Late last year, hacking veterans Team Xecutor (TX) revealed that they’d developed an exciting kernel hack for the Nintendo Switch.

In January, the group announced an unstoppable solution, one that exploits a fundamental flaw in the Switch system.

That led up to the release of ‘SX Pro‘, a device dongle and tool for booting TX’s custom firmware (SX OS) on Nintendo’s latest hardware.

Unlike the pirated games the system is able to run, TX solutions cost money. On Max-Console, SX Pro is listed at £42.40 and SX OS at £18.80. However, it appears that TX has already considered that some pirates might try to…gasp….crack its software.

The discovered was made by UK-based security researcher Mike Heskin who took to Twitter with the news.

PSA: SX OS contains brick code. How do I know this? Take a guess… :/

Anyway, the concept is the same that was used by Gateway for the 3DS: your eMMC will be locked with a specific password. Sadly, in my case, the password was generated from random garbage on the stack. :(

— Mike Heskin (@hexkyz) June 24, 2018

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The news that TX’s code can brick a Switch was met with concern, especially when Heskin revealed that the anti-cracking countermeasure could potentially affect people who are using SX OS normally.

“The code can indeed trigger with normal usage, but the odds are so low that is very unlikely that anyone will be affected by this (unless you’re messing with voltage or time sensitive stuff). These were direct observations from reverse engineering and testing their code,” he wrote.

While TX haven’t denied the presence of the anti-cracking code, they have issued a denial that it could be triggered under normal usage. In an email response published on the forums of GBATemp, TX said that there hadn’t been a single problem reported by 100,000 users.

Team Xecutor refuting the claims

With TX offering reassurances, Heskin has now confirmed that the ‘bricking’ process is technically possible to undo and was “quite painless” with the right knowledge. But with an additional revelation, the controversy over TX’s solution is set to continue.

In response to Heskin gently questioning why parts of the SX OS code “look so familiar” to him, a response from one observer suggests that not all of it is original.

So "SX OS" = stolen Atmosphère and HBL code, with bonus console bricking malware and "DRM". How ironic and unfortunate this is…

This is unacceptable and undefendable. I really hope people wake up and realize how awful GW/TX really are, and stop giving these bastards attention.

— fincs (@fincsdev) June 28, 2018

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This latest controversy over Switch modding comes in the wake of news that Nintendo is able to identify consoles that are running pirated games, if users dare to venture online with them.

More info on the SX Pro ‘bricking’ claims from Mike Heskin here

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While Kodi is a neutral media player, the name often shows up in piracy related headlines.

This is the result of dozens of unofficial addons, which can turn the software into a piracy tool, something the Kodi team can do little about.

In fact, the media player developers prefer to see their software used for legitimate purposes. While that’s already the case, they hope to expand their reach by offering support for DRM.

The Kodi team already announced that it was working on DRM support last year and with the “Kodi v18 Leia” release it’s now reality. This means that publishers can develop official addons which are capable of playing encrypted content.

Martijn Kaijser, Project lead of the XBMC Foundation from which the Kodi team operates, stresses that without DRM, mainstream adoption from publishers is not an option.

“In the past, we have talked to publishers and in almost all cases the first question was if we supported DRM. If not, that was the end of the talk. Others did have interest if we were going to add it and would come back to us if we would,” Kaijser says.

Mainstream adoption is a slow process though. Thus far there are no “official” addons using the DRM capabilities. However, the Kodi team hopes that these will come soon.

“Up till now, there is no official work or interest that I know of from providers. Our current motto is ‘if you implement it they will come’ so let’s hope this will indeed open doors,” Kaijser notes.

This doesn’t mean, however, that the DRM functionality is not being utilized. The Kodi team believes that several addons in their repository have it implemented already, including the Eurosport Player and the YouTube plugin.

The unofficial Netflix and Amazon addons, which are available elsewhere on the web, are confirmed to use the DRM functionality, according to Kaijser.

It has to be noted that DRM might not work perfectly everywhere, as the requirements can differ per platform and service. So there might be some restrictions.

