3 Count: Cloudflared Up

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1: Cloudflare Terminates Service to Sci-Hub Domain Names

First off today, Ernesto at Torrentfreak writes that Cloudflare has stopped providing content delivery network (CDN) services to Sci-Hub, declining to fight an injunction against the site.

Sci-Hub has earned a reputation as being “The Pirate Bay of Science” with the site providing free access to research and papers that require payment to publishers. Publishers, including Elsevier and the American Chemical Society (ACS) have gone to court against the site with the latter securing a permanent injunction against it.

ACS, in accordance with the injunction, demanded that Cloudflare stop providing services to the site and its domains. Cloudflare, in a surprising move, has complied with the injunction rather than fighting it in court as they have done in the past. Whether the move represents a longer-term shift in Cloudflare’s handling of copyright infringement remains to seen.

2: Judge Warns Roadshow Against Providing ‘Scant’ Alleged Piracy Evidence

Next up today, Corinne Reichert at ZDNet reports that the Australian Federal Court has delayed a bid by Roadshow Films to have a streaming app blocked by local ISPs and, in the process, warned Roadshow that the court will have to be satisfied by the evidence it sees.

The move pushes the hearing from March to mid-April so it can be heard alongside a similar case filed by two Hong Kong broadcasters. However, in announcing the move the judge also warned that, if the evidence is “scant” on the piracy issues, they might not get the order they want.

Currently Roadshow is asking the court to order local ISPs to block access to the app, which they claim is used to facilitate piracy from sources outside of the country. Roadshow had sought to have the case heard before April, citing a fluctuating landscape when it came to the app but the judge said that any changes can be handled with supplemental filings before the date of the hearing.

3: After Three Months, Pirates Say They’ve Finally Cracked Assassin’s Creed Origins 

Finally today, Ethan Gach at Kotaku reports that the Italian hacking group CPY has managed to break the digital rights management (DRM) software on the Ubisoft game Assassin’s Creed Origins some three months after the game was released.

The announcement first appeared on the CrackWatch subreddit. Many had wondered if the game could be crackedat all given that it used a combination of DRM tools including Denuvo 4.8, VMProtect and Ubisoft’s own Uplay.

Cracked versions of most games appear online within days or weeks of release Assassin’s Creed Origins held out for three months, despite it being a major release that was highly sought after. Despite the cracking, it will likely be seen as a victory by Ubisoft, which managed to protect the game through the most important parts of the sales window.

Suggestions

That’s it for the three count today. We will be back tomorrow with three more copyright links. If you have a link that you want to suggest a link for the column or have any proposals to make it better. Feel free to leave a comment or send me an email. I hope to hear from you.

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