The latest Digg Dialogg stars none other than Brüno, the über-famous Austrian model and host of the Funkyzeit fashion and celebrity show. To make sure that Brüno’s interview is well-seeded at all times, Digg has teamed up with Mininova.
On the day that The Pirate Bay announced that they will be sold to a commercial company for $7.8 million, Tomas Wennström secured an audio interview with TPB spokesman Peter Sunde. The interview is of great interest but raises even more questions as shockwaves continue through the P2P community.
Alongside the news that The Pirate Bay will sell shares on the Swedish stock market come some other significant changes. The site itself will decentralize and stop hosting and tracking torrents. Instead, The Pirate Bay will use a third party tracker and torrent hosting service to serve its users.
According to gaming company Global Gaming Factory X, it is in the the process of acquiring The Pirate Bay for $7.8m (SEK 60 million). The acquisition is scheduled to be completed by August and will see the site launch new business models to compensate content providers and copyright owners.
During the last few days a virus scam targeting torrent site users has reappeared. Internet users receive an email informing them they have been monitored by anti-piracy company MediaDefender on various torrent sites. Although a log file is included to ‘prove’ infringements, it contains what is being described as a “banking trojan”.
Lawyers ACS:Law and their anti-piracy partners Logistep are currently harassing around 6,000 alleged file-sharers, demanding £665 from each to make threats of legal action go away. In yet another blow to their tenuous claims, ISP association ISPA says that its members are “not confident” that the evidence accurately identifies infringers.
The top 10 most downloaded movies on BitTorrent, ‘Knowing’ tops the chart this week for the second week in a row followed by ‘The Haunting in Connecticut’. ‘Angels and Demons’ completes this week’s top three.
Piracy watchdog Nexicon has found the ultimate way to turn piracy into profit for the fresh copyright holders added to their clientele. They offer alleged file-sharers the chance to settle for $10 per downloaded song or an equal amount for a pirated movie. If you decide not to settle, they promise to bankrupt you in court.
The Pirate Bay team has continued developing its video streaming site – which will open up to the public within 5 years. On The Video Bay users can share video clips without having to worry about getting them taken offline due to copyright violations, true Pirate Bay-style.
Since 2005, a Brazilian senator has been championing new cybercrime legislation which would include tough measures against file-sharing. Yesterday, at the International Free Software Forum, the Brazilian President openly criticized the bill, and then posed for pictures with The Pirate Bay’s Peter Sunde.
Norway’s largest dairy products producer is redesigning the logo they use on one of their chocolate milk products. They invited the public to design cows of their own, and then vote on them to decide the winner, which then becomes the new logo. Right now a Pirate Bay-inspired cow is in second place.
