Most famous is probably the “You Wouldn’t Steal a Car” ad. But virtually all press releases of outfits such as the MPAA refer to stealing or theft.

All of a sudden, however, MPAA boss Chris Dodd is whistling a different tune.

After the SOPA revolt earlier this year the movie industry group realized they have to position themselves better.

“We’re going to have to be more subtle and consumer-oriented,” Dodd says.

“We’re on the wrong track if we describe this as thievery.”

Technically MPAA’s boss doesn’t say that piracy isn’t theft, but just that it’s bad PR to keep using the term.

The real problem with the theft metaphor is that it’s not only inaccurate, but also widening the gap between people’s norms and copyright law.

Source: MPAA: Piracy is NOT Theft After All

In it, MP Dean Del Mastro tries to make a comparison for format shifting, and why it’s ‘bad‘, using socks.

“It’s like going to a clothing store and buying a pair of socks and going back and saying by the way it wasn’t socks that I needed, what i really wanted was shoes. So I’m just going take these, I’m gonna format shift from socks to shoes and I’m not gonna pay anything because it was all for my feet,” he says.

Of course he gets it COMPLETELY wrong.

If you wanted to explain format shifting using socks accurately, you’d do something more along the lines of:

Say you bought a pair of socks, and took them home. But then your hands are cold not your feet. Format shifting would mean you could use the socks elsewhere, and for the same purpose – to keep an extremity warm – by putting them on your hands.

Del Mastro’s comparison is so ludicrous though, that other MP’s are quick to laugh, we can only hope AT him.

Not that is new territory for his party either, as Conservative colleague James Moore has made countless poorly informed statements when talking on copyright bills, such as calling all opponents of C-32 (c-11′s predecessor) ‘radical extremists‘.

**CORRECTION** An earlier version of this story identified the speaker as James Moore, when it was actually Dean del Mastro. We apologize for the mistake.

Source: Idiotic Copyright Comparisons in Canadian Parliament

Every time The Pirate Bay suffers a few minutes for downtime, thousands of people start to worry that something awful has happened to their beloved site. Luckily, this is usually not the case.

When the site’s not responding someone probably tripped over a cable, they’re working on software upgrades, replacing hardware or facing another technical difficulty.

The current downtime appears to be a routing issue as the site is still reachable in many parts of the world.

That’s also good news for people who can’t access it at the moment, because many of the proxies are still working just fine.

We expect that the regular site will return within a few hours, and will update this post when we hear from the TPB tech guy.

Update:TPB says that a DDoS attack is taking out part of their system at the moment. They are working on a solution.

Source: The Pirate Bay Suffers (Local) Downtime

He says that piracy isn’t as evil as Hollywood claims and believes that Internet providers shouldn’t mess with people’s BitTorrent traffic.

“I believe in network neutrality, I don’t believe that piracy is the end of the world as we know it (I particularly don’t believe that a download or file shared automatically equals a lost sale*) and I don’t believe in crippling the Internet to protect a business model that desperately needs to change.”

Net Neutrality should be guarded according to Wheaton, who accuses Hollywood lobby groups for wanting to shut is down.

“Some ISPs are blocking all bittorrent traffic, because bittorrent can be used to share files in a piratical way. Hollywood lobbying groups are trying to pass laws wich would force ISPs to block or degrade bittorrent traffic, too.”

“Personally, I think this is like closing down freeways because a bank robber could use them to get away, which I know is an imperfect comparison, but is the best I can do after a night of not-especially-good sleep.”

Wheaton the goes on to show his readers how to download a Linux distro. And seed it properly.

You can read the rest of Wil’s thoughts on his blog.

Source: Wil Wheaton Defends BitTorrent, Warns for Anti-Piracy Lobby

In less that half a year it grew from zero to millions of users a day.

However, today RapidGator users have been unable to reach their favorite site.

While some fear a second Megaupload-like shutdown, the current outage appears to stem from a dispute with the company’s hosting partner.

“Our hoster have suspended our account. We are working on possible solution,” the company reportedly commented on the downtime.

The above suggests that the cyberlocker is trying to find a new webhost, or attempting to resolve the current issues.

This is not the first time RapidGator goes down. In February the site said it would quit their business after Paypal threw them out. However, the troubled cyberlocker eventually chose to continue operating.

Source: RapidGator Goes Down, Suspended by Hosting Company

For the fourth time in a row the Pirate Party broke the 5% threshold which is needed to enter parliament.

According to the latest exit polls the Pirates received 7.5% of the total vote which translates into 18 parliament seats.

Today’s win is perhaps the most important of all as North Rhine-Westphalia has the largest population of all German states.

Previously the Pirates won seats in Berlin, Saarland and Schleswig-Holstein. If the current trend continues the party has a serious shot at entering the national parliament after the next elections.

Pirate Party founder Rick Falkvinge has a detailed analysis on why the Pirates are doing so well in Germany.

Source: German Pirate Party Wins in Key State Election

Because of the legal costs and growing competition MP3tunes sees no other option than to file for bankruptcy.

MP3tunes founder Micheal Robertson explains:

While MP3tunes blazed a trail for the personal cloud music storage, it has had to deal with four and a half years of legal torment. At every opportunity EMI dragged out the legal process making it costly and burdensome. One example is the interrogation of company employees in all-day inquisitions called depositions where attorneys try to trick people into making admissions.

