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• Swiss Govt: Downloading Movies and Music Will Stay Legal

  One in three people in Switzerland download unauthorized music, movies and games from the Internet and since last year the government has been wondering what to do about it. This week their response was published and it was crystal clear. Not only will downloading for personal use stay completely legal, but the copyright holders won’t suffer because of it, since people eventually spend the money saved on entertainment products.

• Happy Birthday To Us, TorrentFreak Turns 5

  Five years (and a day) ago, on November 12, 2005, TorrentFreak first saw the light of day. Since then we have published 3,392 articles, while our valued readers have written 243,982 comments. It’s been a great ride so far, thanks to all of you…

• MediaDefender Hacker Speaks Out

  In September 2007, anti-piracy company MediaDefender’s emails went public after a hacker gained access to their systems. The attacks cost the company a huge amount of money, not to mention acute embarrassment. Now the person behind the attacks speaks.

• Record Labels Use Piracy Data to Please Fans

  It turns out that P2P is not only an enemy for the major record labels, it’s also an excellent marketing research tool. In fact, MediaDefender is using piracy to help labels increase profitability.

• The Biggest Ever BitTorrent Leak: MediaDefender Internal Emails Go Public

  When TorrentFreak reported that Media Defender (MD) was behind the video site MiiVi, they cast doubt on us. Now, in what is surely the biggest BitTorrent leak ever, nearly 700mb of MD’s emails have gone public. When MD’s Randy Saaf found out we rumbled MiiVi he said, “This is really fucked.” This is too, but much more so.

• Demonoid’s ISP to Appeal Against BREIN

  Following on from reports this week that the Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN had moved to take the Demonoid BitTorrent tracker offline, its host Leaseweb, is set to appeal last week’s decision to force it to reveal the customer’s details of the smaller BitTorrent site everlasting.nu.

NewsBits

The latest news from around the web, not covered on the frontpage

• RIAA: “Misinformation May Be a Dirty Trick, But It Works.”

  For years the RIAA has tried to convince the world that piracy is killing musicians. Supported...

• Russia’s Largest BitTorrent Tracker Under Huge DDoS Attack

  RUTracker, Russia’s largest BitTorrent tracker, has been dealing with the effects of a DDoS attack over...

• Reddit and WordPress Urge Congress to Shelve SOPA/PIPA

  A coalition of 70 groups, including Reddit and WordPress, are asking Congress to stop working on...

• Turbobit.net Blocks US Visitors After MegaUpload Shutdown

  In the aftermath of the MegaUpload shutdown, file-hosting sites continue to change their services. After Uploaded.to,...

• QuickSilverScreen Streaming Links Site Calls It Quits

  In the wake of the Megaupload raids and attacks on domains in the US and elsewhere,...

MostDiscussed

Below are TorrentFreak's most discussed articles of the past month. Join the discussion if you like.

• Cyberlocker Ecosystem Shocked As Big Players Take Drastic Action

  Comment Icon 831

• Filesonic Kills File-Sharing Service After MegaUpload Arrests

  Comment Icon 612

• BitTorrent Giant BTjunkie Shuts Down For Good

  Comment Icon 580

• MegaUpload: What Made It a Rogue Site Worthy of Destruction?

  Comment Icon 415

• MegaUpload Loses Top Lawyer After ‘Outside’ Pressure

  Comment Icon 397

RecommendedArticles

A selection of some TorrentFreak's classics dug up from our archives.

• Top 10 Most Popular Torrent Sites of 2012

  Continuing a long-standing New Year's tradition, we present an up-to-date list of the world's most visited...

• What’s The Best VPN / Proxy for BitTorrent?

  Privacy is important on the Internet, and BitTorrent users are certainly not excluded. Already, hundreds of...

• 5 Ways To Download Torrents Anonymously

  With anti-piracy outfits and dubious law-firms policing BitTorrent swarms at an increasing rate, many Bittorrent users...

• BTGuard Review: How Does it Work?

  With the entertainment industries lobbying for increased powers to spy on BitTorrent users, many downloaders are...

• Optimize Your BitTorrent Download Speed

  BitTorrent can be fun, as long as you get decent speeds. Not satisfied with your current...