U.S. newspapers report poor revenues from digital content

The revenue that U.S. newspapers generate online, does not compensate the loss of sales of the paper versions yet. For every digital dollar gained, seven are lost due to declining sales of newspapers, says a study by the Pew Research Center. The study was conducted from late 2010 until early 2012 and researchers were allowed to use confidential commercial information of 38 newspapers from six...

The Pirate Bay replaces torrents by magnet links

Administrators of The Pirate Bay have announced that the platform has stopped offering links to torrent files. According to Telecompaper.com, they consider torrents to be a "waste of time and space.” Instead, the Pirate Bay now offers  so-called magnet links that refer to a unique code on each torrent detail page.  The move comes in response to a growing number of court decisions...

Belgian court orders payment of fine and damages in individual filesharing case

Yesterday, a 48-year old man from Harelbeke, Belgium was ordered to pay damages worth 65.651 euros for illegally uploading copyright protected music and movies. In addition, the man must pay a (partly conditional) fine of €5500,-. This case was brought before the District Court of Kortrijk when the Belgian collecting society Sabam discovered that music of the British band Kaiser Chiefs was...

BREIN demands all major Dutch ISPs to block Pirate Bay

Dutch anti piracy foundation BREIN continues its battle against filesharing platform The Pirate Bay. After winning the controversial lawsuit against Dutch ISPs Ziggo and XS4all, BREIN has now requested other ISPs in the Netherlands to voluntarily block access to The Pirate Bay. The ISPs dismissed this request, stating that it is not their job to police the internet. Last night, a...

ECJ: No general monitoring responsibility for social networks

Online social networks cannot be forced to install a general filtering system to preventively monitor whether its users exchange unauthorised copies of copyright protected work. This would be a disproportionate measure that limits freedom of enterprise of the platform and infringes the privacy of its users, according to Europe's highest court on Thursday. With this preliminary ruling, the...