In our case, they deposed not just management but nearly everyone in the company all the way down to clerical help and customer support personnel. They even paid $25,000 to get an ex-employee to agree to a deposition. For management they deposed everyone – some multiple times with me getting deposed 3 separate times.

The legal pressure was not just confined within MP3tunes. EMI sent legal demands to existing partners and potential partners were told they could not work with MP3tunes or risk losing their license to sell EMI music. More than one digital company told us they wanted to work with us, but were prohibited from doing so by EMI.

They used their government-granted copyright monopoly to get MP3tunes blackballed in the industry.

EMI spent an estimated $10 million dollars with multiple law firms to arm their attack against MP3tunes in an attempt to thwart unlicensed personal lockers. They know it’s difficult if not impossible for startups to fight long costly legal battles. Their hope is that the startup cannot fund a protracted legal battle and they win by default.

This happened with the music search engine Seeqpod, Muxtape, Favtape and many others that have quietly faded away. They know that even if the digital upstart prevails in court, they will be terminally weakened. Veoh won multiple rounds of their copyright battle outright only to be forced into bankruptcy after spending $7 million on legal bills.

Read the rest of the story at Robertson’s blog.

Source: MP3tunes: EMI Killed Our Business

After a brief legal battle, yesterday they lost their case against Dutch anti-piracy outfit BREIN. The Party is now forbidden from running any Pirate Bay-focused proxy service.

Across the waters of the North Sea, a similar battle is heating up in the UK.

Recently several ISPs were ordered by the High Court there to begin blocking The Pirate Bay. In common with their Dutch counterparts, the UK Pirate Party also set up their own proxy service to facilitate access to the site.

So why does the Party run this service? Here is their statement.

The Pirate Party UK’s proxy for the Pirate Bay

The Pirate Party UK hosts a proxy through which internet users can access the Pirate Bay, if their country’s government or ISP have decided to censor it. We have been hosting this proxy for some time and will continue to do so for as long as we are able.

https://tpb.pirateparty.org.uk/

We make this service available because we believe in freedom of expression and the right to receive and impart information and ideas without interference. We believe that censorship is never the right answer. It interferes with crucial freedoms and rarely delivers its stated aims – as demonstrated by this proxy it is also easily circumvented. Censorship’s only effect is to hide an underlying problem or pretend it does not exist, rather than dealing with that problem directly. In the meantime, legitimate expression is curtailed.

We believe that websites should not be blocked merely because some organisations claim they interfere with their business model. The Pirate Bay has substantial non-infringing uses; from the promotion of independent musicians, the distribution of independent VODO films to the distribution of free and open source software.

We believe a free and open Internet is a cornerstone of modern society, democracy, artistic expression, education and innovation, and we are deeply worried when we see unaccountable corporate interests being put in charge of censoring it. It’s a slippery slope: we have already seen India blocking Vimeo at the same time as The Pirate Bay. And today, in Holland, the Pirate Party Netherlands has been forbidden from even discussing the means to circumvent state censorship.

We believe that this kind of censorship is totally unacceptable, and will defend ourselves to the full extent of the law against attempts to silence us.

Pirate Party UK.

Source: Why the UK Pirate Party Runs a Pirate Bay Proxy

Last week Virgin was the fist ISP to block The Pirate Bay.

According to The Pirate Bay these DDoS attempts go against a free Internet.

On Facebook (of all places) The Pirate Bay writes:

We do NOT encourage these actions. We believe in the open and free internets, where anyone can express their views. Even if we strongly disagree with them and even if they hate us.

So don’t fight them using their ugly methods. DDOS and blocks are both forms of censorship.

If you want to help; start a tracker, arrange a manifestation, join or start a pirate party, teach your friends the art of bittorrent, set up a proxy, write your political representatives, develop a new p2p protocol, print some pro piracy posters and decorate your town with, support our promo bay artists or just be a nice person and give your mom a call to tell her you love her.

(via/via)

Source: Pirate Bay: Hey Anonymous, Stop DDoSing Virgin

Virgin Media were the first provider to implement the ban, introducing a DNS and IP address blockade last week.

Today, Orange (part of Everything Everywhere), initiated their block.

In common with Virgin, Orange has also implemented the twin approach of tampering with TPB’s DNS entry and blocking the site’s IP address. Users of the ISP now see the following message when they try to access The Pirate Bay.

Rather than reducing traffic to The Pirate Bay, when news of the blockade spread last week the famous torrent site received even more traffic.

Source: Orange is Latest UK ISP To Block The Pirate Bay

Some expect that these talks will result in a “spying scheme” similar to the one that will be rolled out in the US this summer.

However, after ISP iiNet won its landmark case against the local anti-piracy outfit AFACT, a mutual agreement is farther away than ever before.

The Australian reports:

It is believed the talks have gone backwards since the landmark High Court decision that found Perth-based ISP iiNet could not be held liable for acts of piracy by its subscribers.

It is believed that internet providers have taken a tougher stance with copyright holders demanding more access to content earlier in its distribution cycle before they will agree to an anti-piracy code.

