Gone are the days when the word “pirate” primarily conjured images of clever scoundrels like Captain Jack Sparrow, swaggering across the high seas in search of gold and jewels. Today’s most prolific pirates operate in the darkest corners of the internet, armed with bots, scrapers and generative AI.
After a nearly four-year court battle, Japanese adult entertainment producer Will Co. has been awarded $4.5 million in damages and ownership of domains formerly belonging to the operator of now-shuttered MissAV.com and other high-traffic pirate sites.
A Washington District Court has ordered the owner and operator of DaftSex.com to surrender his domains and pay $32 million in damages to MindGeek over copyright violations related to content owned by the Montreal-headquartered adult conglomerate.