For well over a decade, copyright holders have been obtaining injunctions around the world to have copyright-infringing sites blocked by Internet service providers. The belief is that when users are presented with this roadblock, they will be more likely to turn to licensed services instead. At the time of writing, more than 40 countries either […]

One of the core pillars of academic research is sharing. By letting other researchers know what you do, ideas are criticized, improved upon, and extended. Unfortunately, it’s not always easy for academics to share their work. Most of the top publications are monetized by major publishers, which means that they are locked behind a paywall. […]

Most pirate IPTV services online today operate by accessing official broadcasts and streams, capturing them with dedicated equipment, and then restreaming video to the public from dedicated servers. However, a US lawsuit filed late July shows that’s not the only way. DISH Sues ‘SportsBay’ Sites In an interesting complaint filed in a Texas court, DISH […]

Over the past two decades, online piracy has proven a massive challenge for the entertainment industries. Some copyright holders have tried to go after individual pirates in court but, increasingly, third-party intermediaries are targeted as well. There are several lawsuits pending in US Courts, where rightsholders accused Internet providers of not doing enough to stop […]

At the turn of the century when server bandwidth was at a premium, peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing stepped in to solve the problem. Rather than a small number of individuals having to foot the bill, sharers picked up their own parts of the traffic tab by sharing content with their peers. In the mid-2000s, server bandwidth […]

A few years ago piracy-related lawsuits were pretty straightforward. Copyright holders would either sue alleged file-sharers or the operators of pirate sites. In recent months, we have seen a new breed of lawsuits filed on behalf of the makers of movies such as “Hunter Killer,” “Automata,” “Survivor,” and “I Feel Pretty.” These lawsuits target VPN […]

A little under two years ago, the federal government shut down Gears-branded IPTV services operated by Bill Omar Carrasquillo (aka Omi in a Hellcat). IRS and FBI agents seized “at least” $5.2m from his bank accounts along with a laundry list of supercars and other vehicles, alleged to have been purchased with revenues from Carrasquillo’s […]

Founded in 2006, RLSLOG.net was one of the pioneers of the ‘release blog’ format. When it first launched, visitors were able to read about the latest pirate releases, who had placed them online and, importantly, what the files were called. Unlike so-called ‘pre databases’ that displayed only raw information, new releases on RLSLOG were presented […]