Category Archives: Online piracy

Copyright Trolls: What Does It All Mean

By John Whitaker on September 25th, 2012 Posted in I.P. Address Suits, Online piracy, Porn Industry

In case you just got one of those letters from your ISP telling you that you have been selected for the latest bittorent extortion program, otherwise known as a subpoena for your personal records, then you might be asking yourself “what does this all mean?” I myself wrote a brief article that describes your dilemma–what… Continue Reading

Viacom Sued Over Photo of Demi Moore

By John Whitaker on August 21st, 2012 Posted in DMCA Safe Harbor, Interesting Cases, Online piracy

National Photo Group is a company that licenses photographs of celebrities. They claim to own the copyrights on a multitude of photographs of celebrities. Licensing those photographs to online and print publications is the ‘bread and butter of its business.’ Viacom is the parent company of VH1, which as we all know is a television channel… Continue Reading

Google Now Using DMCA Takedown Notices To Affect Search Ranking

By John Whitaker on August 14th, 2012 Posted in DMCA Safe Harbor, Online piracy

Google recently announced that it will begin using the number of DMCA takedown notices that a site receives. ”Starting next week, we will begin taking into account a new signal in our rankings: the number of valid copyright removal notices we receive for any given site,” said Amit Singhal, Google SVP of engineering. “Sites with high… Continue Reading

Motion To Quash Subpoenas In Copyright Infringement Cases

By John Whitaker on July 25th, 2012 Posted in I.P. Address Suits, Online piracy

There is a ton of coverage about Motions to Quash the subpoenas that are being served in these mass-infringement cases. There are also several pretty good sample Motions to Quash out there. But the question is: which one do I use? The answer should be, the one that works. With that in mind, I decided… Continue Reading

DMCA Takedown Notices Being Abused

By John Whitaker on July 19th, 2012 Posted in DMCA Safe Harbor, Interesting Cases, Online piracy

Yesterday I posted a blog article about how the DMCA takedown notices are being so heavily abused these days that it amounts to extortion. The good folks over at FightCopyrightTrolls tweeted about my post, it came to the attention of someone at Takedown Piracy, and their owner called me a hack. Well, here’s my take. … Continue Reading

Copyright Infringement Crusades Underway

By John Whitaker on July 18th, 2012 Posted in Contingent Fee, Online piracy

In case you have any doubt about the explosion of attacks that are being made against alleged copyright infringement, you need only look at Google’s Transparency Report on the number of URLs that are being attacked. Take a look. The number of URLs that are being accused of facilitating copyright infringement has gone up by… Continue Reading

Open Wi-Fi Is Not Copyright Infringement

By John Whitaker on May 17th, 2012 Posted in Interesting Cases, Online piracy

There has been an ongoing debate about whether leaving your wi-fi router open (not secured by a password) makes you liable if someone else uses your router to download unlicensed copyrighted material. For instance, some copyright owners are calling it negligence to leave your wi-fi router open. However, many others have put together cogent arguments… Continue Reading

Porn Industry Wins Another Copyright Victory

By John Whitaker on March 29th, 2012 Posted in Interesting Cases, Online piracy

I mentioned earlier about the $4 Million default judgment entered against the PornVisit.com site for the unauthorized streaming of some porn movies. That’s real money. Well, it happened again. This time, Corbin Fisher and Titan Media secured a summary judgment victory against GLBT Ltd. for copyright infringement. For those of you who are unfamiliar with… Continue Reading

Pinterest Dodges Copyright Infringement Charges

By John Whitaker on February 22nd, 2012 Posted in DMCA Safe Harbor, Fair Use, Infringement Defenses, Online piracy

It seems that as soon as you become marginally successful on the Internet, you are accused of copyright infringement. So too with Pinterest. If you don’t know, Pinterest is the clever little service that allows you to freely surf the Internet, and if you come across an interesting picture or image, you can “pin it”… Continue Reading

Hana Beshara (Phara) Goes To Jail for Criticizing the Government

By John Whitaker on January 15th, 2012 Posted in Interesting Cases, Online piracy, Software Protection

Hana Beshara, the self-proclaimed attractive co-founder of NinjaVideo, was recently sentenced to 22 months in jail. Now this really isn’t a big surprise, given the government’s fairly recent push to demonize and vilify people who push the limits of fair use online. As a copyright attorney myself, I can’t really say I’m in favor of… Continue Reading

Copyright Piracy OK if You Spend The Money You Saved

By John Whitaker on December 2nd, 2011 Posted in DMCA Safe Harbor, Fair Use, Infringement Defenses, Online piracy

The Swiss government has been considering additional legislation to address online copyright infringement. First, when you read an article about copyrights, you know which way the author leans by whether it’s referred to as “copyright infringement” or “copyright piracy.” The hardcore ones call it “copyright theft.” The worse you make it sound, the more likely… Continue Reading