The music industry’s fight against stream-ripping services continues, with German labels claiming the latest victory. The post German labels win court injunction over stream-ripping site YouTube-DL appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

Piracy isn’t as big a headline issue for the music industry nowadays as it was in the early 2000s. Which doesn’t mean it has gone away. The post UK study finds a sharp increase in online music infringers appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

Alexander Lukashenko’s support of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has had a knock-on effect for his country’s international status. The post Belarus changes rules for rightsholders from ‘unfriendly’ countries appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

Record label lawsuits against ISPs for piracy conducted by the latter’s customers feels like a story from a different age. The post ISP faces $46.8m damages after losing piracy battle appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

The BPI is celebrating this morning after securing an expansion of the UK’s regime for blocking music piracy sites and apps. The post UK mobile operators to begin blocking access to piracy sites appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

Discord is a wonderful platform for community building, and a number of musicians are already reaping the benefits. The post RIAA steps up its efforts to tackle music piracy on Discord appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

Island Records UK has worked with Ukrainian artist Alexey Kondakov on a collection of five NFTs that will be auctioned to raise funds to support the relief effort in Ukraine. The post Music NFTs roundup: Reverberate Ukraine, Koong World… appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

Anti-piracy company Digital Content Protection (DCP) is aiming to help rightsholders tackle the problem with its new service. The post Anti-piracy firm DCP takes aim at copyright-infringing NFTs appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

The IFPI and its member bodies are on a drive to crack down on stream-ripping piracy destinations, but ‘streaming manipulation’ sites are also very much on their radar. The latest proof is an injunction issued in Germany against a site called likeservice24·de, which IFPI claims is “a widely-used website engaged in illicit music streaming manipulation […]

GitHub is one of the most popular sites for developers in the world, hosting open source code and helping people manage their projects. It’s also on a collision course with music rightsholders in the US, over a takedown notice sent to GitHub in October by industry body the RIAA focusing on a project called YouTube-DL […]

TCAT? That would be the Technical Copyright Analysis Tool developed by One Media IP to scan legal digital music services for music that shouldn’t be on there (e.g. unauthorised or duplicated releases, or incorrect public domain uploads) and take it down. According to One Media, two major labels are already using it, as well as industry bodies […]

Indian social media company ShareChat has become the latest customer for Audible Magic’s rights management and content recognition tech. It will be used to “proactively address both licensed and misuses of copyright media” on ShareChat’s app, which has more than 160 million monthly active users. Besides that app, the deal also includes ShareChat’s separate TikTok […]

It may seem strange that people try to use music streaming services like Spotify and Deezer through unofficial apps, when there’s not even a subscription barrier to entry for the official ones. Getting premium features without paying is one reason some people gravitate towards the unofficial (or ‘modded’) apps, and understandably the streaming services regularly […]

It’s been a while since we’ve seen public tensions in the west between music rightsholders and Apple over piracy apps – Apple’s involvement being as the owner of the store through which those apps are distributed. According to TorrentFreak, it’s all kicking off in Russia over this issue though, following a new law cracking down on piracy […]

There have been growing complaints about copycat podcasts uploaded through Spotify’s Anchor app. That means taking other people’s podcasts and re-uploading them – often with the same artwork – as your own, in the hope of snagging some advertising revenues before you get caught. Now Anchor is cracking down on it. “This is definitely a new type […]

In March, anti-piracy firm AudioLock and distributor Label Worx launched a campaign called The Music Mission, to try to shut down paid piracy websites, with backing from dance labels like Defected. Now the initiative appears to be releasing some findings from its investigations, according to filesharing-focused news site TorrentFreak. Some of those findings are eye-opening. “One particular […]

Anti-piracy firm AudioLock and distributor Label Worx have teamed up for a campaign called The Music Mission, which they say will target ‘pay for access’ piracy download sites. The companies want other music firms to help them shut down around 200 piracy sites by squeezing their ‘payment gateways’, and turn their visitors back towards legal music […]

The head of Russian anti-piracy body the Internet Video Association has claimed that voluntary piracy measures in the country imposed two years ago have been having the desired impact. Back in 2018, a number of Russian content companies, platforms and distributors – bowing to years of pressure, lobbying and litigation – signed up to a […]

