Responses have been overwhelmingly negative to the news that The Pirate Bay will soon be sold to Global Gaming Factory. But what if there is a method to the apparent Pirate Bay madness — one that, as Peter Sunde has hinted, could actually be good for the P2P community?
Just two weeks after the Swedish Pirate Party won a seat in the European Parliament, the German PiratenPartei has gained a seat in the German government. Jörg Tauss has left the Social Democrats Party (SPD) and has joined the Pirate Party.
Drama has struck parts of the BitTorrent community recently as the popular DVD ripper aXXo hasn’t uploaded any torrents for several weeks. Recently a rumor surfaced that aXXo went to join a private BitTorrent tracker and continued to share his work there exclusively. But is this really the case?
With 7.1 percent of the vote, the Swedish Pirate Party has shocked its critics and secured a seat in the European Parliament. The Pirates received more votes from those under 30 than any other party in the European elections yesterday, and this was celebrated with pints of rum and loads of pirate chants.
The Pirate Party has won a huge victory in the Swedish elections and is marching on to Brussels. After months of campaigning against well established parties, the Pirate Party has gathered enough votes to be guaranteed a seat in the European Parliament.
Antipiratbyrån lawyer Henrik Pontén, one of the Pirate Bay’s arch rivals, had quite a surprise recently when he received an unexpected piece of mail. The letter from the Swedish tax authority informed him that his request for a name change had been accepted and from now on, he would be officially known as ‘Pirate Pontén’.
Since 2005, a Brazilian senator has been pushing for tough new ‘cybercrime’ legislation which would include measures against file-sharing. However, before thinking of unleashing new laws on the public, the government should look closer to home, since the senate’s intranet is loaded with an impressive amount of warez.
BitTorrent’s user base is growing month by month and has reached a level where reputable marketing research companies have started to look into the phenomenon. Over the years Nielsen Media has optimized their ratings system for television, radio and films - but on the other hand their BitTorrent traffic estimates are far from accurate.
A Canadian court has ordered a cinema to pay $10,000 damages after staff searched a family’s bags looking for camming equipment, but ended up breaching their privacy. The search by staff also turned up something embarrassing in older daughter’s bag. Mom had no idea. Not impressed.
A few years ago The Pirate Bay crew toyed with the idea of founding a pirate state, preferably in the micronation of Sealand or another suitable island. An island was never bought, but The Pirate Bay does have an official anthem now.
College students have always been prime targets for anti-piracy outfits such as the RIAA. Despite inundating students with mountains of threats and legal action, the number of copyright infringements committed by them have not declined. What did change though is the positioning of various universities in the list of most infringing establishments.
