Latest in Piracy

EXCLUSIVE: Chris Ortman is departing the Motion Picture Association as its chief spokesperson after almost five years. In an email to staffers on Friday, Ortman wrote that in recent weeks he had been talking to Emily Lenzer, the MPA’s executive vice president of global communications, about a transition plan. His last…

Openload and Streamango, two major sites that featured pirated copies of TV shows like Game of Thrones and movies like the latest Rambo, shut down their services under the terms of an agreement with a coalition of Hollywood studios and other content companies. The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment, which…

New research by streaming tracker Parks Associates predicts the amount of revenue lost to piracy and password sharing will increase 38% to $12.5 billion over the next five years. While it is seldom noted publicly by streaming purveyors, about 27% of U.S. broadband households engage in some form of piracy or account…

Apple is using an old-fashioned way to capture hearts and minds – it’s put up a large billboard near the Consumer Electronics Show convention center to emphasize its privacy features. Tech giant Apple isn’t attending the show, but has placed the ad on the side of a SpringHill Suites by Marriott hotel. The facility…

The attorney general for the District of Columbia today sued Facebook for failing to protect its users’ data and for allowing an app developer to harvest the personal information of millions of users without their permission and sell it to a political consulting firm, Cambridge Analytica. The lawsuit filed by Karl…

UPDATED with a statement from Facebook: Facebook has removed a data-security app from Apple’s app store after the Cupertino tech giant determined it violated data-collection policies. The free Onavo app allows users to create a virtual private network that sends Internet traffic through a private server. It’s touted…

Microsoft President Brad Smith drew lessons from the software giant’s “gut wrenching” antitrust battles of the late 1990s that seem to resonate today, as Facebook faces scrutiny of its data privacy practices by regulators in the U.S. and Europe. “If you create technology that changes the world, the world is going to…

The "rampant” worldwide piracy of American films, music, TV shows, televised sporting events and books remains a "direct threat" to copyright holders, according the latest report from the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, although some progress has been made to curb the practice in China, Russia and several…

The MPAA said today that it is teaming with the Content Delivery & Security Association on an industrywide content-security initiative. The Trusted Partner Network will help prevent leaks, breaches, and hacks of film and television content by elevating the security standards of the industry's production and…

In what has become an anxious holiday ritual for Hollywood, pirated copies of DVD screeners of Oscar-contending films have leaked online. The group calling itself Hive-CM8 announced that it released copies of four films — a “gift” for the Christmas holiday, according to Torrent Freak. On Christmas Eve, it release the…

UPDATED throughout with details from news conference: The U.S. Attorney's Office in New York has indicted an Iranian national in last summer’s HBO hack on charges of computer fraud, wire fraud, extortion and identity theft. Behzad Mesri is charged with hacking HBO’s computer servers, stealing proprietary data…

  TV distributors will lose $4 billion in revenue because 6.5% of households in North America are accessing pirated live TV services each month, according to a new study by research firm Sandvine. While piracy remains a serious concern  for Hollywood–and hacks have hit premium-content players HBO and Netflix this year…