Source: Aussie Anti-Piracy Plan in Trouble

Perfect 10 are no strangers to lawsuits. From 2005 to the present day they have sued several huge companies for either allegedly using their images without permission or somehow being connected to infringements.

Notable among them are Google, Microsoft, Amazon and Yandex(for providing search engine results), Giganews, Megaupload, Rapidshare, Depositfiles (hosting files) and Mastercard, Visa and CCBill for providing payment services for allegedly infringing sites.

Thus far most of this legal action was a complete failure, but Perfect 10 doesn’t give up.

This time they target Tumblr. According to Perfect 10, Tumblr failed to remove content when they were sent DMCA takedown notices.

“Tumblr has ignored its obligations under the DMCA,” the adult company writes in the complaint.

“As of the date of this filing, Tumblr has failed to completely process any of Perfect 10′s DMCA notices, taking down at most only a handful of the over 200 infringing images identified by Perfect 10, many of which had Perfect 10 copyright notices or watermarks conspicuously placed on the images.”

“Accordingly, Tumblr should be held liable for its failure to abide by its obligations under the DMCA and for willfully ignoring the widespread and uncontrolled copyright infringement pervading its website.”

The claims above are similar to what we’re seen in previous cases, but Perfect 10 goes even further by alleging that Tumblr employees pirated copyrighted images as well.

“Upon information and belief,Tumblr employees have posted infringing content to Tumblr servers, to help start the business, including content which infringes upon Perfect 10′s Copyrighted Works,” Perfect 10 writes in their complaint.

Perfect 10 demands that Tumblr destroys all infringing works on its servers and wants a cool $5 million to cover the damages that was done.

Source: Tumblr Sued for $5 Million Over ‘Pirating’ Users and Employees

In what can be characterized as a trolling venture, the companies ask for millions of dollars in damages.

Megaupload, however, has its hands full on preparing their defense in the criminal case and will ask the court to delay the civil suit for the time being.

“Defendants intend to move for a stay of this action while criminal charges are pending,” Megaupload lawyer Ira Rothken writes to the court.

This would make sense, since the outcome of the criminal case will also determine whether Megaupload is protected by the DMCA safe harbor or not.

Source: Megaupload Wants to Freeze “Troll” Case

The Pirates got more than 8% of the vote in the Schleswig-Holstein state election yesterday, which translates into 6 seats.

This is the third time in a row the Pirate Party broke the 5% threshold which is needed to enter parliament.

Previously the Pirates won seats in Saarland and Berlin, and if the current trend continues the party has a serious shot at entering the national parliament after the next elections.

(Local / via)

Source: German Pirate Party Scores More Seats In State Election

The track is not about Megaupload this time, but about a recent political scandal in New Zealand.

Two weeks ago Dotcom revealed he donated NZ$50,000 to John Banks for his 2010 mayoral election campaign in Auckland.

The juicy part is that Dotcom says Banks advised him to split this amount in two so the donations can be made anonymously. Clever, but the problem is that election rules say the origin of a donation has to be declared when the recipient is aware of it.

Banks, the current minister for Small Business, denies the allegations, and also says he can’t recall some of the previous encounters with Megaupload’s founder.

More on the scandal here, and check out the track below.

Source: Kim Dotcom Releases Political Scandal Song

This prompted isoHunt founder Gary Fung to do an AMA(A)

If you have any questions to ask, this is the time.

isoHunt is currently involved against in two major lawsuits.

One in the US where he takes on the MPAA, and another in Canada against the local RIAA.

Source: isoHunt’s Founder Takes Questions

In Germany and Austria Pirates have good chance of entering the national parliament in the next election, and in the UK things are picking up steam as well.

In this weeks local elections Pirate Party leader Loz Kaye picked up 5% of the vote, beating the Lib Dems.

This result in Manchester is a record for the UK Pirates, but not one that is supposed to last long according to the party.

“This is just the start. We would like to thank all the people who got in touch with us and our candidates, our supporters and activists who worked on these elections and especially those people who put their trust in us and chose to vote Pirate,” they write.

Source: UK Pirate Party Breaks Election Record

For reasons unknown, the site has been unresponsive for a few hours now.

TorrentFreak contacted the owner of the site for more details on the situation, but he has yet to reply.

As usual, we expect that the downtime is caused by a technical issue, but with sites being shut down left and right you can never be too sure.

As soon as we hear more about the situation at h33t.com we’ll post a short update here.

Update: H33t’s owner told TorrentFreak that a broken hard disk is causing the downtime. It is scheduled to be replaced on Monday. There are backups so there is (almost) no data loss.

Update: (comment from H33t)

—

Late Friday evening I was sitting watching tv at a friend’s house when she said h33t did not look right.

I drove home to find the community were reporting all their personal messages were missing. Further investigation showed the main database server was in a high “IO wait state”. Missing data combined with CPUs in wait state generally means a broken hard drive. stress!

Lucky for us I took a backup at 17:00 on Friday evening. I say lucky because it was an unscheduled backup, on Friday I was working on the database improving the indexing and it is good practise to always take a backup before ever touching a database. We have lost approximately only 6 hours of uploads between 17:00 to 23:00 when I took the servers down.

