US senators have re-introduced a bill aimed at giving US authorities more tools to crack down on websites selling pirated movies, television shows and music and counterfeit goods. Senator Patrick Leahy, a Democrat from Vermont, said the legislation would protect the investment American companies make in developing brands and creating content and protect the jobs […]
Sony is planning to restore its online PlayStation Network (PSN) in full by the end of May. It admitted the company had missed a self-imposed deadline of restarting a partial service by the weekend. Sony said it continues to investigate the case, after personal details from 100 million accounts were compromised. The company had originally […]
Sony Chief Executive Officer Howard Stringer has apologised to users of the PlayStation Network and other online services. “As a company we – and I – apologise for the inconvenience and concern caused by this attack,” Stringer said on Sony’s US PlayStation blog. Sony issued its first warning on the break-in a week after it […]
A coalition of artists in music and film has sued CBS Interactive Inc. and CNET Networks, Inc. for mass-scale copyright infringement in Los Angeles federal court. This lawsuit is based on the defendants’ direct participation in massive copyright infringement on peer-to-peer (‘P2P’) systems, such as LimeWire, that are used to copy and distribute songs, films […]
In his first Washington address since becoming Chairman/CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), Senator Chris Dodd has described illegally acquiring movie content as “looting”. In an address to the Media Institute, Dodd said that in the seven weeks since he joined the MPAA, he had learned a great deal about the American […]
Russia should introduce an initiative to regulate copyright on the Internet, according to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. At a meeting with the country’s Internet community he stressed the need to optimise the work of the online services and mass-media, saying that protection of the intellectual property, copyright and prevention of cyber crimes were among the […]
The US Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations has launched a new public service announcement (PSA) that aims to raise awareness of the economic impact of IP theft. In June 2010, the National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center (IPR Center) began ‘Operation In Our Sites’, a sustained initiative targeting websites used to sell […]
The first episode of Game of Thrones, the multi-million dollar production from HBO, aired in the US on April 18th. Less than 90 minutes after its broadcast, pirated copies appeared on popular file-sharing sites such as Torrentz.com and The Piratebay. Just 4 hours after airing, 30,000 users were downloading the show. A sample of IP […]
A senior executive at BSkyB has suggested that making available compelling legal choices of obtaining content will help combat copyright theft. Writing in a company blog, David Wheeldon, the broadcaster’s Director of Policy and Public Affairs, notes that Sky Atlantic HD is premiering Game of Thrones, HBO’s epic medieval tale just one day after it […]
US Vice President Joseph Biden has followed up robust comments made at a news conference in the summer of 2010 about copyright theft by once again stressing the criminality of such activities. Having previously compared it to “smashing the window at Tiffany’s and reaching in and grabbing what’s in” the store. Biden told Variety magazine, […]