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Everything posted by NelsonG
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Until Oct. 11, Prime members can get a three-month subscription to Kindle Unlimited for free.View the full article
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TikTok is expanding on its search features, integrating Google search results into the app.View the full article
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Sex education online platform Beducated created an AI Sex Coach to answer questions about your intimate life.View the full article
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Always keep clean water at hand with this selection of the best water filter bottles for travelling.View the full article
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Manga comics have always been popular on pirate sites but where other categories have seen stalled growth, manga piracy boomed. This unauthorized activity has not gone unnoticed by publishers, who’ve made it clear that piracy will not be tolerated, especially in Japan. Publishers are tackling the problem by ramping up enforcement. This recently led to a major success when a Cloudflare probe helped to shut down 13DL, Japan’s largest pirate site. Mangamura Shutdown These enforcement efforts are intensifying but they are not new. Back in 2019, Japanese authorities arrested the operator of Mangamura, the leading manga piracy site at the time. Mangamura had only been around for roughly two years but according to Japan-based anti-piracy group CODA, it caused well over $2 billion in damages to the local manga industry. The operator of the site, Romi Hoshino, was held responsible and eventually pleaded guilty in a criminal prosecution. In 2021 the Fukuoka District Court sentenced Hoshino to three years in prison and over $650,000 in fines. That was a major win for the publishers, but they still weren’t done. Publishers Want Millions Last year, manga publishers Kodakawa, Shogakukan, and Shueisha filed a civil lawsuit against the former operator of Mangamura. Together, the companies requested 1.9 billion yen in damages. That’s close to US$13 million based on today’s exchange rate, without taking into account the 5% interest rate on top. According to the complaint, Mangamura had around 100 million monthly visits at its peak. This arguably made it one of the largest pirate sites in history with Hoshino, who is now in his early thirties, as the main defendant. To back up these claims and formulate a claim for damages, the publishers started to verify the site’s traffic statistics. They also hoped to find more evidence of Hoshino’s personal involvement. This quest eventually brought them to the U.S., as Mangamura used the services of both Google and Cloudflare. Help from Google and Cloudflare A few weeks ago the rightsholders made an appearance at a California federal court where they requested a subpoena to obtain detailed information from these two American tech companies. According to the court filing, the requested details are critical. “[T]he number of visits or accesses to each of the Infringing Websites and the identifying information relating to the Mangamura would be critical in the Lawsuit,” the publishers wrote, adding that Google and Cloudflare are the only parties that can provide access to it. The request landed on the desk of U.S. Magistrate Judge Sallie Kim who, after reviewing all the arguments, recommended the court grant the subpoena. Neither Google nor Cloudflare objected or made an appearance. In a report and recommendations, Judge Kim concludes that all statutory and discretionary factors weigh in favor of granting the subpoena. The requested information is targeted enough and appears to be vital to the ongoing legal battle in Japan. “[D]iscovery sought does not appear unduly burdensome or intrusive. Petitioners’ request is narrowly tailored to seek the website analytics necessary to calculate damages in their suit and identifying information solely for the registered account holder and registered billing contact for Mangamura,” Judge Kim wrote. A few days ago, District Court Judge Vince Chhabria took over this recommendation, granting the subpoena. Analytics, IP-addresses, and More The subpoenas seek information about accounts related to “manga-mura.net” and “mangamura.org”. This includes traffic statistics, including the number of visitors these domains received. In addition, the Manga publishers are also looking for all names, phone numbers, email addresses and billing addresses, payment methods, IP addresses, and access logs that are tied to the accounts. Deterrent Whether Google and Cloudflare can deliver the requested information has yet to be seen. In any case, the publishers are determined to hold the operator of the defunct site financially responsible for the damages they suffered. The Japanese complaint mentions that Hoshino likely had help from co-conspirators but no other names are listed. The Tokyo District Court did previously fine two advertising companies for placing ads on Mangamura. Neither of these companies are listed in the publishers’ civil lawsuit. Despite the fact that there’s only a single target in the Japanese lawsuit, the publishers hope that their legal action will eventually make other pirate site operators rethink their actions. “We hope that the lawsuit will be conveyed to operators around the world and will deter them [from pirating],” Shueisha’s head of PR, Atsushi Ito, previously said. — A copy of U.S. Magistrate Judge Sallie Kim’s report and recommendations in available here (pdf), and the order granting the subpoenas can be found here (pdf) From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more. View the full article
