The data for our weekly download chart is collected by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only. All the movies in the list are DVDrips unless stated otherwise.

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Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

The data for our weekly download chart is collected by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only. All the movies in the list are DVDrips unless stated otherwise.

RSS feed for the weekly movie download chart.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

The data for our weekly download chart is collected by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only. All the movies in the list are DVDrips unless stated otherwise.

RSS feed for the weekly movie download chart.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

The data for our weekly download chart is collected by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only. All the movies in the list are DVDrips unless stated otherwise.

RSS feed for the weekly movie download chart.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

With no legal basis, ISPs were extremely reluctant to comply, so government-mandated talks on the issue came to an end. On this particular battle, at least for the time being, the Coalition had to concede defeat, but they weren’t about to give up on the war.

Since it could not force sanctions on the end users, the Coalition – which includes the likes of Promusicae and SGAE – began to focus on Spain’s BitTorrent sites. In his first public appearance as Coalition president, Aldo Olcese noted there were 200 of them, up from 70 in just a few months.

However, as we mentioned in our earlier report, the Coalition’s ability to deal with these sites in the current climate is limited. Spanish courts have ruled time and again that if profits aren’t made directly from copyright infringements, BitTorrent sites are perfectly legal. Add this to the Chief Prosecutor’s May 2006 official instruction that effectively decriminalized non-commercial file-sharing, and the Coalition have an even steeper mountain to climb.

According to a new report, yesterday the names of the 200 sites were handed to the Spanish industry minister following the presentation of a report called Parasites’ Business (video below in Spanish), which was made jointly by the Coalition and CoPeerRight, who claim to be the world’s ‘premier’ anti-piracy company.

Coalition president Olcese pointed out the difficulties his group faces, describing Spain as a “piracy paradise” with “no legal, civil or administrative measures in place to combat this problem.”

CoPeerRight then gave a presentation based on its own research which it says shows that the average Spanish pirate web site can earn an absolutely astonishing €1.5 million ($2.2 million) a year in revenue, this based on an average of 150,000 users each, with some of them drawing 4 million unique visitors in a single month.

However, as we highlighted earlier, pure BitTorrent and other similar ‘linking’ sites do not profit directly from infringements, which means they are entirely legal. The Coalition hopes to be instrumental in changing this position.

Last week the Spanish government announced the creation of a commission to consider legislation to deal with the issue of copyright infringement. Coalition president Olcese told Billboard that he believes “there is a correlation between the setting up of this commission, with the fact the Spain’s assumes the six-month presidency of the European Union next January 1, and with the improved relationship between the leaders of the Spanish and U.S. governments”.

Indeed, earlier this year a very impatient US government growing tired with what it sees as a total lack of inaction on the issue, said that part of Spain’s “priority action” to decrease online piracy should include an agreement between ISPs and copyright holders to prevent infringing content being available on the Internet – code for “3 strikes”, a measure that not even the US has implemented.

While that option has disappeared, last week saw Spanish prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero make his first visit to the White House in his six years in office – the first by a Spanish leader since the country’s 2004 Iraq pullout, an event which didn’t go down well with the US. Zapatero is now offering to assist with the closure of Guantanamo Bay, a sign that relations are beginning to warm.

It seems now that the only savior of the Coalition and its partners will be a change in the law, but Coalition president Olcese couldn’t resist mixing up terms in order to create the impression that the 200 BitTorrent sites are currently illegal.

“We gave the government last April our proposals to establish an official register of legal Web sites and act against illegal sites. When we meet the commission, we shall reiterate our position,” he said.

Illegal is not the same as unauthorized or unofficial, as much as the Coalition would like it to be so.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

The data for our weekly download chart is collected by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only. All the movies in the list are DVDrips unless stated otherwise.

RSS feed for the weekly movie download chart.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

The data for our weekly download chart is collected by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only. All the movies in the list are DVDrips unless stated otherwise.

RSS feed for the weekly movie download chart.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

The data for our weekly download chart is collected by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only. All the movies in the list are DVDrips unless stated otherwise.

RSS feed for the weekly movie download chart.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

The data for our weekly download chart is collected by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only. All the movies in the list are DVDrips unless stated otherwise.

