#piracy

#piracy

There's a real romanticism to pirates and piracy. The freedom of the open seas. Fighting back against authority. Chests full of money and jewels are pretty cool too. It's easy to see why pirates and piracy are practically a genre all their own. The actual life of piracy was probably less glorious. Illness, constant threats of death, and being hanged just for landing at a certain port. Forget facts, though, that just ruins one hell of a good daydream.

Amazon is now blocking access to apps that have been identified as providing pirated content, including those downloaded outside the tech giant's app store. "Piracy is illegal, and we've always worked to block it from our Appstore," an Amazon spokesperson said in a statement. "This builds on our ongoing efforts to support creators and protect customers, as piracy can also expose users to malware, viruses, and fraud."

Armed individuals boarded a Maltese-flagged cargo ship off Somalia early on Thursday. Maritime security sources said they had fired gunshots and rocket-propelled grenades at the vessel. The Maltese-flagged Hellas Aphrodite ship was carry gasoline and was headed to South Africa from India. The European Union's naval force combating piracy off the Horn of Africa, Operation Atalanta, said that one of its vessels was near the attack site and was en route to provide assistance.

Stealing intellectual property (IP) assets such as music and movies diverts revenue away from American businesses, which leads to fewer jobs for a range of American workers in the entertainment industry. Some countries in the world actively address this pirating through enforcement of site blocking by their respective national Internet Service Providers. However, the United States is not one of them, in part due to governmental pressure from certain Big Tech companies.

In August 2024, HSI seized several domains belonging to the Streameast piracy network, including some backup domains. After the seizure, trying to access those sites resulted in a pop-up from HSI stating, 'THIS DOMAIN HAS BEEN SEIZED.' At the time, Streameast was one of the most well-known sites in the US for watching sporting events, including from the NBA, NFL, and MLB, illegally.

Authors Andrea Bartz, Charles Graeber, and Kirk Wallace Johnson allege that Anthropic downloaded up to seven million copyrighted works unlawfully, building a multibillion-dollar business on stolen books.

Japan's investment in anti-piracy measures aims to protect its anime and manga industry, targeting over 1,000 infringing platforms that are estimated to cost billions.

"The famously anti-piracy campaign from the early 2000s may itself have been rooted in piracy, as its iconic font was discovered to be pirated."