Among the standard responses to any proposal to mitigate online piracy is an insistence that it just cannot be stopped.  Perhaps not entirely. But it can be starved.  That was the underlying goal of SOPA, but people decided the criminal sites deserved the money they were making because freedom. As many readers know, the piracy universe is still largely supported ...

Everybody loves a scandal, even though sometimes where there’s smoke there’s just more smoke.  German politician Julia Reda (MEP), the sole member of the Pirate Party at the European Parliament was joined by TechDirt and some mainstream news sources in making  a fair bit of noise last week, declaring that the EU Commission buried a study, which concluded that “piracy ...

When it comes to enterprise-scale piracy, it would be great if those who advocate its existence would just make simple declarations like, “I want free media and don’t care how I get it.”  Sure, that would be a childish thing to say, but still less offensive than all the pretense to rationale that accompanies piracy—the absurd legal arguments, the mystical ...

Image by stefanocar75 Copyright holders have long insisted that search results play a substantial role in driving users toward pirate sites.  Google and piracy advocates have generally countered that search does not drive much traffic to illegal sites because the people who consistently use infringing sites know what they’re doing and will go directly to the content they’re seeking.  This is a ...

This month, computers around the world fell victim to what experts have called the largest cyberattack on record. Known by its name “WannaCry,” the ransomware* assault went global sending cyber-defense teams into hyperdrive trying to protect systems as vital as hospitals, banks, and telecommunications in Europe, Asia, and the U.S.  One notable consequence of the attack, as reported in The ...

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