The forum uses a different database and it remains offline. It will take some work to save the most up to date forum data. The system is using RAID so I must wait until the faulty drive is swapped out by the engineers in the datacenter and the filesystem rebuilds itself. I recall there is a spare unused drive in server so maybe Monday we can see what we have saved. Otherwise the forum will be rolled back by one week to the last backup.

Thank you for the kind words of support. It is wise words to say “all torrents sites and all its users should be sticking together”. I find that in all the community sites the number of haters is very small. The general attitude of sharers everywhere is excellent, sharers are good people, intelligent people, caring people, becoming a sharer is the best thing that ever happened to me. The internet is growing up, we are maturing into a global social movement motivated by the aspiration that the world can be better when we share and communicate with each other.

I am going to take this opportunity to echo here what I found on reddit this week, it spoke very well for us. On this day that Sarkozy fell, in the same week that the UK’s ruling coaliton suffered heavy losses in the local elections, as the Greek elite are suffering heavy losses in their general election, it is my hope that Pirates everywhere will unite to fight the abuse of power by the ruling elite that have destroyed our wealth and plunged our societies into poverty and recession:

– We are not against the rich. We are aginst using wealth to gain unfair advantage.
– We are not against corporations. We are against corporations governing us.
– We are not against capitalism. We are against corruption in capitalism.
– We are not against banks. We are against legalised fraud in banking practises.
– We are not against democracy. We are against the sale of influence by our elected representatives.

We sharers are legion, they should respect us.

http://h33t.com where education is the great equaliser

tl;dr broken HD, h33t is back, go vote

Source: H33T Goes Down

The new design, which went live almost a week ago, contains very little information about the licenses used, making it all but impossible for site users to comply with them.

Creative Commons is a widely used (including by TorrentFreak) licence system that gives artists/creators the ability to grant permissions for reuse.

The terms are specified in the license, and have become an internet standard in many ways. Yet without an easy way to tell which of the licenses is being used, it causes problems for reuse and distribution – the entire point of both the license, and Jamendo.

Worse, since the work’s license is not being displayed adequately (as described in Creative Common’s guide to marking content) Jamendo may be in breach of the Creative Commons license themselves.

Creative Commons told us that it was not ideal, and that they will be reaching out to Jamendo to fix things and make licensing clearer.

Morgane Dourthe, Sales Team Leader at Jamendo told TorrentFreak “This new version of Jamendo is a first release and a lot things still needs to be improved and modified.” They added that they would be discussing many points this week, and that this would be among them.

For the sake of clarity and compliance, for both artists and users, the sooner the better.

Source: New Jamendo Site Has CC License Issues

The court order covers all major UK ISPs, which means that 94% of all UK citizens will no longer be able to access the site.

That is, if they don’t find a way to circumvent the block.

While the ISPs were given a few weeks to roll out the blockade, it only took Virgin Media a few days to implement.

Virgin Media subscribers now get the following notice when they try to access The Pirate Bay.

Virgin Media has received an order from the Courts requiring us to prevent access to this site in order to help protect against copyright infringement.

If you are a Virgin Media home broadband customer, for more information on why certain web pages are blocked, please click here.

If you are a Virgin Media Business customer, or are trying to view this page through your company’s internet connection, please click here.

Source: Virgin Media Starts Pirate Bay Blockade

In its yearly report on countries that are not doing enough to protect the U.S. copyright industry, Canada is listed on the Priority Watch List with China, Russia, Ukraine and a handful of other countries.

The Special 301 Report reads:

“Canada remains on the Priority Watch List in 2012, subject to review if Canada enacts long-awaited copyright legislation. The Government of Canada has given priority to that legislation. The United States welcomes that prioritization and looks forward to studying the legislation once it is finalized, and will consider, among other things, whether it fully implements the WIPO Internet Treaties, and whether it fully addresses the challenges of piracy over the Internet.”

Other countries are more lucky.

Spain, for example, has been taken off the list after it implemented a harsher copyright law. Last December the US ambassador threatened to put Spain on a trade blacklist if the country failed to pass a SOPA-style site blocking law.

Weeks later the new law passed.

Critics of the yearly “shame” report note that the Trade Representative is not balanced, and that the report is a pressure tool to further the interests of a few big media companies.

“Once again the U.S. Trade Representative has produced a fact-free report that ignored any point of view except that of big media companies,” says Rashmi Rangnath, director of Public Knowledge’s Global Knowledge Initiative

We are distressed that countries which have yet to pass harsh legislation being pushed around the world remain on the watch lists, while countries which give in to U.S. pressure, such as Spain, are removed when they pass punitive legislation,” he adds.

Source: U.S. Labels Canada a Piracy Haven

Because the MPAA refuses to deliver entertainment to troops overseas, soldiers are forced to pirate.

Some download movies via the Internet, others buy bootleg DVDs, and there’s also talk about sanctioned “Morale” hard drives full of warez.

Recognizing the problem a 92-year old WWII veteran is also helping out. Hyman Strachman, or “Big Hy,” is sending thousands of illegally copied DVDs to soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The New York Times has the full story, which is definitely worth reading.

Worth noting is the MPAA’s response to Big Hy’s pirate operation.

