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Guba, MPAA to crack down on movie piracy
MUMBAI: Online video entertainment website Guba is collaborating with the Motion Picture Association of America, (MPAA) to block illegal trading of movies and television programs on www.guba.com.
Guba is the first video sharing community to partner with the MPAA in filtering copyrighted video.
Guba is filtering movies and TV shows using a proprietary technology Johnny. Johnny analyses video in digitised form and generates a unique fingerprint for each video. Once Johnny has scanned a video, that video is blocked from illegal file trading or distribution on Guba’s site.
Guba plans to make Johnny available to other video sharing services to help eliminate copyright infringement on the Web and on Usenet, an electronic bulletin board commonly
used for illegal file sharing. Until the implementation of Johnny, copyrighted content on Usenet has been largely unfiltered.
Guba CEO and founder Thomas McInerney says, “Johnny can identify a video, even if that video has been modified, cropped, reformatted, re-encoded or reposted. Guba allows users to upload and share their videos, while Johnny
helps protect copyright holders from illegal posting and sharing. Johnny is an essential cog in making video sharing safe and easy.”
The MPAA has been working with technology companies to provide a bridge in the digital transition. Guba and the MPAA have included thousands of movies and television programs from major studios in Johnny’s filters. Filtering efforts on MPAA titles have so far been successful and Guba is committed to
continuing and improving on this initiative. In the last month, Guba has begun distribution of Warner Bros. and Sony film and television shows online.
MPAA chairman and CEO Dan Glickman says, “Providing consumers legitimate ways to get movie and television programming online is essential to our industry. Collaborating with Guba has given us an opportunity to test new technology that will help ensure consumers can freely share videos without being exposed to illegal programming, which could lead to copyright infringement. We hope that other such sites will employ similar technology which allows them to conduct legitimate online businesses while protecting the creations of thousands of people who work in the entertainment industry.”
As a copyright-friendly service, Guba currently prevents users from uploading feature-length films, DRM-protected content, MP3 files, and software.
Applications
Canva acquires animation and AI startups Cavalry and MangoAI
The deals strengthen Canva’s push into enterprise and AI-led design workflows
AUSTRALIA: Global visual communication platform Canva has stepped up its acquisition drive, buying UK-based 2D animation platform Cavalry and US-based AI startup MangoAI to deepen its AI-powered creative stack.
Cavalry, whose tools are used by brands including Amazon, Meta, Google and Netflix, will strengthen Canva’s motion design capabilities. The deal builds on Canva’s 2024 acquisition of Affinity, which has crossed four million downloads since launch. With Cavalry, Canva now counts seven Europe-based acquisitions, underscoring its global expansion strategy.
MangoAI, an early-stage startup focused on video advertising optimisation, will integrate its reinforcement learning systems into Canva AI. The move aims to enable brands to generate personalised marketing content in real time, cutting production cycles while improving campaign performance. MangoAI co-founder Vinith Misra will join Canva as reinforcement learning lead in its research lab.
Canva co-founder and chief operating officer Cliff Obrecht said the acquisitions reflect the company’s ambition to make professional-grade creative tools more accessible without sidelining human creativity. The goal, he said, is to bring everything from vector to motion design into a single, integrated suite.
The company now reports 265 million active users, including 31 million paid subscribers, and $4 billion in annualised revenue, up 36 per cent year on year. The latest buys further position Canva against rivals such as Adobe and Apple’s Creator Studio as it pushes deeper into enterprise workflows.
Canva head of pro design marketing Liam Fisher, said AI is intended to act as a creative assistant rather than a replacement, reinforcing the primacy of craft and individual design judgement.