The latest label-led copyright infringement lawsuit against an ISP in the US was focusing on Texan ISP Grande Communications. However the case has been postponed until September. The reason given was that the court only has six days available for the hearing, which both sides agreed was insufficient, suggesting that 10 days were required. The ISP […]

Piracy is much, MUCH less of a collective music industry nightmare now than it was a decade ago, with the consensus being that streaming has replaced it for all but the keenest music pirates. We’ll avoid scaremongering with this news, but it’s worth thinking about: a new study by the UK’s Intellectual Property Office (IPO) suggests that […]

Cloudflare is the technology company that helps a range of websites fend off security threats and speed up people’s access to their content. It’s also controversial though, because some of those clients are piracy sites. Cloudflare has regularly been cited by music industry rightsholders as a problem, because they see it as protecting sites that […]

Last week we noted the announcement of a March 2020 launch date for Disney’s new video-streaming service Disney+ in the UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain, but there’s more to say about this. Particularly relating to the service’s launch date in the US, Canada, the Netherlands, Australia and New Zealand this month. That means a four-and-a-half months […]

Cloudflare is one of the biggest content delivery networks (CDNs) in the world: CDNs being companies providing services to websites and digital services to help their content be delivered faster and more reliably, while reducing bandwidth costs. It’s also a controversial company in the eyes of music and film rightsholders, because some of the websites […]

US music-industry body the RIAA has submitted its latest list of sites and apps raising piracy concerns, for consideration for the next ‘notorious markets’ list produced by the US Trade Representative. Some familiar names are included from the stream-ripping and MP3-download areas, but there’s also a new villain in the RIAA’s view: messaging app Telegram. […]

In the recent lobbying around the European Union’s new copyright directive and its Article 13, the music industry and YouTubers were usually on opposite sides of the argument. YouTube actively encouraged its creators to protest against some of the planned changes, and a number took up cudgels in its defence. So here’s an interesting thing […]

Apple under fire for the way it runs its App Store? But this time, it’s nothing to do with Spotify. A group of Japanese music-industry bodies representing labels, publishers and producers have written to Apple expressing concerns about ‘unauthorised’ (i.e. unlicensed) music-streaming apps that are available through its App Store in Japan. “The recent torrent […]

Up to this point, much of the music industry’s action against ‘stream-ripping’ websites has been taken by industry bodies taking those sites to court and getting them shut down. Now it seems the main site from which streams are being ripped, YouTube, is joining the battle in earnest. “Several stream-ripping sites have been unable to […]

Forget the ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ movie: it’s stream-ripping websites that are putting Queen on our internal jukebox regularly at the moment. Every few months, another one bites the dust. The latest to bow after being put, ahem, under pressure (sorry, we’ll stop now) is German site Convert2MP3, following legal action from industry bodies IFPI and BVMI. […]

What do “elite upcoming lawyers from around the world” really think about file-sharing and copyright? A new study based on a survey of international LL.M. (Masters of Law) students at Harvard University has been trying to find out. “We expected lawyers to take highly conservative ethical positions on the issue of online copyright infringement,” wrote the […]

Given the growth in paid streaming, few people in the music industry are genuinely running around panicking about the existence of ‘stream-ripping’ websites. That said, industry bodies and anti-piracy execs within rightsholders *are* continuing to tackle sites that help people turn streams into free, unlicensed downloads. The latest evidence of this crackdown paying off comes […]

UK-based Muso, which tracks online piracy and provides marketing tools for music companies to target that audience, has raised £3.5m (around $4.5m) more funding. It’s not a new round, but rather an extension of its existing Series A round, taking it to £6m ($7.8m) in total. Investor Harwell Capital was responsible for the additional injection […]

Japan was set to introduce a new law cracking down on illegal downloading of copyrighted content, but the government is now going back to the drawing board, after complaints from both sides of the debate around online piracy. “We have yet to eliminate the worries of both copyright holders and users. We should work on […]

The latest front in the music industry’s battle against ‘stream-ripping’ sites is in Australia. These sites, which enable people to convert (for example) YouTube videos into downloadable MP3s, have been a bugbear for the global industry for some time now. News site The Industry Observer reports that the Music Rights Australia body is applying for […]