“We are grateful that the entertainment we produce can bring some enjoyment to them while they are away from home,” a spokesman said.

Arrr..

Source: 92-Year Old Veteran Pirates Movies to Help Soldiers

The confirmation, which was delivered yesterday by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, means that UK Internet users suspected of engaging in unlawful file-sharing won’t see any warning letters for nearly 2 years, or more.

“We expect the first warning letters to go out in early 2014,” a DCMS spokesman told ZDNet UK. “This is due to the rulings in the judicial review of the DEA. The court ruled in the government’s favour in both the judicial review and the appeal court; however it ruled against small parts of the cost sharing.

“Therefore the Cost Sharing Statutory Instrument will need to be changed, and as a result Ofcom will need to change their code. Both will be published when they are ready.”

A spokesman for the Internet Service Providers’ Association (ISPA) told the BBC that they were welcoming the delay since the legislation is not “particularly good” and there are better alternatives for dealing with piracy.

“There’s more than just the Digital Economy Act when it comes to tackling copyright infringement online,” he said.

“Ispa continues to believe that the most effective solution to the problem of users accessing unlawful content is for reform of the licensing framework so that legal content can be distributed online in a way that consumers are demanding.”

Source: UK Anti-FileSharing Letters Delayed Until 2014

The bill that can turn the Internet into an anti-piracy spying machine was widely protested online and in Washington.

Despite this opposition CISPA was passed 248 to 168.

The vote was initially scheduled for Friday, but the House decided to speed up the approval process.

Several amendments to the original proposal were accepted during the hearing today. However, critics of the bill still believe it’s a major threat.

“CISPA is a dangerous piece of legislation and it’s worrisome that the House has passed such an overreaching bill,” said Free Press Action Fund Policy Director Matt Wood.

“The bill still lacks effective oversight and accountability for companies and government agencies collecting massive amounts of our personal data. It would curtail Internet openness and freedom by stripping away crucial privacy protections, and without providing any guarantee of protection for critical infrastructure.”

Among other things, CISPA would make it easier for ISPs to share personal information of alleged copyright infringers with third parties.

Over a million people signed petitions urging their representatives not to pass the bill, but without success.

Source: House Passes CISPA Spying Bill

One of his priorities is obviously to show that he and Megaupload are innocent, but there are some side projects to take care of as well.

In a few weeks he will launch his personal website, which he promised will be very exciting.

But there’s more.

Posting a video of him and Megaupload colleague Finn Batato racing Formula 1 driver Kimi Raikkonen on the Nürburgring for example.

Not your average home-video, as it involved 30 cameras, a 100+ crew, 2 helicopters, 2 camera cars and one fixed wing aircraft.

And of course the video wouldn’t be complete without a professionally produced soundtrack.

Kim posted some more details on YouTube. (via / via)

Kim Dotcom, Kimi Raikkonen and Finn Batato on the Nürburgring Norschleife with three highly modified Mercedes Benz AMG CLK DTM supercars. A fun day on the most famous race track in the world. This video shows a full lap around the ring.

It took 20 laps to get all the shots for this video. It’s a homage to the Nurburgring, the CLK DTM and Kimi Raikkonen, one of the best drivers in the world.

I DID NOT WIN against Kimi. I never could. We had to remove the air from his tires to keep up. And even then it was impossible :-)

I used to play Forza and Need for Speed on Xbox Live. Those games inspired me to create a video that looks like the replay of a perfect lap on the Ring. I know it isn’t perfect, but I tried.

The production involved 30 cameras, 100+ crew, 2 helicopters, 2 camera cars and one fixed wing aircraft.

The song “Take me away” was produced by Kim Dotcom and Printz Board.

P.S. The final edit was seized by the FBI during the Megaupload raid.
It will be uploaded as soon as it returns (if ever).
The current version has a few problems and no color correction. Sorry.

Thank you Kimi Raikkonen.

Source: Megaupload’s Kim Dotcom Races Kimi Raikkonen [Video]

Two weeks ago we reported that the domain, which didn’t belong to Megaupload, was sold to an anonymous bidder but this person didn’t pay up.

“After numerous attempts by Sedo.com to contact the buyer I was given the option to re-list the domain for sale. The second option was to hire a lawyer and sue the buyer,” Megaupload.net’s current owner told TorrentFreak.

“I decided not to sue the individual for non-payment because he lives on the other side of the world, in Kazakhstan.”

Those who are interested in the domain name will have to cough up a few thousand dollars.

And once you bought it… what then? Starting a cyberlocker on the domain will be a tricky venture.

Not only will the US Government keep a close eye the site, Kim Dotcom and friends may also sue for trademark infringement.

Source: Megaupload Domain Goes Up for Sale, Again

ZShare.net, a site popular with music uploaders, has completely disappeared from the Internet.

Even a Google search draws a blank since the search engine appears to have delisted the site.

As can be seen from the Alexa graph above, the site initially benefited hugely from the shutdown of Mega, but just a couple of weeks later traffic had fallen to pre-January levels. After another short period of reducing traffic, at the end of April the site apparently drove off the edge of a cliff.

Is that the end for the Hong Kong-based site? At this point the outlook isn’t good….

Source: Zshare File-Hosting Service Disappears Without Trace

Well, then you can always hire some students.

