piracy

Wednesday May 17, 2017

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday May 17, 2017

Disney hack: Ransom demanded for stolen film

Disney CEO Bob Iger told ABC employees about the demand at a town hall meeting on Monday, The Hollywood Reporter said.

He did not name the film, but Deadline reports that it is Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales.

Mr Iger said Disney is refusing to pay, and that the studio is working with federal investigators.

He added that the hackers had demanded the ransom in bitcoin and that they would release the film online in a series of 20-minute chunks unless it was paid.

It is not the first film studio to be threatened with online leaks.

Last month, a group of hackers uploaded the fifth season of Orange is the New Black after Netflix refused to pay a ransom.

Dead Men Tell No Tales is the fifth instalment of the Pirates franchise and will see Johnny Depp’s Captain Jack Sparrow return to the ocean alongside Geoffrey Rush and Orlando Bloom.

It is due to be released in cinemas in the US on 26 May.

Mark James, security specialist at IT security company ESET, said: “Anything that has a value will always be a potential victim of theft, either digital or physical. If someone has it and someone wants it then in theory there’s a market for it.” (Source: BBC)

 

Friday January 20, 2012

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hmilton Spectator – Friday January 20, 2012

Wikipedia limits service in anti-piracy act protest

Some of the best-known sites on the internet, including Wikipedia, are limiting access today in a “Dark Wednesday” protest against legislation before the U.S. Congress intended to curb copyright infringement that critics say will limit the scope of the web and adversely affect legitimate websites.

Popular Canadian sitesjoining the protest include Tucows, a Toronto-based site that hosts free software for download, Identi.ca, a social microblogging service and the blog of University of Ottawa law professor Michael Geist, an oft-cited expert on copyright issues.

There are two similar bills addressing protection of intellectual property online currently being considered by Congress: the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), which is before the House of Representatives judiciary committee, and the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA), which is to be voted on by the Senate next week.

Last weekend, the White House signaled its opposition to the bills, which are supposed to make it easier for copyright holders to go after “foreign rogue websites” suspected of facilitating infringement of copyright.

Under the current draft of SOPA, courts could order credit card firms, online payment companies like PayPal and advertising networks to stop doing business with those websites. They could also order search engines to stop linking to them and internet service providers (ISPs) to block their customers from accessing them, although in recent days, the lead sponsor of SOPA, Republican congressman Lamar Smith, has backed off the ISP provision. PIPA was also being revised to address some of the concerns voiced in recent days. (Source: CBC News)