Month: February 2025

Aufbauspieler können sich für den Betatest von Anno 117 registrieren und bei einer Abstimmung über die Governor Edition teilnehmen. (Anno, Steam)

Elon Musk soll mit seinem Doge-Gremium die Staatsausgaben senken, Gerichte intervenieren - auch wegen möglicher Hackerangriffe. (Elon Musk, Silicon Valley)

Weit mehr als ein einfaches Notizbuch: Die Resultate von Googles KI-Analyse-Tool NotebookLM sind erstaunlich - wenn man Regeln beachtet. Ein Test von Tobias Költzsch (KI, Google)

Es läuft wieder: Das Playstation Network ist nach langer Störung wieder hergestellt. PS-Plus-Abonnenten erhalten Zusatztage. (PSN, Sony)

How events of the last four decades shaped Gazprom-Media into the business it is today, justifies an article in its own right. Complexities aside and details for another day, the company appears to enjoy state approval and recognition for its work.

Under parent company Gazprom and subsidiary Gazprom Bank, Gazprom-Media Holding describes itself as the largest media holding in Russia. Gazprom-Media was established in January 1998 and today claims to “shape the future of media technologies in Russia.”

From its glossy website, portfolio of almost 40 TV channels, to its media production facilities and assets that include local YouTube analogue, Rutube, Gazprom-Media looks and sounds like its Western counterparts.

“All of us — producers, engineers, designers, cameramen, developers, scriptwriters and directors, analysts, actors, radio and TV presenters, accountants and lawyers — make the lives of millions of people exciting and rich every day, set trends and move the media industry forward,” the company notes.

Similarities can also be found in the company’s anti-piracy strategies.

Piracy: Borderless and Universally Understood

In its work to protect valuable intellectual property rights, Gazprom-Media left no stone unturned in 2024 tackling copyright infringers.

The company’s latest annual report reveals a preference for site blocking measures. During the course of last year, Gazprom Media says it blocked 17,400 websites & 5,700 Telegram channels for piracy. The company filed over 900 IP lawsuits in 2024, with the holding company emerging the winner from 770, the report adds.

Gazprom-Media’s copyright enforcement strategy sees the company tackle piracy on various fronts. Online platforms are considered a priority, with the company always ready to take action but not averse to negotiating with its unlicensed adversaries. Agreements with “several” pirate sites in 2024 led to the removal of infringing content, Gazprom notes.

Proactive action against messaging platforms in 2024 also led to success. Director of IP protection Pavel Rusakov says that daily monitoring and rapid blocking helped to reduce interest in Telegram, and that led to a decline in use.

Search Engine Takedowns

In common with most major media companies, Gazprom-Media believes that search engine results are better when no pirated content appears.

With requests to remove over 6.2 million infringing links, local search engine Yandex received most attention in 2024. With requests to remove around five million infringing URLs, Google was last year’s runner-up.

Whether Yandex is simply better at indexing Russia-focused pirate sites, leading to the appearance of more links in general, is currently unknown. It’s certainly possible that rightsholders’ takedown notices in the US and EU, including whole site deindexing based on local site blocking orders, have an effect on content appearing.

Whatever the reason, those who use Yandex regularly or even for just a few minutes, notice an immediate difference in performance, regardless of content. In some cases, searches for exactly the same content produce results that are so different, a Groundhog Day of tedious daily searches can find itself transformed.

Reasons for the disparity aren’t easily pinpointed, but if site downranking , deindexing, and URL removals play any role in the situation at Google, the same can’t be said about Yandex.

Is Gazprom-Media Winning?

With the definition of ‘win’ subject to change and often used without context, figures published by Gazprom for 2022 and 2023 are listed below. The data provided isn’t always consistent and terminology can shift too. The descriptions and figures are therefore Gazprom’s own, provided here as-is.

2022

Blocked: 7 million links to pirated content, 67% more than the 4.2 million blocked in 2021.
Removed: 4.6 million links removed from Yandex search results vs. 2.6 million removed in 2021.
Removed: 2.8 million links removed from Google search results vs. 0.9 million removed in 2021.
Blocked: 7,500 Telegram channels.

2023

Blocked: 8.5 million Internet pages, a 19.3% increase over the previous year.
Blocked: 16,000 sites hosting pirated Gazprom-Media content, 8.5% more than in 2022.
Blocked: 6,000 Telegram channels, 16% less than in 2022.

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

Das Treffen der Generationen war die Staffelstabübergabe im Kino - von Captain Kirk an Captain Picard. Von Peter Osteried (Star Trek, Film)

Das Treffen der Generationen war die Staffelstabübergabe im Kino - von Captain Kirk an Captain Picard. Von Peter Osteried (Star Trek, Film)

Dieses E-Learning-Bundle der Golem Karrierewelt enthält sieben Kurse mit mehr als 27 Stunden Lernmaterial zu Themen wie Active Directory, Powershell, Microsoft 365 und Windows Server - für ein praxisnahes Lernerlebnis. (Golem Karrierewelt, Microsoft)

A little over a week ago, Rep. Zoe Lofgren introduced the Foreign Anti-Digital Piracy Act (FADPA).

Should it become law, FADPA would allow rightsholders to obtain site blocking orders in the United States aimed at piracy sites believed to be operated from overseas. The no-fault injunctions envisioned by the bill would require local ISPs and public DNS providers to prevent their users from accessing these illicit foreign platforms, without being held liable for customers’ infringements.

