TorrentFreak

Russian police have raided a datacenter hosting iFolder.ru, a huge Rapidshare-like site. Their paperwork allowed them to search and gather evidence against a user who uploaded illegal material to the site. Although staff offered 100% co-operation, the police cut the power and sealed the servers in the datacenter, putting iFolder completely out of operation.

A new report commissioned by the creative industries claims that piracy could result in €240 billion in lost revenues and 1.2 million job losses by 2015. By selective use of sources and shoddy research techniques, lobbyists hope the report will open the doors to tougher anti-piracy laws.

In 2008 a Danish court ruled in favor of the IFPI and ordered the ISP Tele2 to block all customer access to The Pirate Bay. The ISP appealed the decision and now the case will head over to Denmark’s Supreme Court in 2 months’ time. Will the recent Norwegian victory for the ISP Telenor be replicated over the water?

Geremi Adam, a member of the movie release group ‘maVen’ has been sentenced to two and a half months in prison. The 27 year-old Montreal resident, who was referred to the Canadian police by the FBI, pleaded guilty to distributing two major motion pictures.

A brand new streaming TV site which hit the news a little over a month ago has been neutered by legal threats. TVGorge offered more than 120 streaming TV shows such as Heroes, Lost, CSI and Grey’s Anatomy with no geo-restrictions. Many reviewers praised the site but were concerned about its legality. They weren’t the only ones.

Following a crackdown on dozens of local file-sharing sites last year, it now appears that China has added the Canada-based BitTorrent site isoHunt to their Great Firewall. IsoHunt reports that the site has only seen a few hundred Chinese visitors in recent days, a 99% decrease in traffic in compared to a week ago.

The Lithuanian anti-piracy outfit LANVA has lost its case against a user of the prominent BitTorrent tracker LinkoManija.net. After being accused of sharing Windows 7 Ultimate, the defendant walked free when the court decided that uTorrent is not a certified evidence gathering tool.

After early calls to shut down a Spanish file-sharing site were dismissed, music group SGAE pinned its hopes on success at the full trial. But, the outcome for them was nothing short of a disaster. The judge declared that both non-commercial file-sharing link sites and non-profit use of P2P networks are legal in Spain.

The top 10 most downloaded movies on BitTorrent, ‘The Hurt Locker’ tops the chart this week followed by ‘Percy Jackson & the Olympians’. ‘The Twilight Saga: New Moon’ completes the top three.

The uTorrent team released the long-awaited version 2.0 of their popular application last month. The overall reception has been very positive, but critics have labeled the new release as unfair, which has resulted in the client being banned from several private BitTorrent trackers.

Following two unsuccessful attempts at forcing ISP Telenor to block The Pirate Bay in Norway, the IFPI and performing rights outfit TONO have abandoned their legal action. The case will not now head to the Supreme Court but instead the entertainment groups will pin their hopes on new legislation.