“The first one we had working was Android because it has the system implemented in the Android API and has full 4K support depending on the license in place on the hardware. For Linux, we act as if we are a browser and then you are limited to what a browser can play,” Kaijser says.

That brings us to the main downside of DRM. For the end user, it is not always the most convenient option. However, in this case, it’s a choice between not having mainstream content available at all, or with limitations.

Let’s hope that users don’t get too frustrated by any of the possible DRM issues, as that may tempt them to look for alternatives.

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The legal battle between PUBG and Epic Games, two gaming heavyweights, has come to an end.

Earlier this week PUBG sent a letter of withdrawal to Epic Games’ attorneys, announcing its decision. Not much later the South Korean lawsuit was closed, Bloomberg reports.

The Korean game developer filed the lawsuit in January alleging that Epic copied “Fortnite” elements from “PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds” (PUBG). This followed earlier complaints where PUBG accused Fortnite of being very similar to its own game.

Whether the companies have agreed on a settlement to resolve this dispute is unknown, but PUBG and its law firm confirmed that the case is over.

Both Fortnite and PUBG have been very successful over the past year, bringing in hundreds of millions of dollars. In addition to the aforementioned case, this also triggered several other copyright infringement lawsuits.

In the United States, PUBG recently filed a separate copyright infringement lawsuit against the developer of the mobile games “Rules of Survival” and “Knives Out,” accusing these of copying specific elements from PUBG. This case is still ongoing.

For its part, Epic Games has filed a series of copyright infringement lawsuits against alleged cheaters. The primary goal of these cases is to stop the cheaters, not to recoup any losses.

While the future of Fortnite was never in any immediate danger due to the PUBG lawsuit, avid fans will probably sleep a little bit better knowing that the matter is resolved.

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Music piracy was traditionally viewed as an easy to identify problem, one that takes place on illegal sites or via largely uncontrollable peer-to-peer networks. In recent years, however, the lines have been blurred.

Sites like YouTube allow anyone to upload potentially infringing content which is then made available to the public. Under the safe harbor provisions of US and EU law, this remains legal – provided YouTube takes content down when told to do so. It complies constantly but there’s always more to do.

This means that in addition to being one of the greatest legal platforms ever created, YouTube is also a goldmine of unlicensed content, something unacceptable to the music industry.

They argue that the existence of this pirate material devalues the licensed content on the platform. As a result, YouTube maintains a favorable bargaining position with the labels and the best licensing deal in the industry.

The difference between YouTube’s rates and those the industry would actually like is now known as the “Value Gap” and it’s become one of the hottest topics in recent years.

In fact, it is so controversial that new copyright legislation, currently weaving its way through the corridors of power in the EU Parliament, is specifically designed to address it.

If passed, Article 13 will require platforms like YouTube to pre-filter uploads to detect potential infringement. Indeed, the legislation may as well have been named the YouTube Act, since it’s the platform that provoked this entire debate and whole Value Gap dispute.

With that in mind, it’s of interest to consider the words of YouTube’s global head of music Lyor Cohen this week.

In an interview with MusicWeek, Cohen pledges that his company’s new music service, YouTube Music, will not only match the rates the industry achieves from Apple Music and Spotify, but the company’s ad-supported free tier viewers will soon be delivering more cash to the labels too.

“Of course [rights holders are] going to get more money,” he told Music Week.

“The problem with the industry is, they’ve always compared advertising to subscription. I’m hoping that there will now be more sophistication in understanding, but in terms of subscription, we’ll be providing the same sort of economics that the other services do.”

If YouTube lives up to its pledge, a level playing field will not only be welcomed by the music industry but also YouTube competitors such as Spotify, who currently offer a free tier on less favorable terms.

While there’s still plenty of room for YouTube to maneuver, peace breaking out with the labels may be coming a little too late for those deeply concerned about the implications of Article 13.

YouTube’s business model and its reluctance to pay full market rate for music is what started the whole Article 13 movement in the first place and with the Legal Affairs Committee of the Parliament (JURI) adopting the proposals last week, time is running out to have them overturned.