This is exactly what the German copyright lobby must have thought.

They are reportedly recruiting students who are asked to attend a 2-hour demonstration for a lucrative 100 euro ($130).

The demonstration is held on World Intellectual Property Day where the students will probably have to hold up pro-ACTA signs and other propaganda.

And yes, these students are paid with money from the copyright industry, money that could have been paid to artists as well.

It doesn’t look like the demonstration is going to be a huge success though, as even one of the major industry associations backed out already because they fear bad press.

Update: The recruitment agency says that they have nothing to do with it.

Source: Copyright Lobby Hires Pro-ACTA Demonstators

The local anti-piracy movement applauded the landmark verdict which opened the doors for further censorship attempts. However, this cheerful mood was short-lived.

Countering the court decision The Pirate Bay team registered a new domain name that was not covered by the ruling. This domain, depiraatbaai.be, quickly became one of the most-visited websites in Belgium.

But not anymore.

As of yesterday depiraatbaai.be is blocked as well, presumably added to the already existing court order.

TorrentFreak asked The Pirate Bay team whether they plan to strike back by adding a new domain but we have yet to hear back. But even without a new domain Belgians affected by the blockade have plenty of alternatives available.

Source: Belgium Blocks Alternative Pirate Bay Domain

The bill that can turn the Internet into an anti-piracy spying machine?

Well, Fight For The Future just launched a campaign to give Congress a preview of what’s going happen.

They want personal details right? So let’s share…

“Make Congress embarrassed of their support for CISPA and, well, just embarrassed period, by giving them all the awkward details of our personal lives. They want your personal data? Bury them in it,” they write on their campaign page.

Now let’s all head over to The Pirate Bay and download some stuff….

Source: Hey Congress, I Visited The Pirate Bay Today!

Through the lawsuit the Pirates hope to overturn a recent order that prohibits the Party from operating a Pirate Bay proxy site in The Netherlands.

Today the party booked a first victory in court as the Court of The Hague ruled that BREIN can’t demand the Pirates to take down their generic proxy.

Last week the court ruled that the Pirate Party had to shutter its “reverse proxy, and BREIN used this order to demand the takedown of the generic proxy as well. However, the court has now ruled that this goes too far.

Next week the court will hear both parties to decide whether the initial “ex-parte” injunction will hold. If not, the Pirate Party can revive its reverse proxy as well.

Source: Pirate Party Scores First Win Against Anti-Piracy Group

The event featured speeches from notable attendees including Amelia Andersdotter, Swedish Pirate Party’s Member of the European Parliament, and the founder of the very first Pirate Party, Rick Falkvinge (Rick’s thoughts here).

On Saturday afternoon, well-known writer and copy-fighter Cory Doctorow gave his keynote address, embedded below.

Source: Video: Cory Doctorow’s Keynote @ Pirate Party Conference ’12

Of course, users of jailbroken iPhones and iPads aren’t restricted to just one location to obtain software for their devices. Cydia, the alternative independent software store, has far fewer restrictions than Apple and for file-sharing fans that can only be good news.

According to a new report, the stalled development of the iTransmission BitTorrent client has now been given a kickstart by a dev known as iOSHomebrew. The tweak has reportedly undergone significant updates, is compatible with iOS 5.x, and is available for download from Cydia now.

“After installation, iTransmission 2 comes with a decent set of configurable options offering a lot of the functionality that you would see from a desktop client of a similar nature,” Redmond Pie reports.

“The ability to toggle a web interface on or off as well as being able to set the app up to download over Wi-Fi network, cellular data connection or both if required, which is obviously a feature to save high data costs.

“Users have the option to add downloads through a number of different methods meaning the tweak is extremely versatile and comes all packed into a very native, but attractive and simple to use user interface,” RP concludes.

iTransmission 2 is available from Cydia now and it costs absolutely nothing.

Source: iTransmission 2 BitTorrent Client For iPhone / iPad

As the title suggests the main goal of the bill is to deal with “cybersecurity,” but with a lack of definition as to what that actually entails, it’s also one of the major weaknesses.

In short CISPA would allow companies to spy on Internet users and collect and share this data with third-party companies or Government agencies.

As long as the company states that these privacy violations are needed to protect against “cybersecurity” threats, they are immune from civil and criminal liabilities.

Below is a good overview of what the bill entails. Credit goes to Lumin

Source: Why CISPA Sucks

Theoretically this means the bills can be put back on the table any day, but according to MPAA chief Chris Doss this is not going to happen, at least not for SOPA

In an interview with Bloomberg Television Dodd says SOPA is “history”.

“It’s gone. In my view, it’s dead,” he adds.

MPAA’s boss is quick to add that “the issue hasn’t gone away,” and his organization will continue to push for new legislation.

It might not be called SOPA, but backroom negotiations are still ongoing.

Source: SOPA is DEAD, Says MPAA Boss

Technically, everyone in the world could get access to the same content at once.

That’s kind of what piracy does.

Sounds great, but it also scares the heck out of industries such as the TV-business, as less exclusivity generally means less revenue.

A good example of this broadcast anxiety just came out in an article on Netflix’ library gaps.

No matter how much Netflix Inc. is willing to pay for the rights, some online video remains off-limits.

