3 Count: Phanatic Decision

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1: Phillies Should be Allowed to Use Modified Phanatic, Federal Judge in Copyright Dispute Says

First off today, Robert Moran at The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that a federal judge has recommended that the Philadelphia Phillies be allowed to continue to use their modified version of the famous Phillie Phanatic mascot even though the changes were relatively minor.

The 91-page report is part of an ongoing legal battle between Harrison/Erickson, a design firm that created the original Phanatic, and the Philadelphia Phillies baseball team. Harrison/Erickson created the original costume in 1978 and licensed its use until 2019, when negotiations broke down. It was then that the Philles debuted a new version of the outfit with minor tweaks and changes, prompting Harrison/Erickson to file the lawsuit.

In that dispute, a judge has written a 91-page report recommending that the Phillie be allowed to continue to use their current version of the Phanatic until the lawsuit is decided. This recommendation now goes before the judge in the case itself and both sides have an opportunity to dispute it. That said, it’s still a strong recommendation that will likely carry a great deal of weight.

2: Netflix Intensifies ‘VPN Ban’ and Targets Residential IP-addresses Too 

Next up today, Ernesto Van der Sar at Torrentfreak writes that Netflix has begun expanding its VPN blocking efforts to include residential IP addresses that it suspects are being used to bypass geographic restrictions.

Netflix has long banned VPNs with commercial IP addresses, but many VPN providers have found ways around those blocks by routing their traffic through residential IP addresses. Netflix now appears to be targeting those as well, and the evidence of that is seen in a slew of forum posts by users complaining that they are being blocked.

Netflix says that the block is not complete and that users with such addresses can still access Netflix originals and other non-geographically limited works. They also say that users that are impacted by this that are not running proxies or VPNs should contact their ISP to determine why the block is in place.

3: Advertising Fuels $1.34 Billion Illegal Piracy Market, Report by Digital Citizens Alliance and White Bullet Finds

Finally today, a press release by the Digital Citizens Alliance writes that, after a year-long study on the piracy marketplace, they estimate that the pirate industry brings in approximately $1.34 billion annually through advertising.

That money is divided between pirate websites, which bring in an estimated $1.08 billion per year and pirate apps, which bring in an estimated $259 million. This advertising is coming from a wide variety of sources, including major brands and Fortune 500 companies, and that the larger pirate sites can receive tens of millions of dollars per year. The most prominent companies funding the sites were Amazon, Google and Facebook.

The report looked at the relationship between malware and piracy and found that one in three pirate websites featured “risky” advertising that could expose users to malware. It also found that users of pirate sites were 2-3 times more likely to report issues with malware than those that didn’t.

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