It's only been a few weeks since we leaned Village Roadshow donated millions of dollars to Labor and the LNP as new piracy laws were passed. And a few months ago, a number of studios worked together to force additional block on a bunch of piracy-related websites.

If cinema revenues were suffering we might be even be a little sympathetic. But it turns out that's not the case with 2018 a record year at the box office once again.

We've reported several times on the various take-down notices and site blocking orders dished out by the courts over the last year or so as rights-holders have fought back against services that share or facilitate access to copyrighted material without permission. But an analysis shows that while political donations by Village Roadshow aren't new, they spiked significantly at about the same time the current, tougher legislation was being developed and passed.

You can find just about anything on Reddit, for better or worse. It’s one of the reasons why the site remains so universally popular, as it’s an easy way for newbies to have near-unlimited access to everything that used to be a little harder to find: day-of downloads for new movies, streams of their favourite sporting events, free or modified video games and applications, et cetera.

The federal government has tabled new draft legislation that will further empower rights holders as they try to block and take down sites that either directly distribute or enable access to licensed content. The Copyright Amendment (Online Infringement) Bill 2018 expands the scope of existing laws and will result in sections of the internet being blocked in Australia faster. Here's what you need to know.

A collection of Australian ISPs and RSPs have been petitioned by rights holders to black access to websites accused of sharing copyrighted material. And while that's not new, the types of sites being targeting has changed. As well as media-sharing sites, the content makers and distributors have turned their attention to fansub sites. These are websites that distribute subtitles to popular movies.

Today is International Talk Like A Pirate Day. (AKA every office jerk's favourite day of the year.) If you're sick of hearing multiple exclamations of "shiver me timbers", "matey" and "arrrrr!", you need to take matters into your own hands. Here are some methods to kill vernacular piracy dead.

Sharing music, images and movies - using a PVR to record TV shows, creating your own Hitler parodies from Downfall and using photos from websites - is something many of people do every day. But are they legal activities? It's possible that you're breaking copyright laws, either intentionally or inadvertently every day. Here's a look at copyright law and what you can do to protect yourself.

Last week, the Federal Court of Australia directed 49 ISPs to block access to websites that are engaged in providing pirated TV shows and movies. The action launched by Foxtel is all about curbing access to some of its centrepiece shows such as Game of Thrones and Wentworth. But what does the ruling mean and will it have wider repercussions?

Yes, there is such a thing as a free lunch. But if you hack your Nintendo Switch to play pirated games for free, that comes with a cost: You can't play online.

Foxtel has successfully applied to have 28 additional torrent and streaming sites blocked in Australia at Federal Court today. This time, sites on the hit-list include 123Hulu, Sockshare and WatchFreeMovies. Here's what you need to know.

On March 15, Village Roadshow's CEO, Graham Burke, penned a letter to the Department of Communications and the Arts, appealing for a review of the Copyright Online Infringement Amendment.

What that letter contains is an eye-opening range of claims - of Australia ending up "as bleak as a remote Bejing suburb", linking piracy with "drug selling" and "luring kids" into "criminal neighbourhoods that proliferate with prostitution" and insisting "wondrous Australian films are often more important than people we meet in shaping our world".

I couldn't make this up if I tried.

Read it in its glorious entirety here.

Court-enforced online roadblocks, demanded by movie studios, appear to be stopping only half of Australia's would-be pirates from reaching The Pirate Bay; even fewer once you allow for Aussies hiding behind a virtual private network, or VPN.

Australian internet service providers have blocked a range of piracy websites since December 2016, including The Pirate Bay and SolarMovie, after the Federal Court enforced site-blocking laws at the behest of a consortium of copyright holders headed by Village Roadshow.

Back in August, Creative Content Australia (CCA) launched their ‘Price of Piracy’ campaign, which aims to shed light on the issue of using torrent and streaming websites to illegally access content. Specifically, it wants to highlight the inherent risk users put themselves in when accessing these sites.

This campaign is the biggest anti-piracy push in Australia's history - but are scare campaigns really the right way to prevent people from downloading? And how do the facts and figures actually stack up?

The digital seas are becoming a perilous place for pirates. Today, the Australian IPTV provider Fetch TV announced it is joining forces with the Australian Screen Association (ASA) to combat online piracy. If you're partial to a bit of GoT plunder via illegal streaming and the like, here's what you need to know.

Dear Lifehacker, Is it possible to get around the government's blocking of illegal torrenting and streaming sites? Also, what about US Netflix? As far as I can tell, it should be legal to access this content if you pay for it.

The European Commission paid €360,000 ($541,980) for a study on how piracy impacts the sales of copyrighted music, books, video games and movies. But the EU never shared the report -- possibly because it determined that there is no evidence that piracy is a major problem.

File-sharing websites are not exactly known for their sterling reputation, though a few such as famed torrent site the Pirate Bay have been around for long enough while generally avoiding shady behaviour they have acquired a certain cachet with the internet community.

A billion times. That's how massive the flood of pirated Game of Thrones video was for the show's most recent season. The recently released data presents some interesting insights, too -- namely that torrents aren't nearly as popular as illegitimate streaming sites.

This week, Village Roadshow co-CEO Graham Burke announced the company will start suing Australians who infringe on its copyright. This means anyone who has streamed or downloaded a movie via an illegal pirate site is potentially in its cross hairs.

But when will litigation begin? Who will be targeted? And how much money will you need to pay? We spoke directly to Burke to get some answers.