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These are the best streaming services for watching the Texas Longhorns vs. Baylor Bears college football game without cable.View the full article
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These are the best streaming services for watching the Arkansas Razorbacks vs. LSU Tigers college football game without cable.View the full article
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These are the best streaming services for watching the UConn Huskies vs. Duke Blue Devils college football game without cable.View the full article
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For fans of experimental electronica, artists like Cerpintxt have to represent the future of this cutting edge discipline. Now located in London by way of her native Egypt, Cerpintxt’s haunted, acoustics-focused science project of a sound has been picked up not only by like-minded atmospheric, drone and visual artists and labels such as CAMP Editions, Carlos Casas, Machinefabriek and Matchess but has bled into the EDM world. Now with her new EP, microtubule encoded memory, Cerpintxt stands to unite the EDM and experimental worlds even further. EDM is almost always driven in some form by the mad scientists who innovate and push the boundaries of what’s possible in electronic music, but quite often, with the exception of artists like Noisia, Amon Tobin, Rezz, Gyrofield and Venetian Snares, EDM and experimental electronica tend to stay in their own respective camps. With her futuristic, Cyber Punk vibe, heavy concept work and meticulous compositional style, Cerpintxt is both pushing the envelope for acoustics and sound design and giving more conventional EDM artists a run for their money going on six years now. Begnning with her ATOMS EP with atmospheric house legend Stevie R. in 2018 right the way through her 2022 single, “Sedimented,” on CAMP Editions to microtubule encoded memory, sound curation as acoustic science, as concept and as evocative music . Cerpintxt’s unique sound work isn’t the only thing that led the drop of microtubule encoded memory being one of the most innovative drops of the year. She’s also very proactive when it comes to her own brand and agenda. In the two years between 2020 and 2022, Cerpintxt didn’t release much production-wise but she began performing her music live, both on multiple radio platforms, on livestreams and at multiple festivals. She also launched her own event based out of London called Boundary Condition. In the artist’s words, it’s a “an audiovisual durational immersion for the rabidly sentimental: investigating the parallelization between dark-jazz, hauntology, and musique concrète as nostalgia-centric practices.” This tagging of her event leads into the branding and vernacular of Cerpintxt. She’s very specific about the language she uses to describe her work, using terms like “hauntology” and “systematic harmonic erosion.” To describe her sound. Listening to her work, all the terms she uses are not wrong, especially when it comes to microtubule encoded memory. The work in this EP is, in fact, a study in haunting sound and in the erosion, or movement, of harmony. Made from endless sound recording loops gathered over years from locations like the pharaonic temple at Serabit El Khadim in her native Egypt, the mountains of the Sinai Peninsula, and the music of Bedouin tribes, Cerpintxt’s long, storied tracks are building, eroding and cycling sounds all at once. Her focus on acoustics not only as necessary for sound but as the sounds themselves is truly inspired. Thomas Dolby would be proud. As a concept, there’s also a political bent to Cerpintxt’s work on microtubule encoded memory, but it’s not one most artists would think of, though it ties in with all the hard graft she put into this EP. In the artist’s own words, “The hauntological element of my work explores a form of sonic activism against the weaponization of love in Egypt.” Once again, the importance is in the way she’s phrased it: no direct, easy to decipher agendas here, but rather an evocative statement that bypasses typical communication and gets to the heart of what’s important. Like the music itself, Cerpintxt wants her audience to feel the energy of what’s around them, whether sonic or otherwise, and make decisions accordingly. There’s a depth to this work that’s not just about tinkering, and that’s likely why it resonates with the EDM world. The first and third tracks on microtubule encoded memory are available now on Cerpintxt’s Bandcamp, while the elusive middle track will be released in October on cassette only. Fans can pre-order on Bandcamp as well. This article was first published on Your EDM. Source: New Artist Spotlight: Cerpintxt Reveals a New EP of ‘Hauntology’ After a Break From Production With New EP, ‘microtubule encoded memory’ View the full article