Major movie studios are refusing to license the rights to most of their latest movies at the same time they’re released on DVDs. Premium cable channels such as HBO and Showtime also are withholding their most popular series, including “Game of Thrones” and “Dexter,” because they are worried about losing subscribers if the content is available on Netflix’s less expensive Internet service.

In other words, HBO and Showtime are more worried about losing money through Netflix than decreasing piracy.

Source: Netflix: We Can’t Buy “Game of Thrones” and “Dexter”

“The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) led National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center (IPR Center) and the Department of Justice seized more than $896,000 in proceeds from the distribution of counterfeit sports apparel as the result of an investigation into the sale of counterfeit goods on commercial websites,” ICE report today.

“The investigation also resulted in the seizure of seven domain names engaged in the sale of counterfeit goods. The funds were seized from interbank accounts and three PayPal accounts.”

Operation in Our Sites has been running since its first targets (including NinjaVideo) were hit back in June 2010.

According to ICE, to date a total of 758 domain names have been seized.

Source: Operation in Our Sites: 758 Domains, Nearly $900,000 Seized

Much of this Hollywood-like raid was filmed by Dotcom’s own security cameras, but without it being on the seizure list the security tapes were taken by the police.

Claiming it was unlawfully obtained, Dotcom and the Megaupload legal team now want the footage back.

Among other things, they want to use the material to proof that the police actions back in January went too far.

However, after the police finally agreed that Dotcom’s team could make a copy, the real trouble started.

The server rack which also contained the security footage has been taken apart by the police, and the authorities even doubt that they have the “tapes” in the first place.

So the question is… Where is the footage, and why has it mysteriously disappeared?

More details in the excellent 3News video.

Source: Footage of Megaupload Raid Goes Missing

As of today adult content is public.

The Pirate Bay team told TorrentFreak that the reason for this switch is rather practical.

The code that checked whether people opted in/out from adult content stopped working correctly.

Since there’s no time to fix the issue now TPB enabled access for everyone.

By the way, did you know that girls download just as much porn from TPB as boys?

Source: Pirate Bay Makes Porn Category Public

The auction ended a few days ago and Megaupload.net was sold for $11,099.

The domain in question didn’t belong to Megaupload and wasn’t sold to Megaupload either.

What plans the new owner of the domain has for Megaupload.net is unknown.

The domain currently links to a parked page.

Source: Megaupload.net Domain Name Sold for $11,099

However, the Obama administration is still dedicated to strengthen copyright enforcement.

Not only through legislation, but also by supporting agreements that put the public at risk of having their Internet disconnected if they are caught pirating.

Fight For The Future is encouraging people to let the President know that this is not what they want.

“Can you believe this? After the largest online protest in history, the Obama administration is still voicing support for SOPA,” they write.

“Tell Obama to promise: “I will never advance legislation that blocks websites or disconnects Americans’ internet access.”"

More info at Fight For The Future’s campaign page.

Source: Tell Obama to Promise SOPA 2.0 Never Gets Written

Among other things the MPAA chief was asked about the progress on the SOPA anti-piracy bill.

While the public believes the plan has been shelved for now, Dodd suggests otherwise.

HR: Are there conversations going on now?

We would like to briefly revisit last winter’s events by pointing out that Dodd is known for his revealing insights regarding SOPA.

Previously he threatened to stop the cash-flow to politicians who dare to take a stand against pro-Hollywood legislation.

This resulted in a petition demanding the White House to investigate Dodd for alleged bribery.

Source: MPAA Boss: Backroom SOPA Negotiations are Ongoing

Andrew Schapiro, the lawyer who led YouTube to a summary judgment in its copyright trial against Viacom, has come on board and will assist Kim Dotcom and his co-defendants in their case against the US government.

Along with co-accused Mathias Ortmann, Bram van der Kolk and Finn Batato, Dotcom faces charges in the United States of racketeering, money-laundering and various copyright infringement offenses.

According to his profile on the website of Los Angeles-based Quinn Emanuel Urguhart & Sullivan lawfirm at which he is a partner, Andrew Schapiro has represented technology and media companies including Google, YouTube and Cablevision.

Source: Viacom v YouTube Lawyer Joins Megaupload Legal Team

“The first committee to file a recommendation, the Industry, Research and Energy committee (ITRE), has just published their draft opinion on ACTA,” writes Pirate Party founder Rick Falkvinge this morning.

Crucially, the final point in the ITRE’s draft opinion advises the Committee on International Trade to withhold its consent to the agreement [ACTA].

The next step will see Amelia Andersdotter, the MEP responsible for the drafting of an opinion and presenting the issue to the committee, do so on April 24th. Andersdotter is the Member of European Parliament for the Swedish Pirate Party.

The vote on this stage will probably take place May 8th 2012.

Source: ACTA: First EU Parliament Committee Opinion Says “Reject”

At TEDxObserver, Rick Falkvinge – the founder of the very first Pirate Party – explains how he became the leader of Europe’s tech-driven political party, which so far has won 17 seats across national parliaments in Europe.

In addition to his work with the Pirate Party, Rick is also a regular columnist here on TorrentFreak.