But while the Internet melts down with Doomsday scenarios of aggressive filtering and irreparable damage caused by censorship, YouTube’s global head of music is as cool as can be. It’s like the whole Value Gap thing never happened.

“I do know, from every single senior executive, that we’re not discussing the value gap,” Cohen told MusicWeek.

“We’re discussing how to maximize our funnel and how to grow the business, how to be better partners with them. It’s nice.”

Behind the scenes, however, the labels and their associates are going flat out to ensure that Article 13 passes, whether YouTube decides to “play fair” or not. Their language suggests that force is the best negotiating tactic with the distribution giant.

Yesterday, UK Music CEO Michael Dugher led a delegation to the EU Parliament in support of Article 13. He was joined by deputy Labour leader Tom Watson and representatives from the BPI, PRS, and Music Publishers Association, who urged MEPs to support the changes.

“The UK music industry is totally united on this issue. The contribution of music to the UK economy is nearly £4.5 billion. Music outperforms in every part of the economy bar one – and that’s average earnings, which are less in our sector than in the rest of the economy,” Dugher said.

“It’s time for Google’s YouTube to stop ripping off the creators and investors behind our world-beating music.”

While they might not be discussing it with YouTube, the aggression and passion over the Value Gap have hardly disappeared into the night.

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In recent years it has become much easier to stream movies, TV-shows and other media over the Internet.

Legal services such as Netflix and HBO are flourishing, but there’s also a darker side to this streaming epidemic.

Millions of people are streaming from unauthorized sources, often paired with perfectly legal streaming platforms and devices. This issue has become particularly problematic for Roku, which sells easy-to-use media players.

The company’s media players were banned from sale in Mexico last year, where the company has over a million users.

This ruling turned piracy into one of the company’s main priorities and it didn’t take for Roku to take action. It soon started building its in-house anti-piracy team and several pirate channels were banned from the platform, replaced by FBI warnings.

Today, roughly a year after Roku’s piracy woes hit the mainstream news, the company has released fresh details that show how effective its anti-piracy measures have been.

According to data collected directly from Roku’s platform this month, approximately 99.5% of all “streaming hours” come from channels with no links to ‘pirate organizations.’

In other words, the vast majority of the time spent streaming content on Roku is not related to piracy.

In Mexico, approximately 92% of streaming hours come from ‘legitimate’ channels, but Roku is confident that this number will align with the global average as time progresses.

While the new data show that piracy is relatively minimal, Roku doesn’t explain how this compares to a year ago. The company suggests, however, that there is a clear downward trend.

Previously, figures published by a Mexican market research firm estimated that forty percent of all Roku owners in the country use the device to access pirated content. However, that report didn’t look at the time spent viewing various channels.

The positive progress was achieved through a combination of enforcement efforts, Roku says.

The company says it tracked down more than 400 pirate organizations and removed all associated channels, for example. In addition, Roku also took action against thousands of social media pages that were used to promote allegedly infringing Roku channels.

These efforts have not been without controversy. They caused some backlash when legitimate YouTube and Netflix channels were accidentally replaced by FBI warnings, and recent bans of M3U playlist players are also called into question.

Roku, however, is not planning to ease up. Developers will now have to get certified before they can publish any channels and the company says it’s using automated technology to detect potential infringing content.

“Piracy hurts our business and the industry. We continue to devote considerable resources to fighting piracy by continuously improving our software, tools and detection methods to remove pirates from our platform,” Gary Ellison, Roku’s VP of trust engineering says.

“The data we are releasing today shows the effectiveness of our anti-piracy efforts. It is a top priority to ensure that our platform is closed for pirates and good for consumers.”

The data focuses on Mexico for a reason. Over the past several months, Roku has discussed its piracy efforts with Mexican government bodies and trade organizations and hopes its progress will eventually mean devices being welcomed back to local stores.

“Mexico can benefit greatly from legitimate TV streaming and should not let piracy stand in its way,” Matthew Anderson, Roku’s chief marketing officer says, commenting on the data.

“It’s time for all major leaders in the TV industry to work together to end piracy while giving consumers the wide choice of TV content they deserve,” he adds.

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