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In recent years, rightsholders of major sports events have repeatedly complained that piracy of live sports is getting out of hand. Ideally, they would like to see updates to the current legislative frameworks so the problem can be targeted more efficiently. These comments have prompted lawmakers to look into the matter but, for now, the status quo remains. That’s not to say that it’s impossible to address sports streaming piracy under current laws. The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment has used its network and law enforcement connections to take out several large sports streaming operations, for example. U.S. Domain Seizures The U.S. Government also proved its abilities late last year, when it seized dozens of sports streaming-related domains in a FIFA World Cup-themed enforcement push. In the initial wave, Homeland Security Investigations took down 55 domain names operated by pirate sports streaming sites and, in a follow-up, several more were pointed to a seizure banner. This high-profile action affected millions of pirates and was successful in shutting some sites down permanently. SoccerStreams, one of the main targets, initially moved to a new domain but later announced that it had shut down permanently. New Crackdown? Earlier this week, several websites associated with brands that were targeted by U.S. seizures suddenly became unreachable. The domain names of popular sites such as NFLbite.com, NBAbite.com, and freestreams-live1.top stopped resolving. More than a dozen sports streaming domains appeared to be taken out. These domains were registered through Njalla, which advertises itself as the “world’s most notorious privacy provider for domains.” Privacy doesn’t mean that domains will remain online at all costs though. Njalla initially changed the nameservers of the domains to 1-ceci.njalla.do, 2-nest.pipe.ma, 3-pas.njalla.in, which made these unreachable. Or as the French would say, Ceci n’est pas. Indian Court Order Given the recent history, it seemed likely that the U.S. Government might be involved, but that’s not the case. Njalla informs us that it took action following a court order from the New Delhi High Court in India. “The domains are all with our ICANN-accredited partner and it’s out of both ours and their hands because of the court decision,” Njalla explains. If Njalla or its partner, presumably Tucows, ignored the court order the latter would risk losing its ICANN accreditation. That could effectively put the company out of business. Njalla still doesn’t have all the information but may share more details in the future, if the domain registrants give permission. What’s clear is that the court order requires domain name registrants and registries to cooperate. Not All Domains Remain Suspended This enforcement action isn’t as broad as it first appeared, however. Several domains that initially pointed to “suspended” nameservers have resurfaced again on their original nameservers. Apparently, these domains are not listed in the court order. Njalla informs us that the domain names that currently have a ‘clienthold’ status are the real targets. That appears to include freestreams-live1.top, which currently points to “shut-for-fraud.com” nameservers. Needless to say, the domain suspension immediately stopped all traffic to this site, albeit with a slight delay due to DNS caching. However, sites that have previously survived U.S. domain seizures are not quick to back down, so the domain whack-a-mole will likely continue. Demand for pirated streams doesn’t appear to wane either. A recent poll by Oddspedia among 3,200 American football fans shows that 93% don’t have any moral objections to using pirated streams. According to most respondents, the legal options are simply too expensive. —- Freestreams-live1.top is now on Clienthold. There may be more of these but without a copy of the court order, we’re not able to confirm that. Below is a list of the domain names that (previously) pointed to suspended nameservers. – rcrackstreams.com – rboxingstreams.com – nhlbite.com – nflbite.com – nbabite.com – methstreams.link – linestreams.com – karmastreams.me – karmastreams.com – fsl-streams.click – f1bite.net – crackstreams.nu – cokestreams.com – buffstreams.sx – boxingbite.net – 2720pstream.tv – 720pstream.nu – 720pstream.me – 101streams.net From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more. View the full article
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The pop singer played a handful of U.S. concerts earlier this summerView the full article
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Anil Kapoor won a landmark case in Delhi High Court, protecting his personality from being misused for the likes of deepfakes and GIFs.View the full article
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The best gay dating apps and sites for LGBTQ+ daters, including popular options like Grindr and Tinder.View the full article
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Save 59% on the Ninja Dragon Phantom K Pro and Blade X Pro at the Mashable Shop.View the full article