RSS feed for the weekly movie download chart.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

Lily has managed to capture the imaginations of both sides – people are talking about this issue and that is always a good thing.

Debate, discussion and hopefully understanding will bring this file-sharing ‘war’ to an end one day but in the meantime let’s not forget what this is ultimately all about – the music. We all love it and that’s why you’ll love this too;

“After Lily’s hectic week I’ve made a pro-filesharing song and video calling her up on a few of the claims she’s made,” UK musician Dan Bull explains to TorrentFreak.

“I’ve also tried to outline some of the main moral arguments for filesharing in the lyrics. Hope you enjoy, and hope the readers do too.”

The song is brilliant in my opinion, and, ironically I suppose, i’d like to give Dan some money for his work, he deserves it. Let’s hope this song gets to Internet #1 this weekend and he reaps the benefit. Now if I can just get the chorus out of my head…..

…or if you prefer, download the MP3 here.

Dan’s MySpace page can be found here and his album ‘Safe’ is available from FreshNut but can also be downloaded digitally from iTunes, Amazon and Napster.

You can grab it free of charge here or using Mininova.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

In 2002 he launched TuckerMax.com, a site where millions read about his real-life drunken and sexual antics, including one article about his earlier relationship with Katy Johnson, Miss Vermont 1999, which led to a lawsuit which fortunately for him, was later withdrawn.

Of course, Tucker Max had plenty more outrageous alcohol-fueled exploits to blog about, in fact so much so that in 2006 he released his book I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell which became a NY Times Bestseller in the same year.

Tomorrow, Max will bring his unique blend of entertainment to the big screen with the movie release of I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell. It will be a ‘limited’ release, which means that initially the movie will be available on a small number of screens then increasing as (hopefully) the movie grows in popularity.

However, at the moment the movie will only be available in the US, and initially only in Chicago. A Canadian release will take place in two weeks, which Max described as “stupid” while stressing that he has zero control over foreign distribution, “In ANY country.”

So what if you’d like to see the movie and it’s not available in your country?

Pirate it on the Internet.

“If you live outside the US and are desperate to see the movie and can’t find the release date in your country, then just pirate the movie and watch it online. I am serious. I have no issue with that,” says Max on the movie’s website. He also says the way to market a great movie is through word of mouth.

“Put it in front of people, let them see it, and have them tell their friends how much they liked it. That’s why we did the premiere tour. There is no better way to market quality, and by starting with a smaller release, it allows word of mouth to build and develop. This strategy has worked great with movies like ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ and ‘Juno’,” says Max.

Of course, there’s no reason why the same can’t be true with BitTorrent. But there are plenty of other movies around, why watch this one?

“Go see this movie,” says Max. “At the very least, you will laugh a lot and you will definitely see the most epic shit scene in movie history.”

I’m there.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

The data for our weekly download chart is collected by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only. All the movies in the list are DVDrips unless stated otherwise.

RSS feed for the weekly movie download chart.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

The data for our weekly download chart is collected by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only. All the movies in the list are DVDrips unless stated otherwise.

RSS feed for the weekly movie download chart.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

The data for our weekly download chart is collected by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only. All the movies in the list are DVDrips unless stated otherwise.

RSS feed for the weekly movie download chart.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

The data for our weekly download chart is collected by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only. All the movies in the list are DVDrips unless stated otherwise.

RSS feed for the weekly movie download chart.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

The data for our weekly download chart is collected by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only. All the movies in the list are DVDrips unless stated otherwise.

RSS feed for the weekly movie download chart.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

However, despite the fact that the site is set to be sold later this week, the Pirate Bay team worked around the clock to serve their users in these final hours.

A mere three hours after it went offline the site reappeared from a different location, but because of technical issues at the new ISP a full comeback took almost a day. The site is back online and the tracker is expected to follow soon.

The Pirate Bay team has always anticipated an unwanted disconnection of the site. After their servers were raided in 2006 several measures were taken to ensure that the site could simply come back online from a new location in a few hours, and this is the first time that this backup plan had been executed.

With its reemergence the people behind the site hope to show the authorities and the entertainment industry that the war is not over just yet. Perhaps it’s only the beginning of a battle on a different front. The future will tell.

