Category archives: piracy

Music Piracy Continues To Dip Dramatically, But The Industry Is Loathe To Admit It Because It Ruins The Narrative [Op-Ed]

In this op-ed, Mike Masnick reveals how better-authorized services have, in contrast to increased legal enforcement, been incredibly effective at reducing online piracy, but that the music industry is choosing to ignore the numbers in favor of a different narrative. ____________________________________ Guest post by Mike Masnick of Techdirt This was…

RIAA Releases “Notorious” Copyright Offenders List

Copyright violation remains an ever-present issue in the music business, affecting not only an artist’s ability to make money, but also that of labels. Consequently, the RIAA annually drops a list of the top offenders. Here we look at who this year’s guilty parties are. _________________________ Guest post by Bobby…

When Musicians Find Justification In Piracy

Here, Wade Sutton weighs in on what he perceives to be hypocritical behavior by some musicians who, in spite of railing against music piracy, condone other forms of illegitimate downloading and/or streaming, and the ‘jailbreaking’ of devices like the Amazon Firestick or the Google Chromecast. ________________________________ Guest post by Wade…

TOP POSTS: This Week’s Most Read Posts On Hypebot

This week, some of our most popular articles from the pages of Hypebot covered a music industry trade group’s claims that piracy isn’t a problem – free YouTube and Spotify are, a look at what every major label and subsidiary earned in 2018, a disagreement between top analysts on the…

UN Organization Debuts New, Global Anti-Piracy Database

Despite streaming’s popularity, piracy is once again on the rise at an alarming pace, leading the United Nations’ World Intellectual Property Organization to unveil a new global anti-piracy database, aimed at curbing this alarming spike in intellectual property theft. ______________________________ Guest post by James Shotwell of Haulix Piracy is growing…

17 Million US ‘Fans’ Ripped Music Last Year, UP 13%

Despite the ongoing efforts of the RIAA and others, music piracy is far from dead. For most – and there numbers are growing – stream ripping is the piracy platform of choice. By Russ Crupnick of MusicWatch We are nearly a generation past the time when consumers bought stand-alone burners…

Apple, Amazon, Google Sued For ‘Massive’ Music Piracy

Apple, Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Pandora are being sued for selling and streaming unauthorized recordings of Harold Arlen, the composer of Over the Rainbow and other classic songs. The lawsuit accuses the companies of running “massive music piracy operation” involving more than 6,000 pirated recordings. The lawyers say that the…