Tag Archives: piracy

Team Xecuter is rather infamous in console hacking circles. Whilst many people feel it should be an open-source and profit-free endeavour, Team Xecuter have always tried to make money with their exploits. Their Nintendo Switch offering is no different costing $25 and containing “brick code” that will brick consoles when …

Over the last year, console hackers and modders have been chipping away at the Nintendo Switch, discovering what makes the console tick and how to work around its security. At this point, playing pirated games on a Switch is perfectly possible, so Nintendo is cracking down with some strict new …

Kodi has long been the main target in the war on piracy, with a major win for copyright seeing two UK-based fully-loaded Kodi box sellers receiving jail time for running a fraudulent business. It seems another piracy-enabling application has been dragged back into the forefront again, however, as movie executives …

Perfectly legal multimedia software Kodi has taken another blow today, thanks to its close association with piracy. In another attempt to fight back against copyright infringing material, Google has removed the name of the platform from its autocompleting algorithm, meaning that search terms will be have to typed out in …

A few weeks ago, Spotify began cracking down on Dogfood, a modded version of the music streaming app for Android that allowed users to take advantage of ad-free listening for free. Now it turns out that around two million people were using this version of the app to skirt around …

Final Fantasy XV will be launching on PC this week but it looks like some users are already able to play, as the Origin version of the game has already been cracked. Square Enix opened up the door for buyers to pre-load the game on a few storefronts earlier this …

The war on piracy is never-ending, with a constant back and forth as to how harmful the theft of digital material can be on creators of the content in question. It seems that the Brazilian TV industry feels pretty strongly on the matter, causing a local YouTuber to be convicted …

It seems that breaking the law isn’t the only way you can get burned by investing in piracy-enabled streaming boxes. A new study has unsurprisingly found that such devices present fire and electrical safety concerns as well as insufficient instructions of use, installation and maintenance. The results of this study …

The war on piracy never ends, with the latest battle seeing a British man fined £16,000 for making money from illegally streaming Sky Sports. This is yet another attempt for the UK to crack down on measures to protect copyrighted content. The Independent reports of Mr Yusuf Mohammad, a Bristol …

Just two weeks on from relatively extreme plans proposed for the EU's new anti-piracy measures, an old study ordered by the European Commission has been revealed stating that there are no explicit links between piracy and sales. Findings from this study were revealed last year, however, albeit paraphrased to suit …

We have known for some time now that the Windows Store is a bit of a mess but now it is starting to look like Microsoft has absolutely no approval process or quality assurance going on at all. It turns out that right now, there are a bunch of pirate …

After a long waiting period, Rick and Morty Season 3 officially began airing in the US late last month. At the time, Netflix announced that its UK subscribers would get new episodes of this season every week, the day after it airs in the US. Unfortunately, Netflix didn’t plan for …

Despite being a general media platform, Kodi has become synonymous with piracy, prompting investigations from many official bodies. While many measures have been put in place to combat piracy, FACT plans to target individual users of illegal apps as well as sellers and developers. 2017 has seen a major crackdown …

Last year, The Free Subtitles Foundation, a group dedicated to pumping out free fan-made subtitles, decided to take the anti-piracy group BREIN to court in hopes of a judge ruling fan subs as legal. Unfortunately, after more than a year, it seems that plan has backfired, with a judge this …

Kodi is widely considered to be an excellent media streaming platform but over the years, it has also been used as a convenient tool for piracy. Plenty of add-on packs have been made for Kodi over the years which grant access to pirated streaming services and the popularity of ‘fully …

The UK's Intellectual Property Office (IPO) is launching an investigation and consultation on how best to tackle the problem of Kodi boxes, the set-top devices that allow Netflix-like access to pirated content. While a seller of those media streamers was arrested back in 2016, rights holders argue that Kodi piracy …

Completed manga comic series fare far better with piracy than those series which are ongoing, according to a new study. Research suggests that manga readers will more readily pirate content if a series is still ongoing, but if it's completed, they might not know it existed without a pirated version. The relationship …

While some lobby groups are still railing against the dangers of torrent sites and downloading, many around the world have moved on to much newer ways to watch protected content: like Facebook live streams. Looking to stay on top of emerging trends however is Dutch anti-piracy group, BRIEN, which has shut …

The big four internet service providers (ISP) in the UK have agreed to voluntarily begin sending out warning letters to customers that are suspected of piracy. That means customers of Sky, BT, Virgin Media and TalkTalk may now receive a warning if their IP address is thought to be involved …

A man who was accused of pirating Adam Sandler movie, The Cobbler, has been awarded $17,000 by an Oregon judge in compensation for the aggressive tactics by the production company that tried to take him to court. The monetary award will cover the man's legal fees accrued throughout the process, as …

The biggest file sharing website in France, Zone-Telechargement, has been shut down after being seized by the police. This will see millions of file sharers looking elsewhere for their content, as Zone-Telechargement was ranked as the 11th biggest website in France at the time of its shutdown. Launched in 2011, …

The head of one of Russia's largest anti-piracy agencies has been arrested and charged with fraud, stemming from an alleged incident where he offered to drop the case against a well known pirate site in exchange for monetary compensation. He is said to have demanded as much as 50 million …

One of the tactics that movie studios, music labels and copyright trolls use in taking down sites, having them blocked or attempting to extort money, is to find links to infringing content and either use them as court evidence, for DMCA takedowns. It turns out though that some groups manufacture …

2016 has not been a good year for torrent sites. On top of losing mainstream sharing traction to streaming sites and services, three of the top 10 torrent sites in the world have shut down. Following along with KickassTorrens and Torrentz, TorrentHound has now announced a sudden end to its …

Internet service providers (ISP) are usually not big fans of torrent sites. Downloaders on their network can mean a lot of traffic and can negatively effect the experience of other users, especially in areas of low speed or restricted bandwidth. To try and fix this in some places in India, …

Denuvo has spent the last year and a half standing tall amidst the pirate throngs that would tear it down, protecting games of all kinds from being played illegally. In recent weeks though it has begun to show its cracks and it may be about to tumble, as it's been breached for …

Popular websites are like the mythical hydra: cut off their head and two more appear in their place. When it comes to torrent sites though, they're like some kind of super hydra, as when they disappear, tens crawl out of the woodwork to replace them. In the case of Kickass Torrents, …

Media companies have been trying to battle piracy and online torrent sites for years without much success. However, NBC Universal recently been granted a patent that details new technology designed to detect and track those downloading torrents. The “Early Detection of High Volume Peer-to-Peer Swarms” system is designed to detect …

Along with the producers of The Hurt Locker, the creators of Dallas Buyers Club have been the most aggressive in recent years in going after alleged internet pirates of their movies. Not everyone rolls over and takes it though, as the latter group are now facing potential sanctions over tactics described …

Despite efforts made by HBO to crack down on potential leaks of the new episodes of its flagship medieval fantasy show, Game of Thrones, they just keep on spouting. Once again the latest episode of the show appeared online before it was available through legitimate channels. In recent years along …