Pirate Bay Celebrates “Independence Day”

Today, exactly seven years have passed since The Pirate Bay was raided by the Swedish police. While the entertainment industries hoped that this would be the end of their troubles, in hindsight they’ve created one of the most resilient websites on the Internet. The Pirate Bay has declared the raid…

Movie2K Down: The Mystery and Possible Reincarnation Revealed

Earlier this week the hugely popular Movie2K streaming movie portal disappeared off the face of the Internet without a trace. No official explanation has been given for the site's demise but following the trail of digital breadcrumbs reveals quite a few interesting developments over the past two weeks. Is the…

FBI Must Return Kim Dotcom’s Illegally Seized Property

The New Zealand High Court has ordered the police to inspect all digital information illegally seized last year from Kim Dotcom's mansion, and return everything not directly related to the ongoing prosecution. The judge further ruled that the FBI must ship back cloned drives that were sent to them, and…

Rapidgator Not Responsible for Pirating Users, Court Lifts ISP Blockade

As part of a criminal investigation by Italian authorities, 27 file-sharing related sites had their domains blocked by local ISPs last month. Rapidgator, one of the largest cyberlockers on the Internet, was among the targeted sites and chose to appeal the verdict. This week Rome's Court of Appeal ruled that…

Movie2K Disappears Without Warning

Movie2K, one of the world’s most popular movie streaming portals, disappeared without trace this afternoon. Update May 31: Here Following action by the Motion Picture Association, earlier this month the UK High Court ordered local ISPs to block subscriber access to Movie2K. The censorship effort was quickly circumvented, with existing…

Arrested Development Pirates Skip Netflix Out of Habit

Over the past two days more than 175,000 people have pirated episodes of the revived cult series Arrested Development. While the numbers don't come close to those of hit series Game of Thrones, it's remarkable to see how many of the downloaders come from regions where the entire season is…

Google: Pirate Site Blocking Just Leads To a Game of Whac-a-Mole

During a debate in London last night, Google's UK policy manager said that he believes that blocking 'pirate' sites only leads to a game of whac-a-mole, whereas going after them as a business is more effective. The debate's key theme was whether it would be possible to strangle advertising revenue…