The lawyer taking hundreds of UK citizens to court for alleged illegal downloading has dramatically withdrawn from all cases. The patent court in London was currently scrutinising 26 cases brought by ACS: Law on behalf of its client MediaCAT. The law firm had sent thousands of letters to alleged file-sharers. In a statement read to […]
Nearly half of people in France download film and music illegally, according to a study by the anti-internet piracy body, Hadopi. The study found that only one third of users were prepared to change and migrate to legal sites but piracy was not slowing down and methods were diversifying, the report found. It believes piracy […]
The Spanish government has watered down parts of its anti-Internet piracy bill in a move designed to win opposition support. The Conservative Popular Party and a Catalan nationalist group have now agreed to back the bill when it goes to the Senate on February the 9th. Culture Minister Ángeles González Sinde has conceded that individual […]
Communications minister Ed Vaizey has introduced secondary legislation aimed at enforce anti-piracy plans in the Digital Economy Act, passed shortly before the May General Election. The ‘Sharing of Costs Order’ covers the cost of letters sent to those suspected of piracy, as well as prosecution and appeal costs. These will be split between media rights […]
China will step up its fight to protect intellectual property rights (IPR) by targeting online piracy, state media has said, amid calls for Beijing to do more on widespread copyright infringement. “It is vital to protect online IPR,” Wang Ziqiang, spokesman for the National Copyright Administration, was quoted as saying by the China Daily. “If […]
Internet users — not Internet companies — should be held legally accountable for uploading pirated content on web sites, Russian Communications and Press Minister Igor Shchyogolev has said. But Shchyogolev added that it is in the responsibility of the Internet companies to delete illegal content “upon the signal from the lawful property rights owner.” The […]
RapidShare has blasted a report characterising the file-hosting site as a home for pirated content. Researchers from MarkMonitor crawled the Internet for sites offering counterfeit and pirated digital content tied to 22 high-profile brands. The results included 43 websites classified as digital piracy sites. An additional 48 sites were identified as selling counterfeit goods. One […]
A sampling of only 22 brands revealed that websites offering pirated digital content and counterfeit goods generate more than 53 billion visits per year, according to research carried out by enterprise brand protection specialist MarkMonitor. Sites offering pirated digital content draw the lion’s share of the 53 billion annual visits while sites selling counterfeit goods, […]
Kuwait is home to a number of satellite TV channels, many operating without a formal licence. Kuwait’s information ministry has ordered that these stations be immediately closed down. BBC Monitoring is quoting Kuwaiti daily Al Jareeda saying: “The decision aims to regularise the work of the satellite channels and curb abuses by some of them,” […]
A report from the European Commission (EC) has suggested that rates of intellectual property infringement in the EU are “alarming”, and accepts that while an EU law on IP rights has had some effect, the legal measure was not designed to deal with online piracy. According to the EC, current laws are not strong enough […]