In the soap-opera that has been the case against Kim Dotcom and Mega Upload we now has another chapter. It seems that the copyright groups responsible for the original claims against Dotcom want to have a look at this financial state. If you remember when the case and raid first happened we mentioned that the move was most likely done to remove competition from the playing field. The actions and claims that followed certainly seemed to support our hypothesis.

There is a story running around the internet that says Google is now processing one million piracy take down requests in a single day. Now there are two different spins to this story (and we will cover both) out there. One of them is being pushed by the copyright lobby groups, while the other is popping up through sites like Google and various net neutrality groups.

You knew it was going to happen, but I am honestly surprised that it has happened this soon after the special 301 report recommendations came out. Italy has decided to issue a nation-wide block of sites that are suspected of piracy. One of the sites thrown into the mix is Kim Dotcom’s new cloud hosting service Mega. The measure was ordered by Court of Rome Judge Constantino De Robbio and includes 24 sites in its scope.

So, remember back when the FBI removed data that is was not allowed to search for from the home of Kim Dotcom, (that they were not really allowed to search)? Well if not we will sum things up for you here. Back when the US DoJ was really pushing the Mega Upload case the FBI convinced New Zealand law enforcement to execute a raid on the Dotcom house without a properly defined warrant. The reason it was not properly defined is that it did not spell out what they were searching for.

It would seem that respecting people’s privacy is contrary to the intent of copyright law. Or at least that is what we are getting out of the latest Anti-Piracy Caucus and their new “watch list” for 2014. This list, in case you do not already know, is a special list put together by the copyright industry with the help of the US Congress of countries that do and do not meet the standards the copyright lobbyists want.

Cast your mind back to mid-2009 and the now infamous Pirate Bay trial. If you remember this was a landmark case in the country of Sweden simply because it was out of pattern based on the Sweden’s laws and the way they had done business. The Pirate Bay founders were all found guilty despite not actually having hosted a single file on any of their servers and not having violated the existing laws in Sweden. However, due to having a judge that was an active member of a copyright protection group and a lead investigator that was trying hard to secure a job with a motion picture company the table was already set and the Pirate Bay gang was bound to be found guilty.

Years after similar technology was implemented by their main competitor, YouTube, Vimeo has unveiled its tools to combat illegal video content. This video service introduced a system called Copyright Match, which is used to protect copyrights. In line with its policy to encourage the setting up of original and high-quality video content, the new service will fight distributing pirated content such as TV series, movies, or sporting events, without obtaining copyrights for them.

Several record companies filed a lawsuit against an Internet radio service Pandora due to the use of old songs without permission. Sony, Universal, Warner Music and independent houses ABKCO (owner of many of the early songs of the Rolling Stones) have accused Pandora of using songs recorded before February  15, 1972. without paying a license.

Pressy is a simple gadget which during his Kickstarter campaign several times exceeded financial goals and this year should go into production. But before Pressy appeared on the market, the Chinese Xiaomi released its own version of the gadget, completely identical in appearance and with suspiciously similar functions.

Hotfile, one of the most popular services for sharing files has ceased their operations. In a recent court settlement Hotfile has agreed to pay a fine of $80 million for copyright infringement to several movie studios. It is the result of a lawsuit for copyright infringement started in March 2012. submitted by Disney, Fox, Universal, Sony Pictures and Warner against Hotfile CEO, Anthony Tito.