No Sign of Opposition

Negotiations over the role of ISPs in FADPA started months ago. Avoiding another SOPA-like conflict is obviously preferred, but also concedes that if ISPs aren’t fully onboard, the entire plan could be rendered unworkable. As far as we’re aware, ISPs in the U.S. haven’t made any FADPA-specific public comments, mentioned any negotiations, revealed their positions on the bill, or discussed implications with customers.

Full transparency at this early stage is obviously a pretty big ask, but the bill itself does recognize its importance. Backed by a set of ‘best practices‘ reported here just a few days ago, the level of transparency suggested in the bill would see blocking orders made available on a “publicly accessible website” and provide details including the petitioner’s name, the foreign website subject to blocking, the date and duration of the order, and a summary of the court’s findings.

While that’s a good start, it provides zero visibility of any actual blocking.

The Hidden Blocking War Should Be Transparent

Based on experiences elsewhere, initial blocking orders represent only the start of what is almost guaranteed to be a prolonged war. The overwhelming majority of all blocking currently takes place in response to countermeasures deployed by pirate sites, and not necessarily in the form described in the initial order, if any description is provided at all.

It’s not uncommon for sites to change their identities from those listed in court orders. Even when they don’t, blocking typically runs for years when large sites are involved.

In the UK, The Pirate Bay has been subjected to blocking for 13 years, during which hundreds or even thousands of domains have been blocked. Having no direct connection to the site’s operators doesn’t prevent blocking of third-party sites, including those with no connections at all beyond a similar name.

Prolific site cloning is currently countered with ‘brand blocking’ and for good reason that also appears in the FADPA proposal. Such blanket measures may be a necessity when tackling the most resilient sites; yet when that doesn’t work, only transparency can provide insight into what happens next. Good luck with that.

Full Transparency Can Easily End in None

After full transparency was promised in Italy, data actually made available to the public is so restricted and untimely, even provisions that promise redress for overblocking are effectively useless. France has an established blocking program too, but ‘transparency’ effectively amounts to announcing the number of sites blocked every few months. Real transparency hasn’t materialized at all and seems unlikely to do so. Only through sheer persistence is it possible to obtain very limited information concerning blocking, and at that point the volumes speak for themselves.

Representing only a sample of blocking in France from January 1st 2025 to date, most if not all domains below have been blocked by ISPs and deindexed by Google, for undermining earlier blocking.

Intentionally difficult to read, at least for the time being

How many waves of blocking have been undermined, reblocked, then undermined again isn’t clear. In many cases the original domains requested for blocking are a distant memory. The sites themselves, though, are clearly still online, hence the need for more blocking. And deindexing. All day, every day, all over the world, soon to include the United States.

No Visibility When Blocking Meets the Private Sector

If FADPA becomes law and site-blocking practices play out in the United States as they have elsewhere, other than the appearance of initial court orders, much of the follow-up could disappear behind closed doors and rarely get mentioned in public again.

Consultations on upgrades and modifications to blocking measures might not play out in court, or within earshot of internet users in general. Initially brought together to meet the requirements of a single blocking order issued by a court, everything that happens between rightsholders and ISPs thereafter, may remain unseen. Under a different name, this is the ultimate goal that has already been achieved elsewhere.

If a Portugal-style administrative site-blocking scheme had been explicitly detailed at the top of the bill, that could’ve caused issues down the line. In practical terms here, once a judge has signed off on an injunction, private companies will begin working together under almost zero obligation to disclose anything. In Europe, that’s worked out exactly as one would imagine.

It’s Now or Never

Given a strict choice between the FADPA proposal and any other major blocking program in existence today, hardcore site-blocking opponents would likely reject both on principle. For those who understood the point of the question, FADPA is the most the sensible answer; the MPA is the most accomplished site-blocking group, and least likely to stray from its own rules laid out in the bill.

The MPA also has impeccable vision; FADPA seems designed to ensure that within legal limits, the MPA’s freedom to do whatever it likes will face zero resistance as it continuously expands and tightens. The real fun? When less well-known rightsholders get involved and their version of freedom plays out.

So, if the bill gives rightsholders everything they need, and ISPs everything they need, perhaps those whose monthly subscriptions enable the very existence of both industries (and will end up paying for the blocking program) should at least be allowed to watch; by default, globally.

There won’t be a second chance, ever.

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

The US Department of Transportation has ordered states to kill their implementation plans related to the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure program, according to a memo obtained by WIRED that was later made public. The decision appears to halt in its tracks a $5 billion program designed to fund state projects to install electric vehicle charging stations across the United States.

Officials at the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), which manages the program, ordered state transportation directors to “decertify” the plans that all 50 states have used to outline where and how they will build their charging stations, and with what companies they’ll contract to do so. States have followed those plans to build more than 30 charging stations across the US, with hundreds more on the way.

Surveys show prospective car buyers cite the country’s lagging electric vehicle charging infrastructure as a major reason they won’t buy electric. The NEVI program, established by 2021’s Infrastructure Law, was the government’s answer to those concerns. It attempts to build chargers along thousands of miles of federal highway, with a focus on places that might not otherwise be able to financially support a charger.

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