Author: Digital Digest | Latest News

The world's largest torrent site has been taken offline by a multi-national law enforcement action, with the owner of the site now facing extradition and criminal sanction in the United States.

KickassTorrents (KAT) surpassed The Pirate Bay as the world's most popular pirated torrent directory, and while past efforts have managed to take the site offline, or force it to move to a different domain name, the site remained active and growing. Until last week, that is, when the U.S. government seized the site's domain names, and Polish authorities arrested the Ukrainian owner of the site, 30-year-old Artem Vaulin. 

Vaulin now faces extradition to the U.S. where he faces criminal sanctions for enabling, as the U.S. government alleges, over $US1 billion in damages relating to copyright infringement.

Authorities appears to have obtained vast amounts of data in the seizures, including full copies of KAT's hard-drives. With so much seized, it could make a comeback for KAT impossibly hard, although many mirrors and impostors have since sprung up to either support KAT, or to take advantage of the situation.

With authorities in possession of vital data, users and uploaders to the site could also face further criminal actions, as the full implication of one of the biggest piracy take-downs in history is yet to be felt.

[via TorrentFreak]

The results and analysis for DVD, Blu-ray and Ultra HD Blu-ray sales for the week ending July 9th 2016 are in. A very quiet week due to the Fourth of July holidays, where the only new release in the top 20 was Only Yesterday (which only finished in 13th).

Read the rest of the stats and analysis to find out how DVD, Blu-ray, Ultra HD Blu-ray did.

From fake uploads to real predictions, read the news roundup for the week ending 17 July 2016

Continue reading ...

The results and analysis for DVD, Blu-ray and Ultra HD Blu-ray sales for the week ending July 2nd 2016 are in. New release Kung Fu Panda 3 led the sales charts for the week. 

Read the rest of the stats and analysis to find out how DVD, Blu-ray, Ultra HD Blu-ray did.

Nintendo may have overestimated the number of Wii U consoles they planned to sell by more than 90 million units, Nintendo's president Tatsumi Kimishima has candidly revealed.

Kimishima revealed the existence of this wildly inaccurate prediction at an investor meeting recently. The prediction is said to have come from an unnamed salesperson at the company, a prediction made just before the Wii U was released in 2012.

"In an internal sales representative meeting, someone projected that we would sell close to 100 million Wii U systems worldwide," said Kimishima. 

As of March, Nintendo has only sold 12.8 million Wii U consoles worldwide.

There was solid reasoning behind the prediction though. Nintendo's previous console, the Wii, sold more than 102 million units worldwide, and many in the company expected the Wii's successor to do just as well.

But as Kimishima explains, he wasn't one of those who thought the Wii U would be an automatic success, not without the right sales pitch.

"I said that, since the Wii had already sold so well, we need to clearly explain the attraction of the Wii U if we are to get beyond that and sell the new system, and that this would be no easy task," said Kimishima.

And no easy task it proved to be, with the Wii U languishing in a very distant third place behind console rivals the PS4 and Xbox One.

Kimishima will hope that Nintendo's next console, codenamed the NX, will have a better launch and marketing strategy when it launches in March next year.

For now, Nintendo can be content with its recent launch of the iOS/Android game 'Pokemon GO'. The huge success of the game on launch has helped Nintendo stock record a 50% rise since the game was launched late last week.

[Via Fortune and Nintendo]

Copyright holders in Australia have hit out against calls to implement Fair Use legislation in the country.

Fair Use clauses are exceptions to existing copyright law. These exceptions exist for limited purposes in order to ensure copyright does not hinder creativity, freedom of expression and research. Fair Use rights could prevent rights holders from abusing copyright law to silence criticism and remove unfavorable opinions, for example.

While the United States, which has some of the toughest copyright laws around the world, has a Fair Use provision, the same does not exist in Australia. This is why the Australian government's own independent advisory body, the Productivity Commission, called for the introduction for such a provision earlier in the year.

The Productivity Commission also called for a ban on the use of geo-blocking, in order to protect competition and consumer rights.

These recommendations, however, have not been met with open arms by copyright holders in Australia, with most coming out against Fair Use.

Most centered their argument on the grounds that any watering down of copyright laws would harm "innovation", as these groups believe that it's strong copyright laws that help to protect creativity.

"The music industry exists because of copyright. Copyright drives innovation and creativity, enables record companies to invest in artists and repertoire, and gives creators an income," says music group IFPI.

Local pay television operator Foxtel mirrored the same sentiment.

"Fair use will have negative economic consequences and have a significant impact on creative output due to the associated uncertainties. Foxtel strongly believes that this type of reform will have a significant impact on creative outputs due to the uncertainties it will create," writes Foxtel in their submission to the Productivity Commission.

Ironically, Hollywood's staunch pro-copyright stance does include room for Fair Use. Hollywood's trade group, the MPAA, has previously offered support for Fair Use in court cases, and as the group explains in this article, Fair Use is something that rights-holders often rely on as well, when producing their own unique work.

"Our members rely on the fair use doctrine every day when producing their movies and television shows – especially those that involve parody and news and documentary programs," wrote the MPAA.

[Via TorrentFreak and MPAA]

From free to subscription, legal options are winning the war against piracy - read this and other news stories in our news roundup for the week ending 10 July 2016

Continue reading ...

Research conducted by the UK's official copyright body, the Intellectual Property Office (IPO), has found that online piracy has dropped to a record low, and it's all down to the availability of new legal services such as Netflix and Spotify.

The IPO, responsible for tackling the piracy problem in the UK, found that piracy has dropped 18 percent in the last year alone, and that 44 percent of users are now relying solely on legal means to get their online content.

The research data shows that of the users surveyed who listen to music, 80% now use only legal means to source their content, up from 74% a year ago. The report made specific mentions of Spotify, which the report says secured a 3% rise in new UK users in the last year.

As a result, the number of respondents that uses peer-to-peer filesharing to source the content has dropped, from 12% to 10%.

The rise of streaming has also contributed to the decline of downloading - 52% of users now use streaming services, compared to 39% who download.

Responding to the report, the UK's Minister for Intellectual Property, Baroness Neville-Rolfe, welcomed the progress being made towards eliminating piracy.

"I am extremely pleased to see that there has been a decline in infringement and that consumers appear to be turning towards legitimate streaming en masse," said Neville-Rolfe.

Eddy Leviten, Director General of the Alliance for Intellectual Property, also welcomed the development.

"It is encouraging to see that more UK consumers are choosing legitimate content sources, thereby supporting creators and creative businesses," said Leviten.

The report also notes that spending on film and music has increased, while spending on TV shows and video games has dropped in the last year.

[Via The Telegraph]

[Source: Intellectual Property Office]