Leaseweb, the former ISP of BitTorrent trackers such as Demonoid, What.cd and Waffles.fm lost the appeal against the Dutch anti-piracy outfit BREIN. The Amsterdam court concluded that Leaseweb has to permanently shut down the BitTorrent tracker everlasting.nu, and hand over the admin’s personal information.
Half of the people who use BitTorrent do so to download TV-shows. Some episodes of popular shows such as ‘Heroes’ and ‘Lost’ get up to 10 million downloads. We had a chat with Jesse Alexander, the co-producer of both ‘Heroes’ and ‘Lost’, and asked him what his thoughts are on BitTorrent, piracy and the future of TV.
TV shows are by far the most wanted files via BitTorrent, and according to some, it’s fast becoming the modern day TiVo. But what are all those people downloading?
In an attempt to cut down on so-called “illegal downloading” in the UK, the anti-piracy outfit BPI has sent out a round of intimidating emails, based on faulty evidence. BREIN plans to follow this example in The Netherlands, and meanwhile, the French Minister of culture is encouraging all EU member states to do the same.
The top 10 most downloaded DVDrips on BitTorrent, “ The Ruins” tops the chart this week.
Jesse Alexander, the executive producer of the popular TV-shows ‘Heroes’ and ‘Lost’ and Matt Mason, author of ‘The Pirate’s Dilemma’, are working on a new TV-show about piracy. The show will be based on Matt’s book, and will show how important pirates are for today’s society.
During October 2007, the popular BitTorrent tracker OiNK was shut down in a joint effort by Dutch and British law enforcement. Today, the bail date for OiNK admin Alan Ellis has been extended for a fourth time, now until the 28th of July.
ISPs and authorities increasingly use Deep Packet Inspection hardware to block access to BitTorrent sites, or spy on users’ browsing habits. To offer its users more privacy, isoHunt has now added SSL encryption, making it impossible for your ISP or the authorities to monitor your activities on the BitTorrent site.
They are quite rare events but on occasion, artists actually encourage fans to share their music online. Singer Joss Stone has no problem doing so at all. In fact, after a recent concert in Argentina she said that piracy is “brilliant”.
