operation that disrupts websites illegally providing access to copyrighted content stopped £6 million of advertising revenue from UK traffic reaching these websites in 2022.  Operation Creative was launched by the Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit (PIPCU) at City of London Police in 2013 to tackle the funding of illegal streaming websites, which have […]

Clinton Hartland, licensee of The Watering Trough pub in Walsall, West Midlands has been found guilty in his absence of two offences of dishonest reception of a television transmission. In this case, Hartland televised Sky Sports football matches, with the intent to avoid payment of the applicable commercial subscription charge. Sky Sports is only available […]

Research from software provider Synamedia analysing the impact of sports and entertainment piracy across seven countries and the potential revenues that would result from converting pirate viewers to legal subscribers, finds the value of entertainment piracy is three times bigger than sports piracy and that the fragmentation of rights across more services is now affecting […]

The Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit (PIPCU) at City of London Police and anti-piracy agency Web Capio have seized domains that illegally hosted copyrighted content by YouTube supergroup the Sidemen. The domains, somuchcontent.com and sidemencommunity.co.uk, were linked to a site that hosted videos by the Sidemen, including those only available to watch with a subscription. […]

Trade body the International Broadcaster Coalition Against Piracy (IBCAP) has reported key 2022 achievements in protecting its members’ content and removing pirate services from the US market and worldwide. Through the continued development of its proprietary software that enables automated scanning of set-top boxes (STB) and automated sending of takedown notices, the IBCAP lab more […]