A few minutes ago, the Pirate Bay team released the following statement, adapted from Churchill’s famous “We Shall Fight On the Beaches” speech. Make of it what you will.

We have, ourselves, full confidence that if all do their duty, if nothing is neglected, and if the best arrangements are made, as they are being made, we shall prove ourselves once more able to defend our Internets, to ride out the storm of war, and to outlive the menace of tyranny, if necessary for years, if necessary alone.

Even though large parts of Internets and many old and famous trackers have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Ifpi and all the odious apparatus of MPAA rule, we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the ef-nets and darknets, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Internets, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the baywords.org, we shall fight on the /. and on the digg, we shall fight in the courts; we shall never surrender, and if, which I do not for a moment believe, the Internets or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the Anon Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in Cerf’s good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old.

Signed;

The Pirate Bay Crew – Now until needed.

Update: Users of the anti-virus program Avast report that TPB has been blacklisted as a malicious site after the site returned.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

“Roxanne, Roxanne” inspired several of what are known as ‘answer records’. Made popular in early blues and R&B tracks, ‘answer records’ respond to the reference track, and in hip-hop these ‘answers’ were often part of a dispute.

The dispute over “Roxanne, Roxanne” arose after U.F.T.O failed to appear at a radio promotional show. A then 14-year-old Lolita Shanté Gooden overhead a conversation between a record producer and a DJ about the no-show and offered to make an ‘answer record’ to get back at them. The classic hip-hop track “Roxanne’s Revenge” was born.

But now, 25 years after the first queen of hip-made her world debut selling 250,000 copies but getting sold short on the royalties, Roxanne really has gotten her revenge on record label Warner Music.

In a brilliant article chronicling an amazing journey, Shanté explains how a quarter of a century on, Warner has had to dig deep to honor a clause in her original contract – to finance her education for life.

At 25 and married with a son and daughter, Shanté left the music business to become a psychologist and, thanks to the long forgotten clause (by Warner at least), she didn’t have to put her hand in her own pocket to find the $217,000 it took to achieve her dreams. But of course, it wasn’t straight forward.

“They [Warner] kept stumbling over their words, and they didn’t have an exact reason why they were telling me no,” Shanté said. But in the end, her persistence paid off.

Dr. Roxanne Shanté earned her Ph.D. in psychology from Cornell and after a long battle in which she threatened to go public, finally got Warner to honor their obligations and hand over the cash.

Good to see Warner being forced to look after their artists, even if it is through gritted teeth.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

Now, according to a report, the leak has been confirmed by Simon Cowell’s Syco, part of Sony BMG.

The report in Britain’s The Sun tabloid, says that ‘hackers’ targeted computers at Syco and lifted the track and later put it on the Internet, but the author seems a little confused over how these things work.

Sure, the assertion that there can be “huge kudos” to be gained by the ‘hackers’ in leaking a track like this is absolutely correct, but the article goes on to say that there is a huge financial motive too.

“Dodgy file-sharing websites pay hackers top dollar for stolen tracks as they try to attract more downloaders to the site so they can rake in more money from advertisers,” is the claim from the article.

But everyone familiar with these situations understand, as soon as a track is leaked onto the Internet word gets round very quickly. Soon everyone has a copy and the track is available from dozens of other sites, probably within minutes. It’s very difficult to imagine that paying a hacker “top dollar” would be a worthwhile investment for any site – their offering would be pirated in seconds.

A Syco spokesman confirmed that the label is working with IFPI, BPI and the police to track down the leakers. “We will certainly look to bring charges against those who are responsible. We cannot give any more details at this stage for operational reasons,” he said.

At this point it seems that Syco are doing a reasonable job of containing the leak of the mp3 itself – scanning various sites which have listed the track as available reveals that most have been subject of takedown notices from Sony. At this point it appears that the track didn’t leak via the Scene, as searches on the usual release databases reveal no sign of the song.

Despite the evil hackers and investigations by anti-piracy police and the real police, coupled with rantings by Cowell, anyone can listen to the leaked song on YouTube. Go figure.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

The data for our weekly download chart is collected by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only. All the movies in the list are DVDrips unless stated otherwise.

RSS feed for the weekly movie download chart.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.