Read More on TED

Source: TED Talk – Rick Falkvinge: I Am a Pirate [Video]

The bill is touted as being much worse than SOPA when it comes to privacy invasions.

Just as SOPA put an emphasis on piracy, CISPA also appears to include the infringement of intellectual property as a security threat warranting access to user data. The definition of “theft or misappropriation of private or government information” is given four times throughout the bill H.R. 3523.

Under CISPA, Internet providers and other companies could be expected to hand user data over to government agencies and even other companies upon request.

According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), it “would let companies spy on users and share private information with the federal government and other companies with near-total immunity from civil and criminal liability. It effectively creates a ‘cybersecurity’ exemption to all existing laws.”

The EFF is concerned that, due to the vague language used in the bill, “a company like Google, Facebook, Twitter, or AT&T could intercept your emails and text messages, send copies to one another and to the government, and modify those communications or prevent them from reaching their destination if it fits into their plan to stop cybersecurity threats.”

After the huge public outcry against SOPA and ACTA, it is hard to imagine that CISPA will sit well with the greater online community.

And is it really needed in the first place?

Acquiring user data would merely be a reaction to whatever security breach may have already taken place. Without being a security expert, it raises major privacy concerns for this writer. As someone who regularly relies on many popular online services, it is disheartening to think that a bill is being introduced which would create such potential horror scenarios by so readily offering up access to user data.

A good social engineer (con man) would have a field day gaining access to user data with a simple phone call by posing as this or that government agency/corporate entity. It happens all the time at present.

It will be interesting to hear from security experts as to whether CISPA would actually provide any additional security or if it’s only creating a nightmarish internet environment wrought with much worse security vulnerabilities then we are faced with today.

Source: Draconian ‘Privacy Invasion Bill’ Continues to Gain Support

FileServe initially disabled all 3rd party sharing and discontinued its rewards program back in January following the Mega raids. Although the affiliate program never returned, users reported that sharing had been re-enabled. Nevertheless, traffic continued to nose dive.

But now, after being called a “rogue site” by Paramount last week, FileServe has reinstated the full ban. Users trying to access files uploaded by others are now greeted with the following message.

Wupload announced in November 2011 that they would discontinue their affiliate program and as can be seen from the graph below, that took a toll on their traffic.

However, according to a new announcement from the site, Wupload is now withdrawing from the file-sharing business altogether.

Like FileServe, Wupload will now only offer cloud storage for people to access files they personally uploaded. Time will tell how that affects their business in the months to come.

Also mentioned last week by Paramount was PutLocker. TorrentFreak spoke with its operator and our report can be found here.

Source: FileServe and Wupload Exit The File-Sharing Business

The data is currently stored on servers at Carpathia Hosting in the US at the not inconsiderable cost of $9,000 a day.

Megaupload’s legal team is working hard to reunite its users with their data and are negotiating with the Department of Justice to this end.

But after discovering that Carpathia had agreed to sell the servers back to Megaupload, the MPAA have other ideas on their ideal destiny.

“A sale or transfer of the servers to Megaupload (or any of the defendants) would raise a significant risk that Megaupload will simply ship the servers, hard drives or other equipment — and all of the infringing content they contain — to a foreign jurisdiction and relaunch the infringing Megaupload service, which would result in untold further infringements of the MPAA members’ copyrighted works,” the movie industry group said in a court filing yesterday.

“If so, the renewed criminal enterprise might be beyond any effective legal remedy.”

The MPAA adds that since the servers contain some of their copyright works, any sale or transfer would “constitute an unauthorized “distribut[ion] … to the public” under the Copyright Act.”

A resurrected Megaupload is clearly something the MPAA wants to avoid and it’s clear they will fight hard for the servers to be either wiped or left in neutral hands.

Read More

Source: MPAA: If Megaupload Gets Data Back They’ll Relaunch

The machine, currently favored to be called Xbox 720, is penciled in for Christmas 2013 release and will come fitted with a Blu-ray drive.

But while fans will be keen to experience the visuals generated by its twin AMD 7000 GPUs and the power of its “four or six” core CPU, there is a more worrying development.

Early indications suggest that as part of its anti-piracy DRM systems, Xbox 720 will require a permanent Internet connection in order to operate.

The groan-inducing news is certain to bring back bad memories of terrible DRM ‘solutions’ such as those employed by Ubisoft which also required always-on Internet.

It hasn’t been a good week for those looking forward to the next generation of games consoles. According to another report, Sony’s Playstation 3 successor could contain a system which locks out used games until the user pays a fee to activate them.

Source: New Xbox DRM Will Require Always-On Internet

The whole system is based on a TP-LINK TL-MR3020 3G Wireless N Router which is available from Newegg at just $39.99.

Although neat, the current PirateBox system is strictly a server/client setup but according to a development reported by Numerama, things might now go to the next level.

A PirateBox software update now includes drivers for BATMAN, a routing protocol also known as Better Approach To Mobile Adhoc Networking.

Although still under development, future BATMAN-enabled PirateBoxes could then network with each other, meaning that accessing users could hop from device to device and have full access not just to a single PirateBox server, but a network of interconnected PirateBox servers.

More information on BATMAN here and the PirateBox update here.

Source: Batman Set To Pimp The File-Sharing PirateBox